Psychodynamic Therapy
Psychodynamic Therapy brings to conscious awareness any unconscious aspects from your childhood which may be contributing to your current behaviour or emotional states. It is a form of talk therapy that is based on the theories and principles of psychoanalysis, psychoanalytic psychotherapy, and object relations theory that aims to promote healing, growth, and lasting change.
What is Psychodynamic Therapy
Psychodynamic therapy, a form of psychotherapy, focuses on uncovering unconscious patterns and life experiences that repeatedly influence your behaviour, often leading to self-sabotage. This therapeutic approach promotes self understanding and helps people recognise and modify ingrained responses, transforming impulses and actions into healthier, more adaptive behaviours.
For example, if you struggle with personal boundaries, you may find yourself passively accepting negative behaviour without speaking up. This could stem from childhood experiences where you were conditioned to be quiet, obedient and fearful of asserting yourself due to potential punishment. These patterns are often influenced by both family dynamics and early mental health issues.
As an adult, developing healthy boundaries and confidently saying “no” is crucial. Through psychodynamic psychotherapy, which may integrate methods from interpersonal psychotherapy, schema therapy and even art therapy, you can become conscious of these deeply rooted responses. By engaging in body awareness, emotional processing and feedback from your therapist, you can practice a new, assertive response. This enables the autonomy to enact a more natural and confident “no.”
This is just one example of how psychodynamic psychotherapy can help reshape life patterns, fostering greater emotional resilience and a deeper understanding of your desires and motivations.
How can Psychodynamic Therapy Help You
You came through childhood where you learnt through mirroring and modelling by adults and peers how to be and do. If there was dysfunction, trauma or chronic pain in your family, you learned to survive or get the love and resources needed. As a result, you may have felt you were unlovable, or you felt shame and self-hatred. These feelings developed from the wrong conclusions your limited consciousness could reach back then, leading to present-day issues such as panic, addiction or disconnection from meaning and purpose.
These toxic and negative self-states, which may have emerged in response to difficult life events, still today influence your social relationships and career. What you consciously learnt became second nature and settled into your schema, becoming part of your inner therapy schema. These create poor outcomes as seen in self-sabotage, low self-esteem or mental health conditions like ocd, ptsd or eating disorders.
With Psychodynamic Psychotherapy, a treatment used across the mental health field, you can move beyond your childhood wounds. A registered psychologist or trauma informed counsellor can help you shed those outdated responses and develop a more grounded adult identity. This process supports change and growth, bringing order, clarity and strength.
What Strategies are Used in Psychodynamic Therapy
At Energetics Institute in Perth, we use a wholistic, embodied and emotionally expressive integrative approach. Initially, your therapist will explore your history with particular emphasis on your family system, culture and values, including your experiences as a person within an lgbtqia or torres strait islander community.
Your therapist will examine the beliefs, unconscious processes and psychological defences formed through your life changes and life experiences. These are often at the root of relational difficulties, mental illness, substance use or recurring interpersonal problems.
Your current self-limiting or self-sabotaging behaviours are directly connected to early adaptive responses. These insights may emerge using techniques from narrative therapy, internal family systems or acceptance commitment therapy, other recognised modalities in the field of psychotherapy.
The therapist will re-create original emotional presentations and environments in a therapeutic space, allowing your unconscious to emerge in the here and now. Informed by polyvagal theory and other evidence based neuroscience, this body-oriented process supports emotional regulation and capacity for presence. Your therapist may assume the role of a caregiver or authority figure to re-parent your inner child and provide the empathy and compassion that may have been absent in your early life.
You will be supported in practising new responses more aligned with your adult goals and values. These sessions create the possibility for change, healing and increased self awareness. Over time, repeated exposure to this work helps rewire your brain, develop resilience and allow for personal autonomy and uniqueness to emerge.
Our approach draws upon a wide range of psychoanalytic psychotherapy, schema therapy and other modalities including mindfulness, art therapy and behaviour therapy depending on your needs and goals. It is suitable for patients experiencing relationship issues, mood disorders, grief, autism, adhd or those recovering from alcohol or drug-related trauma.
