Usually, we see a psychotherapist in one of two cases.
In the first case, when something unwanted and uncontrollable keeps repeating itself in our life. An addiction would probably be the most emblematic example of such a repetition leading to professional and family failure, to dramatic deterioration of health, and so on.
You can be addicted not only to alcohol or other toxic substances, but also to someone. Complaints like “Again and again, I fall into the same trap!” are not uncommon in psychoanalytic practice. A succession of poor love choices, infidelities, divorces, always the same mistakes, like a dire fate sung of in Greek tragedies…
Repetition, too, appears in various forms such as procrastination, phobia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, or a constant feeling of missed opportunity. We blame ourselves or reproach those around us: “failed again”, “loser”, “low self-esteem”. But nothing we do seems to help and we remain stuck in the same place.
In the second case, something unpredictable that comes out of the blue can also bring you to the psychoanalyst’s office. It can be a tragic incident: the death of a loved one, suffering violence, a separation, the loss of a job, or a serious illness.
But it is not only grief that can cause suffering. Joyful events also sometimes plunge us into stupor, anxiety and perplexity. A change in social role (marriage, the birth of a child, a big promotion, etc.) can cause existential vertigo and require psychoanalytic accompaniment.
Whether stuck in a cycle of unwanted repetition or a major event dividing life into “before” and “after”, the patient can easily identify their suffering as psychological. This can become much more complicated when we enter in the realm of psychosomatics.
Chronic fatigue, insomnia, anxiety due to the slightest worry or even without any apparent reason, headaches, heart and stomach pain, respiratory problems, sexual dysfunction, and other symptoms without an obvious physiological cause can often indicate a repressed psychic suffering. Usually, these are panic attacks (sometimes resembling a heart attack) or masked depression (in which the unwillingness to live immobilizes the body and limits its vital functions, such as libido, digestion, concentration, cognitive processes, and so on).
Psychotherapeutic work allows you to break the vicious circle of obsessive repetition, to get over a traumatic experience and process your grief, to find your own answers to life’s challenges, and to learn to manage your anxiety. Psychoanalysis can help you find a way out of the existential deadlock and to find your path to happiness, or at least to a sense of peace and possibility.
Psychoanalysts do not prescribe medications. They can, if necessary, refer you to a psychiatrist colleague who will make a prescription.