Psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy offer a confidential and non-judgemental space in which you can speak freely and openly, exploring thoughts, feelings, fears, and desires that may be difficult to explore elsewhere. Freud wrote that the fundamental rule of psychoanalysis is to say whatever comes into your mind, regardless of any objections you may have to saying it. It may seem irrelevant, unimportant, or nonsensical — but you must say it ‘precisely because you feel an aversion to doing so.’
It sounds simple, but it isn’t — and the act of speaking in this way can turn out to be powerfully transformative and enlivening. In psychoanalysis, we don’t just focus on symptom relief, but this particular mode of speaking and listening can engender significant shifts. Whatever you bring is important: the day-to-day, your history, your memories, fantasies, dreams, or slips. The work is open-ended (we don’t fix in advance how many sessions you will have), and this openness to what may unfold can ultimately bring about a more expansive way of understanding yourself and your world, as well as a richer repertoire of feeling, thought, and experience. Psychoanalysis can be moving, funny, and surprising.
Whether it’s anxiety, depression, a general sense of malaise, relationship problems, identity issues, or a moment of change or crisis that you want to address, we work together to help you identify and articulate, in your own words, what is going on. Through careful attention to your singular experience, we disentangle what may be causing symptoms and deadlocks, and help you feel more alive.
I work with patients once-weekly or more, in sessions of 50 minutes. The work is generally open-ended and in-person, though telephone sessions are also a possibility.
I practice in London in SE4 and N4, near Brockley and Finsbury Park stations respectively. Finsbury Park is on the Victoria Line and overground mainlines, and Brockley is on the Windrush Line and close to New Cross, Peckham, and Camberwell. It is also easily accessible from London Bridge, East London, Canada Water, Canary Wharf and Jubilee Line and DLR stations.
In the initial session, we will discuss fees in order to agree on something that is meaningful but sustainable. I offer a limited number of reduced-fee places for those on low incomes. Missed sessions are paid in full.
If you would like to discuss starting therapy, please contact me, and we will arrange a time for an initial conversation (free of charge).
I abide by the Site for Contemporary Psychoanalysis’s code of ethics and conduct and my practice is also informed by the UKCP’s Code of Ethics and Professional Practice. I am a trainee member of the UKCP.