What is Relational Psychodynamic Therapy?

What is Relational Psychodynamic Therapy?

Relational Psychodynamic or Relational Psychoanalytic therapy, is a framework within the field of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy.  This modality maintains an analytic perspective on the patient and how their development and past shape the present and future.  Psychological history, primal wounds, long-ago hurts, and traumatic experiences all maintain significance and relevance to the formation of the psyche and ways of Being-in-the-World.  However, Relational work moves towards a relationship between patient and therapist as more even, and one of mutual exchange and dialogue.  

Relational psychodynamic therapy is at its core, about the space between patient and therapist-- it is a space of mutuality and sharedness.  Rather than the therapist taking a position of authority and arbiter of experience, the therapist adopts a position of infinite curiosity.  I, as therapist, want to understand and know how your anxiety or depression manifests, and what they might tell us about you as a person, or how you have learned to survive in difficult times and relationships.  I seek to understand how you have learned to cope with your traumas and woundings-- and figure out ways together, on how to learn new ways of Being that make room for thriving, as opposed to surviving.  Understanding and learning about one’s self is a process that emerges between the self and Other. Only through sitting with the Other, can we discover new terrains of our own internal landscapes and geography.  

Relational psychodynamic therapy also differs from other forms of therapy, in that it prioritizes dynamics within relationships as occurring between two individuals.  This acknowledgement happens in therapy, via the therapist attending to relational dynamics and their own experience of the patient and how they navigate the world.  The understanding within this tradition, is that we are not just objects being acted upon.  We also have and possess subjectivity, and act upon others.  The dynamics that play out within relationships, are a product of a co-created dynamic.  Attending to these co-created dynamics within the relationship of therapist and patient-- we can see patterns of relating and Being that have become either problematic or no longer functional.  It is not just attending to the past, but the Here and Now that, both in and outside of the room, that we can uncover long-ago hurts and begin to heal.  

This style of therapy takes the form of a dialogue.  Though at times you may feel alone-- you are not alone in this therapeutic process.  I open up a space as therapist, for you to pour out your emotions, feelings, and wounds.  And I bring myself to the space with you, to walk through the dark night of the soul together.  It is through this mutual and shared space, that we can find the questions that we are looking for.  And with these questions, we can create our own answers and meaning.  And it is in sharing this safe and secure space together, that something new can emerge between, and something new can grow within.  Though it is the relationship that wounds-- it is only through relationship that we can begin to heal.