Psychodynamic Therapy
What Is Psychodynamic Therapy?
Psychodynamic therapy is an evidence-based approach that helps individuals explore unconscious patterns that influence thoughts, emotions, and behaviours. Rooted in the early work of Sigmund Freud, psychodynamic therapy has evolved significantly, integrating insights from attachment theory, neurobiology, and contemporary psychology. Unlike traditional psychoanalysis, which often involved long-term, intensive sessions, modern psychodynamic therapy is more flexible and can be both short- and long-term, depending on the individual’s needs.
At its core, psychodynamic therapy is insight-oriented. It helps people gain a deeper understanding of how past experiences—particularly early attachment relationships—shape current emotional struggles and relational patterns. Through this process, individuals become more aware of unconscious conflicts that may be driving symptoms such as anxiety, depression, or difficulties in relationships. The aim is to translate this insight into changing maladaptive patterns of forming and interacting in relationships, and building capacity to free oneself from the impact of early attachment trauma.
Book Now or Learn More
Submit an intake form below or keep reading for a detailed overview of Psychodynamic Therapy.
What Does Psychodynamic Therapy Treat?
Psychodynamic therapy is effective for a wide range of mental health issues, including:
- Depression and Mood Disorders: Understanding the emotional patterns that result in depression and other mood disorders. Uncovering underlying feelings of loss, guilt, or unresolved grief that may contribute to depressive symptoms.
- Anxiety Disorders: Exploring the unconscious fears and conflicts that fuel chronic tension, other somatic symptoms of anxiety, worry or panic.
- Relationship Difficulties: Identifying patterns rooted in early attachment experiences that affect how individuals connect with others.
- Personality Disorders: Understanding deeply ingrained relational and emotional patterns to foster healthier ways of relating to oneself and to others.
- Trauma and Complex PTSD: Processing the emotional impact of past traumas, often linked to attachment disruptions or early relational wounds. Enabling the individual to live life free of the impact of attachment trauma.
- Self-Esteem Issues: Addressing critical internal voices and unresolved emotional conflicts that undermine self-worth.
Psychodynamic therapy isn’t limited to treating diagnosable conditions. Many people seek therapy to understand themselves better, improve their relationships, or navigate life transitions.
Key Techniques in Psychodynamic Therapy
Psychodynamic therapy relies on specific techniques designed to promote self-awareness and emotional growth. The therapeutic relationship itself is a central tool, providing a space where unconscious patterns often play out in real-time. Here are some of the key techniques:
1. Exploration of Unconscious Processes
The unconscious mind holds thoughts, feelings, and memories outside of our conscious awareness, yet these factors can significantly influence behaviour. We learn to repress and suppress feelings and conflicts that trigger anxiety. Psychodynamic therapy aims to bring these unconscious conflicts and processes into awareness, allowing for greater insight and change. This is often achieved through:
- Noticing Repetition Patterns: Identifying recurring themes or relational dynamics that reflect unresolved issues, and understanding how past relational templates impact on how with form and interact in relationships today.
- Identifying and Facing Conflict: gaining insight into conflicts today to gain access to, and resolve, early attachment conflicts.
- Resolving Transference: rather than transferring past figures on to current relationships and interacting based on the patterns of early attachment relationships.
- Dream Analysis: Exploring the symbolic meaning of dreams as windows into unconscious conflicts.
2. Focus on Insight and Self-Reflection
A hallmark of psychodynamic therapy is helping clients gain insight—the ability to understand the unconscious driving forces and motivations behind their emotions and behaviours. Insight alone can be transformative, shifting individuals from feeling controlled by their symptoms to understanding and working through them. It is necessary to ensure that insight translates into change and, if not, understand what further steps need to be taken so that unhelpful emotional patterns in everyday life are replaced by healthy and adaptive ways of navigating relationships and life in general.
Therapists guide clients to uncover and reflect on key experiences, connect past events to current struggles, and recognise how unprocessed emotions influence their present life. This process fosters greater self-awareness and emotional freedom.
3. Working with Attachment-Related Conflicts
Our early relationships with caregivers shape how we relate to others and regulate emotions. When these early attachments are insecure, inconsistent, or traumatic, they can lead to lifelong patterns of relational difficulties.
Psychodynamic therapy helps clients explore how these early attachment experiences impact current relationships. By examining patterns of closeness, trust, and emotional regulation, clients can begin to shift unhealthy dynamics. The therapeutic relationship itself often serves as a corrective emotional experience, providing a safe space to explore and heal attachment wounds.
4. Exploring the Therapeutic Relationship (Transference and Countertransference)
Clients often unconsciously transfer feelings and expectations from past relationships onto the therapist. This process is known as transference. By exploring these dynamics, clients gain valuable insights into how they relate to others in their lives.
Similarly, therapists pay attention to their own emotional responses, known as countertransference, as it can offer clues about the client’s relational patterns. This mutual exploration helps deepen the therapeutic work.
5. Defense Mechanisms and Emotional Processing
We all use defense mechanisms—psychological strategies to protect ourselves from uncomfortable emotions. Some defenses, like denial or avoidance or projection, can keep people stuck in patterns that no longer serve them. Psychodynamic therapy identifies these defenses, helping clients face and process difficult emotions rather than unconsciously avoiding them.
As outlined in Co-Creating Change: Effective Dynamic Therapy Techniques and Co-Creating Safety: Healing the Fragile Patient, invaluable textbooks written by Jon Frederickson, therapy often focuses on helping clients move through layers of defense, anxiety, and resistance to access genuine emotions. This process not only reduces symptoms but promotes emotional resilience and authentic living.
Why Choose Psychodynamic Therapy?
Psychodynamic therapy offers more than symptom relief. It fosters lasting change by addressing the root causes of emotional distress. Instead of focusing solely on coping strategies, it helps individuals:
- Develop a deeper understanding of themselves
- Improve relationships through greater emotional awareness and breaking maladaptive relational patterns
- Break free from self-sabotaging patterns
- Heal from past traumas and unresolved conflicts
- Cultivate greater emotional resilience
- Enable individuals to uncover their true capacity and live their lives in authentic and meaningful ways, free from anxiety and destructive defenses
At Dynamic Psychotherapy in Melbourne, we provide expert psychodynamic therapy tailored to your unique needs. Our experienced therapists create a compassionate, safe space where you can explore your inner world, gain meaningful insights, and work toward lasting emotional well-being.
Psychodynamic Therapy vs. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT): What’s the Difference?
When exploring therapy options, many people wonder whether psychodynamic therapy or cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is the better fit. Both approaches are evidence-based and effective, but they differ significantly in focus, techniques, and goals.
1. Focus of Therapy
- Psychodynamic Therapy:
Focuses on uncovering unconscious patterns rooted in past experiences, especially early attachment relationships. It aims to help individuals understand the underlying emotional conflicts that influence current behaviours, thoughts, and feelings. An important goal is increased emotional capacity to live life, and form and conduct relationships, free from attachment trauma.
Key focus: Insight, self-reflection, and emotional processing, change in harmful patterns of dealing with emotional conflict and interacting with others
- CBT:
Focuses on identifying and changing negative thought patterns and behaviours that contribute to current problems. CBT is often structured and goal-oriented, targeting specific symptoms with practical strategies.
Key focus: Problem-solving, skill development, developing the capacity to manage conflicts with intellectualisation and rationalisation, and symptom reduction.
2. Approach to Change
- Psychodynamic Therapy:
Change occurs through deep emotional insight and understanding how past experiences shape current behaviours. This process fosters lasting transformation by addressing the root causes of emotional distress and breaking harmful emotional patterns so that individuals are no longer triggered by past trauma, and take a new emotional capacity into relationships
Emphasis on: Long-term emotional growth, self-awareness and authenticity
- CBT:
Change is achieved by challenging unhelpful thoughts and modifying behaviours. CBT often provides immediate tools to manage symptoms, making it effective for short-term relief.
Emphasis on: Developing coping skills and cognitive restructuring.
3. Techniques Used
- Psychodynamic Therapy:
- Identifying unhelpful patterns in dealing with emotions and operating in relationships
- Identifying the origins of these unhelpful patterns
- Exploration of unconscious processes
- Analysis and understanding of recurring relational patterns
- Working through transference (therapist-client relationship dynamics)
- Emotional insight and reflective self-exploration
- Replacing unhelpful ways of dealing with emotions and conflict with healthy and adaptive ways
- CBT:
- Identifying cognitive distortions
- Behavioural experiments and exposure techniques
- Thought records and homework assignments
- Skill-building for anxiety, depression, and stress management
4. Duration of Therapy
- Psychodynamic Therapy:
Can be short-term or long-term, depending on the complexity of the issues. Typically between 6-40 sessions. - CBT:
Typically short-term, often lasting 6–20 sessions, with a clear structure and specific treatment goals.
5. Conditions Treated
Both therapies are effective for conditions like anxiety, depression, and trauma. However:
- CBT is often preferred for specific, goal-oriented issues like OCD due to its structured approach.
- Psychodynamic Therapy is particularly effective for complex emotional issues, relationship difficulties, and patterns rooted in early life experiences.
Which Therapy Is Right for You?
If you’re looking for a structured approach that may include worksheets and ‘homework’ to manage symptoms, CBT may be helpful. If you’re curious about understanding the deeper emotional patterns influencing your life, and are aware of longstanding maladaptive patterns in responding to emotional conflict, psychodynamic therapy offers a path toward lasting change.
FAQs About Psychodynamic Therapy
1. What is psychodynamic therapy?
Psychodynamic therapy is a form of talk therapy that focuses on exploring unconscious thoughts and emotions, often rooted in past experiences. It helps individuals understand how these patterns affect their current feelings, behaviours, and relationships. If has a focus on breaking maladaptive ways of relating to the self, and to others, and building greater emotional capacity, healthier relationships, and authenticity.
2. How does psychodynamic therapy differ from CBT?
While CBT focuses on changing specific thoughts and behaviours, psychodynamic therapy aims to uncover and work through the deeper emotional roots of psychological distress. It’s more insight-oriented, focusing on self-reflection and emotional awareness. It aims to resolve attachment trauma including addressing the way that the past can negatively impact on the current.
3. What issues can psychodynamic therapy help with?
Psychodynamic therapy is effective for depression, anxiety including generalised anxiety disorder, phobias, panic and OCD, trauma including PTSD, relationship issues, personality disorders including borderline personality disorder, self-esteem challenges, and more. It’s also helpful for anyone seeking greater self-understanding and emotional growth.
4. How long does psychodynamic therapy take?
The duration varies depending on your goals. Some people benefit from short-term therapy (6–20 sessions), while others engage in longer-term work to explore complex emotional patterns.
5. Is psychodynamic therapy evidence-based?
Yes, research supports the effectiveness of psychodynamic therapy, especially for long-term improvements in mental health. Studies show that its benefits often continue and increase even after therapy ends.
6. What happens in a typical psychodynamic therapy session?
Sessions involve open-ended conversations where you explore your thoughts, feelings, and experiences specific to your current emotional difficulties. The therapist may help you notice patterns in how you relate to others, process difficult emotions, and reflect on significant life events. Patterns in current relationships are linked to, and understood, in the context of the relational patterns formed early in life.
7. How is the therapeutic relationship important in psychodynamic therapy?
The relationship between you and your therapist is central to the process. It often reflects dynamics from other relationships in your life, providing valuable insights and a space for healing attachment-related issues.
8. Can I do psychodynamic therapy online?
Yes, we offer telehealth sessions for clients in Melbourne and across Australia. Online psychodynamic therapy is just as effective as in-person sessions and can provide greater flexibility and convenience.
9. How do I know if psychodynamic therapy is right for me?
If you’re interested in understanding yourself on a deeper level, exploring emotional patterns, and creating lasting change including personality change, psychodynamic therapy may be a good fit. Contact us for an initial consultation to discuss your needs.
10. How do I get started with psychodynamic therapy?
Simply reach out to us via phone, email, or our website to book an initial appointment. We’ll discuss your goals, answer any questions, and help you feel comfortable as you begin your therapy journey.
Request an Appointment
Ready to book an appointment with a Psychodynamic therapist? Use our appointment request form by clicking the button below.