Once reffered to as “the talking cure,” psychoanalysis employs speech as a means of working through the problems that cause us suffering in life. In the psychoanalytic work, the analyst invites the patient to speak, to put their experience into words — in all its complexity and ambiguity.

For psychoanalysis, the symptoms we find ourselves afflicted with and the problems we face in life are meaningful. And it is by exploring them and the underlying conflicts that give rise to them, that we can move beyond the anguish they cause us and gain a new understanding of ourselves and what we want in life.

Central to psychoanalysis is the idea that unconscious factors outside our conscious awareness influence our thoughts, feelings, and actions. The unconscious contains repressed thoughts and experiences that, due to their traumatic or ego-dystonic nature, have been pushed out of consciousness yet continue to exert influence on us.

In the psychoanalytic session, we seek to allow the unconscious to speak and be heard as the patient (or analysand) is invited to say whatever comes to mind, no matter how unacceptable, irrelevant, or nonsensical it may seem. In turn, the analyst lends a listening ear, paying close attention to the analysand’s speech, curiously asking questions, emphasizing keywords and phrases, and, occasionally, offering interpretations.

In this way, the analyst and the analysand work together in dialogue to explore and interpret the analysand’s experience while always listening for how the unconscious expresses itself. Through this process, the analysand arrives at new knowledge about themselves and their experience that was not previously accessible to them, creating the possibility for new ways of being in the world beyond the forms of suffering that mark their current existence.

I work with a Lacanian approach to psychoanalysis while incorporating influence from other schools of analytic thought.

My background in the humanities gives me an awareness of and sensitivity to how social and cultural factors such as class, race, and gender shape our experience.

I am based in Te Whanganui a Tara (Wellington), Aotearoa, New Zealand, and conduct consultations in-person in my consulting room in the inner city suburb of Brooklyn and remotely (online). I work with people locally, nationally, and internationally.

Psychoanalysis is a long-term form of talk therapy that requires ongoing commitment.

I run a socially engaged practice and work with people at a rate negotiated relative to their financial means and circumstances.

Please email me to arrange a preliminary session to discuss the offer of psychoanalysis.