Psychoanalytic psychotherapy differs from counselling and some other forms of therapy, in that it looks at the concerns of the individual in some depth and operates to uncover and examine the underlying causes, or unconscious dynamics, behind the presenting issues.
Psychoanalysis seeks to help with the difficulties encountered in the here-and-now by attempting to understand how experiences in the individual’s infantile history (in particular the earliest relationships with parents, siblings and others) may continue to have a bearing on their current life.
This means that the process is an open-ended one, and might be experienced as challenging, invigorating, distressing and liberating. Difficult, enlightening, enjoyable.
Psychoanalysis is not only an attempt to experience an examined life, but, crucially, allows for the possibility of a good life.