The 'I' in Insight

Self-observation using psychodynamic psychotherapy

My previous article, 'Scubadiving into the Psyche' emphasized on the capacity for depth when we choose self-analysis as an endeavor. However, this article delves more into what primarily signifies a psychodynamic therapy session compared to other modalities. Based on my observations and how I imagine psychotherapy, each subheading has been elaborated on. Here are 8 underlying principles that primarily contribute to my therapeutic style, acknowledging that there are more ways to develop insight to cater to a clients need.

Objectively, the techniques that define an insight-oriented experience requires us to reflect and imagine. Imagination and fantasy are highly influential in allowing self-examination to take place in an organic way, with observations and reflection acting as markers and vocabulary to this experience. Free association encourages us to experience ourselves as a 'stream of consciousness', a common phrase used to describe a narrative style in literature that reveals more about the person's mental process rather than a schema of traits.

 "Free association encourages us to experience ourselves as a 'stream of consciousness'. Image Credit - Durga Menon

ATTUNEMENT

One of the earliest experiences in a psychodynamic therapy session is experiencing attunement - a primal form of unspoken communication between a mother and child that provides the client with an ability to see themselves and hear themselves as experienced by the outside world. Feel seen in turn intends to strengthen the clients' ability to see themselves authentically without distortions.

IMAGERY, METAPHORS AND DREAMING

With boredom and imagination being framed as unnecessary in today's attention-hungry economy, imageries, metaphors and bringing dreams into the work become of value in find ways to experience the self creatively. Creativity, here means exploring states of mind, words and parts of the self that aid a deeper relationship with distress, where the self can understand what psychic distress is that is symptomatic to a deeper cause or truth.

FILLING IN THE BLANKS

Filling in the blanks initiates journeying through the psychic where road blocks are naturals, new ways to imagine the self feel distant and unexplored. The attempt to fill in the blanks when initiated by the therapist or client paves the way for developing tolerance ('sitting with') that aims to undergo the process of self-exploration rather than the end goal at an authentic pace. The capacity for tolerance deepens when we are able to name the moments we are out of depth ('I don't know'). Naming an impasse indicates the desire to keep 'going on being', before it becomes a tangible outcome of therapy that lives by its own structure and rhythm.

For example, the dilemmas of direct communication for someone struggling with people-pleasing that initially served as a defense mechanism, becomes necessary to work through as one's unmet emotional needs are repeatedly suppressed by the self influenced by anger and guilt manifested as anxiety. Filling in the blanks here intends to find rooms for articulating this interpersonal anxiety as anger and guilt that needs a deeper exploration before the pattern of people-pleasing can be let go of gently.

Self-exploration as envisioned by Carl Jung as Individuation endeavors to find language for an integrated self (the self, persona and 'shadow parts'). Image Credit - Durga Menon

LATENT AND MANIFEST CONTENT

Freudian Psychoanalysis suggests that our dreams are symbolic of our psychic wishes, conflicts and unmet needs. The intrapsychic dialogue between Id, Ego and Superego camouflages itself intending to communicate associations of the client's psyche, manifesting as symbols that may not necessarily make logical sense to the person's daily conscious living. This content whether symbolic or pointing towards the psyche's patterns intend to inform the person of their psyche's desires that aren't permitted room in conscious living requires understanding the self with a keen eye for individual and collective symbols that make human beings whole. This wholeness begins when the therapist and client engage in free association through talk therapy.

I want to extend the purpose of 'manifest' and 'latent' content as the language for the therapeutic alliance that can emerge with curiosity, space and time to make the therapy a co-creative experience rather than plunging into depth through questioning that feels like excavation, not exploration. Explore means we can engage with different layers of depth to arrive at introspection and self-psychology in the presence of guiding observations (by the therapist).

Pattern-recognition is only the beginning of self-awareness. Building the reflexive capacity to work through patterns using perspective to strengthens capacity for depth work. Relational practice as a part of psychotherapy transforms how we connect and belong in relationships.

MEANING - MAKING

Meaning-making stems from interpretation through free-associative thinking and an ongoing conversation between therapist and client that builds and 'theorizes' a self beyond what the client first defined themselves before therapy starts. To me, my immediate association to this word, is a visual of the therapist and client co-creating vocabulary - choosing alphabets and words that challenges labels by re-wording mental health experiences that were bound by a diagnostic lens or interventions that make treatment seem punitive, not creative or holistic. Parapraxis, commonly known as a Freudian slip or slip of tongue is revealing in what is really felt that needs release and room in conscious awareness. Being able to notice how we interpret and articulate our needs, desires and conflicts opens us up to seeing ourselves as complex, contradictions before we become adaptive and nuanced in the way we see ourselves in relationship dynamics and situations.

PLAY and HUMOR

In talk therapy, play through language is key to holding depth. Humor suspends depth enough to invite pauses and 'breathing space' as old language is cracked open before it can form into an integrated whole. Humor invites depth through acknowledged moments of absurdity, compassion when dissecting the darker, unknown parts that are emerging from unresolved conflicts or needs. In insight-oriented psychotherapy, humor is seen as an evolved defense mechanism to channel adversity into creativity and release.

"In talk therapy, play through language is key to holding depth". Image Credit - Durga Menon

CATHARSIS

Catharsis, essentially speaks of release after a build up. The release comes after a lack of resolution or anxiety heightens before we can come down, when guided and provided an outlet to be let go of. The release from the psyche indicates where we hold unresolved conflicts, trauma and pain that translates into symptoms that are visible in conscious awareness. In therapeutic conversation, catharsis in a session may feel like build up of overwhelm before it can be released as tears. Catharsis as an experience can challenge stigma around alleviating symptoms through release rather than technique or medication. It values getting comfortable with our pain enough to learning how to gently let it go.

(psychiatric care of course is important when it assists therapeutic work)

PATTERN - RECOGNITION AS SELF-AWARENESS

The crux of insight-oriented psychotherapy is knowing our patterns, and how they have been shaped to identify defenses and ability to adapt when working through it in therapy. Our past informs our present, and can emerge in our future when patterns operate without resolution. Repetition of patterns provide opportunity to revisit areas that are stuck, lack language or a pathway that provides an alternate form of release.

Pattern-recognition is only the beginning of self-awareness. Building the reflexive capacity to work through patterns using perspective strengthens capacity for depth work and transforming how we relate to the world through the roles we embody and the relationships we derive our needs being met from.

The 'I' in Insight

An insight-oriented approach persists in uncovering ways that makes knowing the self accessible. Along the way, these tools mentioned above, informs self-work and hopefully assists a client in expanding their reflexive capacity outside the therapy room. Insight-oriented psychotherapy reveals arrested development, where growth becomes stumped due to adverse circumstance or relationships during a crucial development stage. This awareness, and the defense mechanisms that once aided survival can be verbalized to evolve, and help a client align with their present day needs, relationships and context.

A common assumption that a 'good therapist-client fit' lies only in qualification and showcasing clinical skills doesn't hold when deeper connection is designed through curiosity, co-creation and a non-diagnostic stance. Depth work brings light to one's resistance, capacity to fantasize/dream or free associate and build insight through linking ('connecting the dots'). Insight- oriented work takes time, and this depends how competent a client is to develop the capability to draw from the tools mentioned above. The rate of change or impact through insight begins when the client is able to connect the dots at an organic pace.

Insight-oriented work is often expected of the therapist to bring insight as a neatly packaged service, neglecting the core of this type of therapy. The core of insight-oriented therapy is to find out who we truly are in the process of working through our past experiences and distress.

Insight-oriented therapy can be painful, powerful and grant us freedom through self-acceptance and curiosity beyond the constraints of human society and labels. I'd like end this piece with a quote that informs the primary philosophy of my clinical work.

“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.”

― Carl Gustav Jung, Analytical Psychology

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

DURGA MENON offers online psychodynamic therapy and is an advocate for ecofriendly living.

To stay tuned, visit www.ecofriendlytherapist.com