Psychodynamic approaches are based on the teaching and discoveries made by Sigmund Freud early in the 19th Century. Although many people regard these approaches as outdated, they are based on some simple and profound truths about how people work. Most people would accept that not all their behaviour is based on what they deliberately decide to do. Instead we are all aware that there are times that we are motivated by beliefs and impulses that are outside of our normal awareness. In Freudian terms this is seen as the effect of the unconscious mind on our normal day to day life. Psychodynamic approaches to psychotherapy focus on helping the person become more aware of the ways in which their everyday behaviour and moods are influenced by these experiences stored in the unconscious mind.
Some of our clinicians have experience in short term psychodynamic approaches that seek to help the person resolve inner conflicts in a relatively short period of time (10-25 sessions). We are also able to provide some psychodynamic psychotherapy that is strongly influenced by the teaching of Carl Jung, a famous Swiss psychiatrist who developed some ideas very different to Freud but which also believed strongly in the power of the unconscious mind. In many ways Carl Jung was very spiritual in his approach and believed that people can be influenced not only by their own unconscious experience but also by the unconscious experiences common to their culture and even by experiences common to all people.