A terrific piece on psychoanalysis in today's New York Times!

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/freuds-radical-talking/

 

Yesterday's blog post on how to find a sliding scale psychoanalysis provoked the question: Is it a good idea to seek psychoanalysis from someone in training?  I have written an article on precisely this topic:  www.washington-dc-psychologist.com/psychoanalytic-clinic.html

I hope that it is helpful. Best to all, Lynn Friedman, Ph.D.

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Lynn Friedman, Ph.D.
Psychologist, psychoanalyst, work-life consultant
Faculty Associate, Johns Hopkins University
5480 Wisconsin Avenue
Chevy Chase, MD 20815
301.656.9650
http://www.washington-dc-psychologist.com
A facebook page on Psychotherapy:
<http://www.facebook.com/#!/washingtonpsychologist>
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My blog post, "What is psychoanalysis",  elicited a lot of questions.  I received several calls asking me to provide a consultation in order to assess whether psychoanalysis would be the most helpful treatment for an array of different kinds of difficulties.

Here in Washington, DC, consultation is an important part of my practice and I am available to evaluate whether psychoanalytic psychotherapy or psychoanalysis might be the optimal treatment. www.washington-dc-psychologist.com/make-an-appointment.html.

Others wrote to me noting that psychoanalysis is very expensive (it is); they sought referral to a psychoanalyst who would provide to psychoanalysts who might be willing to work on a sliding scale or reduced fee basis. For those in the Washington, DC, area, I am happy to try to make referrals to clinicians with sliding scales.

Still others wrote to me from all over the US asking how to find a sliding scale psychoanalysis. Here's an article on how to find a psychoanalyst who is willing to work with you on a sliding scale basis.  www.washington-dc-psychologist.com/reduced-fee-psychoanalysis.html . l.

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Lynn Friedman, Ph.D.
Psychologist, psychoanalyst, work-life consultant
Faculty Associate, Johns Hopkins University
5480 Wisconsin Avenue
Chevy Chase, MD 20815
301.656.9650
http://www.washington-dc-psychologist.com
A facebook page on Psychotherapy:
<http://www.facebook.com/#!/washingtonpsychologist>
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Fear of commitment? Why am I still single? You have the job thing nailed down. You are doing the work that you love for a good salary. Your career is on track. Now, you've decided that you'd like to do something about your personal life. You are thinking about a committed relationship or marriage and maybe children. You are accustomed to articulating your goals and achieving them. You take personal stock. You have a lot going for you. You are attractive, personable, fun, smart and outgoing. You become involved in the dating scene.

You think that you have met Mr. or Ms. Right. You share common interests, common friends and common ideas and, you believe, common goals. Then somehow, much to your dismay, things go awry. You learn that your partner wasn't really thinking about the, "to death do us part" thing. Not at all. Visits to the family. Visits to the ailing grandmother. Talking about a future and children. That all meant something very different to your partner than it did to you. You discover that there's a disparity between each of your goals. Or, still worse, you thought that you had a monogamous relationship and now you learn that your "partner" was unfaithful. So, you break up or your partner does.

To learn more, read here: www.washington-dc-psychologist.com/fear-of-commitment.html

This is the third part of a three part series on identifying and pursuing your Work-life goals. Part I and Part II dealt with:

What do you want to do with your life?
How do you develop a strategy for doing it?
Part III addresses four topics:

Roadblocks to pursuing the well-codified plan for making a career change.
How do you begin to understand your resistance to pursuing your career goals?
Steps for overcoming roadblocks to making a career change
Interventions that might prove helpful should you find yourself stymied in making a career change

To learn more, read here: www.washington-dc-psychologist.com/making-a-career-change.html

This is the second part of a three-part series on developing and pursuing work-life goals. Part I dealt with how to identify your work-life goals and examined obstacles that interfere with this task.

But, what if you know what you want to do -- but you aren't sure where to begin? What if you know that you want to become a doctor or a computer graphic artist or teacher or to start a daycare center -- Or, on a more personal vein, what if you know that you want to find Mr. or Ms. Right, but you aren't sure how to go about it or where to look.

In other words, what if you have a goal, but you aren't sure about how to even start creating a plan to pursue your goal?

<http://www.washington-dc-psychologist.com/career-development-plan.html>

This column is the first of a three-part series on identifying and pursuing your work-life goals:

Figuring Out What You Want to Do with Your Life

How do you figure out what you want to do with your life? What sort of obstacles can get in the way? How can these obstacles be mastered? Not too long ago, I wrote a column for the Washingtonpost.com on Managing the Inner Spirit, which addressed what steps to take if you are unhappy at work. But what if you are not unhappy? What if you are not sure about how you feel about your work? What if you are neither particularly happy nor unhappy? What if you are just unfocused? What steps should you take to identify your work-life goals?

A first step is to take inventory. Ask yourself where/what/how do you want to be five years from now. Read more here: www.washington-dc-psychologist.com/how-to-choose-a-career.html

How to identify and pursue your career goals.

Typically, identifying and pursuing career goals requires three steps.

Washington DC psychologist, psychoanalyst and career coach, Dr. Lynn Friedman, talks about the differences between career coaching, psychotherapy and psychoanalysis and when each is appropriate for dealing with work-life, concerns.
Another article described the kinds of questions with which career seekers wrestle. These include:

What do you want to do with your life?.
How do you develop a strategy for doing it?.
How do you galvanize yourself to get started?

Read more here: www.washington-dc-psychologist.com/career-goals-psychotherapy.html

Self-concept refers to the way in which we see ourselves: emotionally, intellectually and physically. Much of our self-concept is established early in our lives (ages 0-6).
How self-esteem develops

A twinkle in the mother's eye

We receive messages from our primary caretakers (typically our parents) and from others in our world's regarding who we are and how we are seen. When we coo or take our first step, the twinkle our parent's eyes lets us know that we are special. In an ideal world, our mother*, or our primary caretaker gets to know us. Over a short period of time, she (or he) can differentiate between an, "I'm hungry", cry, an "I'm angry", cry, a, "I want to play", cry, and an, "I'm wet", cry, etc. And, in general, she responds empathically to our cries. Feeding us, calming us, playing with us, and diapering us; she let's us know that the world is generally a safe place in which we will get our needs met.

No twinkle in the mother's eye

But, what if there is no twinkle in mother's eye?

To learn more, read here: www.washington-dc-psychologist.com/self-concept.html

For whom is marriage counseling or couple's therapy helpful?

To learn more, read here: www.washington-dc-psychologist.com/marriage-counseling.html