Therapy that changes the underlying pattern, not just the symptoms

 

​Most modern therapy is built for symptom relief: identify the anxious thought, challenge it, replace it, repeat. For some people, that's enough, but maybe you've noticed the same struggles keep coming. Anxiety comes up again in different settings or relationship dynamics get repeated again and again. You can name your patterns, but they still occur.

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Psychodynamic therapy supports lasting change through understanding and reworking the emotional patterns underneath your symptoms rather than just managing the symptoms themselves.

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What psychodynamic therapy actually involves

 

Contemporary psychodynamic therapy isn't the silent analyst and the couch. It is an engaged conversation focused on patterns and emotions over incidents. Rather than troubleshooting one stressful week at a time, we look for the recurring patterns in how you work, love, fight, avoid, and treat yourself and trace them to their origins.

 

Psychodynamic therapy makes room for feelings, including the uncomfortable ones, because unfelt feelings don't disappear; they unconsciously control us. Many high-functioning people are experts at knowing about their feelings while rarely actually feeling them.

 

Psychodynamic therapy explored the past as it lives in the present. We don't excavate your childhood for its own sake. We look at how early relationships built your assumptions about who you are, what you're worth, what's safe to need, and what love costs, because those assumptions are operating in your life today.

 

Your core patterns don't just occur outside of therapy. They helpfully show up in the therapeutic relationship: the perfectionist wants to be a good client or the people-pleaser tries to manage my feelings. When patterns appear live between us, we can examine them in real time, which is a powerful agent for lasting change.

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Does it work? What the research says

 

Psychodynamic therapy sometimes gets stereotyped as unscientific, but it has a robust evidence base. Meta-analyses have found psychodynamic therapy to be as effective as other evidence-based treatments like CBT for common conditions including depression and anxiety with one notable distinction: several studies have found that its benefits not only persist after therapy ends but continue to grow. Researchers attribute this to the way it changes underlying capacities including self-understanding, emotional flexibility, and relational patterns, rather than teaching situation-specific techniques.

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Psychodynamic therapy aims to leave you not just with fewer symptoms, but with a different relationship to yourself and others. That's why it tends to be the approach of choice for people who say, "I've done therapy before, and it helped but it didn't last."

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Who psychodynamic therapy is for

 

This approach is a particularly strong fit if:

• You're a high achiever whose anxiety, perfectionism, or imposter feelings persist no matter what you accomplish.
   

• You've done skills-based therapy (like CBT) and found it useful but incomplete.
   

• You keep repeating relationship or work patterns you can already see but can't seem to change.
   

• You're curious about yourself and willing to look honestly at your inner life.
   

• You want depth and durability, not just short-term coping.
   

Psychodynamic therapy is less suited to someone seeking only brief, technique-focused help for a single circumscribed problem and I'll tell you honestly in an initial consultation if I think a different approach would serve you better.
 

My training

Depth of training matters more in this modality than perhaps any other. I'm a licensed psychologist with a doctorate in clinical psychology. I completed my internship in psychodynamic psychotherapy at the Tavistock Clinic in London, one of the world's foremost institutions for psychodynamic and psychoanalytic practice, with over a century training clinicians in depth-oriented work.

 

I practice in Plano, serving the greater Dallas–Fort Worth area, including Frisco, McKinney, Allen, Addison, Richardson, and Dallas — and online throughout Texas and Florida.

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Frequently asked questions

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How is psychodynamic therapy different from CBT?

CBT works top-down: it targets conscious thoughts and behaviors with structured techniques. Psychodynamic therapy works bottom-up: it targets the emotional and relational patterns that generate those thoughts in the first place. Many clients benefit from CBT first and come to psychodynamic work when they want deeper, more durable change.

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How often are sessions, and how long does it take?

 

Weekly or twice weekly sessions are the standard, because continuity is what makes depth work possible. Length varies with your goals: some clients work with me for several months around a focused concern; others choose longer-term work for more fundamental change. We revisit goals openly as we go.

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Is psychodynamic therapy just lying on a couch talking about my mother?

 

I work in a face-to-face (or video) conversation, and I'm an active participant. We discuss your childhood when it makes sense to your present, not as a ritual.

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Does psychodynamic therapy work online?

 

Yes. Video sessions preserve what matters, which is the continuity, the relationship, and the attention to what's happening between us. My clients across Texas and Florida do deep, impactful work remotely. See my Online Therapy pages for details.

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Do you take insurance? I'm an out-of-network provider, which protects your privacy (no diagnosis reported to an insurer) and keeps treatment decisions between us. Many clients receive substantial reimbursement via out-of-network benefits — my Fees page explains how.

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Curious whether this therapy could be helpful?

The best way to find out is a conversation. Schedule a free 15 minute phone consultation or full initial consultation in person in Plano, or online anywhere in Texas or Florida.