Therapeutic Approaches
Mentalization Based Treatment, or MBT, is a therapy designed to help you better understand what's going on in your own mind and in other people's minds too. Think of it as improving a kind of emotional radar that helps you recognize and make sense of feelings, thoughts, and motivations—both your own and those of people around you. Many of us struggle with this, especially when we're feeling overwhelmed or our emotions feel too intense to handle. MBT works by creating a space where you and your therapist can slow down and explore what you're feeling in the moment, why you might be feeling that way, and how your thoughts and emotions connect to your actions. Your therapist does not judge you but instead will be genuinely curious about your inner world and help you become more curious about it too. Over time, this practice helps you feel more stable emotionally, improves your relationships, and gives you better tools for navigating life's challenges. It is also a particularly effective approach for couples and families. It helps people feel more to feel more understood by the other person and feel like they better understand the other person.
Psychoanalytic therapy recognizes that we're fundamentally shaped through our connections with others. At its heart, this approach believes that many of our struggles, patterns, and ways of relating to others stem from experiences and feelings we've tucked away,. And sometimes we develop ways of coping or protecting ourselves that served us well once but might not be helping us now..
Think of it this way: from childhood to the present we're constantly learning how to be with others through countless interactions. We pick up messages about whether we're safe to be ourselves, whether our feelings matter, and how close we can get to people. These lessons become so automatic that we often don't realize we're carrying them into every relationship we have.
In psychoanalytic therapy, the relationship between you and your therapist becomes a living laboratory for understanding these patterns. Your psychoanalytic therapist isn't a blank screen analyzing you from a distance like it used to be, Instead, they're a real person who will be genuinely affected by you and honest about their own responses. They might share when they feel moved by something you've said, confused by a pattern they notice, or even when they feel disconnected from you.
This mutual engagement is an important part of the work. The relationship you build with your therapist becomes an opportunity to explore parts of yourself that might feel vulnerable or confusing, knowing that this exploration itself can be deeply healing.When your therapist responds differently than you expect - perhaps with acceptance where you anticipated judgment, or curiosity where you expected dismissal - it creates new possibilities for how relationships can feel. You get to experience being truly seen and responded to authentically.The goal isn't just insight about your past, but creating new and more effective connections in the present.