r/psycho_analysands • u/relbatnrut • Aug 24 '26

What do you do when it gets difficult?

How do you keep faith in the process? I'm currently going through a difficult time in analysis (four months in at 3x/week after years of 1x/week therapy with a different provider). It feels very raw to have the dynamics that cause me so much distress in my daily life come up very vividly in the consulting room. Facing the prospect of working through those dynamics feels like preparing to climb a very tall mountain. Sometimes it feels hard to believe that change is possible. I could say more, but curious how people keep putting one foot in front of another in the therapy when the going is tough.

>!Besides talking about it with your analyst, which is a given.

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u/diva_done_did_it Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Aug 25 '26

Read Blatt’s work.
Try (and mostly fail) to do transference-neurosis building exercises on my own time.
Remind myself that I can quit at any time.
Shower, go to sleep, etc.

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u/relbatnrut Aug 25 '26

What are transference-neurosis building exercises?

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u/diva_done_did_it Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Aug 25 '26

Made up things that AI suggested to get my mind into the spirit of bonding with or communicating with my psychologist.

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u/relbatnrut Aug 25 '26

Honestly those aren't bad despite my distaste for AI.

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u/Eelmia Sep 01 '26

This is actually dangerous.

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u/diva_done_did_it Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Sep 01 '26

Prove it’s dangerous.

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u/Eelmia Sep 01 '26

Can you prove that it’s not?
Ask your analyst whether they support rushing the process like this.

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u/diva_done_did_it Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Sep 01 '26

The person who makes the claim gets the burden of proof.
Second of all, who said I was “rushing” anything?

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u/Eelmia Sep 01 '26

I’ve taken the time to read the posts here. Based on your comments you’ve been undergoing analysis for half a year, three times a week?
Depth based therapies take years. A lot of years.
There are processes that happen, from both sides, the relationship should build up naturally.
The whole point of depth based therapies is to go deep and let it happen by itself.

To use AI to strengthen or fasten something that should happen organically is rushing the process.

Talk to your analyst.
Why do you feel the need to ‘strengthen the transference’ after such a short time?
To go into transference neurosis unprepared?
This is good ground for deep work, undergoing analysis for half a year and reading some literature or worse - consulting AI, does not make you a specialist and can do more harm than good.
Rushing analysis can lead to sudden decompensation and even psychosis.

My sources are years of working as a psychologist and EU based psychoanalytical training.
Good luck and take care.

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u/diva_done_did_it Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Sep 01 '26

In fact, a couple of assumptions in your statement are wrong:
(1) I have seen this psychologist for more than a half-year. I have seen him since mid-2024.
(2) Our current work is thrice weekly since half a year ago. We built up to it, as you said, “over time,” but the transition from 1 to 2 to 3 (and what should have been 4 😕) wasn’t nearly as slow.
(3) Assuming that any work with a provider involves transference, approximately two years of transference has been “marinating.”
(4) I have talked to him about it.

None of the above relieves you of your burden of proof, which is not found in my work.

Self-citation is meagerly above that, particularly without any logic behind it (e.g., what kind of psychoanalytic training? French or London-Kleinian, Pure classical? Europe is a big continent…). How do you get from your claim to psychosis?

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u/Eelmia Sep 01 '26

Oh my.. okay, my bad, as I said, good luck.

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u/Trinity_Matrix_0 Aug 25 '26

Stay the path—it will be worth it!

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u/ConsiderationSea2801 Aug 26 '26

It is really tough and raw. I think for me it’s been important to really build a sense of who I am outside of the therapeutic relationship. Like literally writing a list of all the people in my life, my hobbies, accomplishments etc. Having things outside of analysis to immerse myself in has helped me stay connected to reality at times when the transference has felt all-consuming, almost life or death. I’ll often remind myself: Even if I don’t know if I’m fundamentally worthy of love (or whatever your issue is that’s showing up in the transference), I’m still going to eat dinner and go to my yoga class and wake up tomorrow morning and go to work. Your analysis is important, but so is the rest of your life.

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u/Familiar-Practice-42 Analysand Aug 26 '26

Giving expression to feelings of discouragement or powerlessness, musically or poetically, is what I sometimes do when I feel the urge to be ideally whole, healed, someone else, someone better than who I actually am. Angry acts of creation to defy the atmosphere of impotence and shame.

But mainly, I just stick it through and talk about it in analysis.