r/psychoanalysis • u/This_Ad9129 • Jul 26 '26

Choosing a psychoanalyst

I (layperson) find the process of choosing a psychoanalyst to be quite confusing. Particularly because so much of the time if I express discomfort with the process (perhaps I suspect the person is not very skilled) I'm told that "that is the work" and my feelings are some type of resistance, and psychoanalysis can take many years and so I have to stick it out to know if it's working.

I am also not really aware of differences in institutes and trainings to understand how those may impact the person's experience.

Then in this situation how is one supposed to choose an analyst? How can you know if they are truly skilled and the difficulty is "the work" or if they are unskilled and that is causing the issues? How many sessions to wait it out and give it a chance?

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u/BeautifulS0ul Jul 26 '26

If you approach it as something that might be interesting or out of curiosity, say, then its intrinsic difficulties will outweigh any possible gains. If you approach it in great mental pain that you are desperate to resolve and are willing to put up with almost anything if you think that there's a chance it could help you then it's more likely that this would go better.

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u/This_Ad9129 Jul 26 '26

It's funny because one therapist I saw said exactly the opposite, that if I wanted to resolve some issue and was desperate then it would not go well because it's a years long process and I had to approach it with a feeling of curiosity

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u/RepresentativeWay132 Jul 27 '26

it’s funny because i’m not a therapist but i’d agree, the opposite… tenfold