« What brings you here? »

... with these words, the analyst often opens the conversation in the first meeting and is ready to listen to you, which feelings, ideas, conditions and questions occupy you. The reasons for seeing a psychoanalyst – and the words to express that – are as numerous and diverse as the people who come into the office. The psychoanalyst pays close attention to this singularity and receives you without prejudice to explore your unique motivations together with you. Often the big crises and challenges of life lead to a consultation, types of suffering which are widespread and that affect social and emotional life, the wealth of ideas and one's other capabilities. You are confronted with something unendurable and say: « we have to do something about it, it can't go on like this. »

The word « psychoanalysis » can sometimes be troubling

... maybe because you are ashamed - or think you have to commit yourself for a long period of time. The couch also might cause other fears: the silence of the psychoanalyst. The lack of the desired, quick solutions for a better life. Not knowing in advance what one is actually getting oneself into. Concerns about being exposed and of becoming dependent. Or what it would mean to actually turn around one's life entirely – for oneself and for others. However, for a psychoanalyst, duration, frequency, face-to-face setting or the use of the couch etc. are modalities that are determined on a case-by-case basis and can be further adjusted in the course of therapy. The initial interview serves to provide orientation for a start. Psychoanalytic practise consists mainly of a specific form of listening; to guide a person on their own path to learn something about themselves - and to enable that person to make that experience an important thing in their life.