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In a world where therapy is increasingly structured around limited sessions and predetermined goals, I offer a more personal and traditional approach to psychotherapy: private, face-to-face psychoanalytic psychotherapy, with the time and space to understand what is troubling you and why.

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I trained in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy at the William Alanson White Institute in New York and have been practising as a psychotherapist for 17 years.

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Understanding what lies beneath

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There are times when we know that something in our lives isn't working, but we don't fully understand why.

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You may be struggling with anxiety, depression, dissatisfaction or difficulties in your relationships. You may find yourself repeating the same patterns, reacting to situations in ways you don't understand, or feeling that you know what you would like to change but somehow cannot make that change happen.

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Sometimes the difficulties that bring us to therapy are most apparent in our relationships — with partners, family, friends or colleagues. We may find ourselves repeating familiar patterns without understanding why.

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You may even find yourself asking:

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Why do I keep doing things I don't really want to do?

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Psychoanalytic psychotherapy offers an opportunity to explore these difficulties in greater depth.

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It is based on the understanding that much of what influences our thoughts, feelings and behaviour may lie outside our immediate awareness. Our early experiences and relationships can shape the way we come to see ourselves, other people and the world around us. These patterns can remain with us into adult life, sometimes influencing our relationships and choices without us fully recognising them.

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Therapy can help bring some of these patterns into awareness and make them more understandable.

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The therapeutic relationship

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A central part of psychoanalytic psychotherapy is the relationship between patient and therapist.

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What happens between us can sometimes reveal important aspects of how you experience other people and relationships. Feelings of trust, disappointment, dependence, anger, uncertainty or being misunderstood may arise in therapy just as they can elsewhere in life.

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Rather than simply moving past these experiences, we can explore them together and consider what they might tell us.

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This can provide a different way of understanding longstanding patterns.

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The aim is not simply to look back at the past. The past matters because it can help us understand the person you are today — the ways you relate to others, the expectations you have of yourself and other people, and the emotional responses that can sometimes feel automatic.

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Taking the time to understand

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I don't believe that meaningful psychological change can always be reduced to a predetermined number of sessions or a set programme.

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Each person is different. The work needs to develop around the individual and around what emerges in the therapy.

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For some patients, therapy may focus on a particular difficulty or period of life. For others, a longer-term exploration may be appropriate, particularly where difficulties have been present for many years or where similar patterns have repeatedly emerged in relationships and other areas of life.

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The purpose is not to fit you into a predetermined programme. It is to understand you as an individual.

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Through the process of speaking openly and thinking together about your experiences, it can become possible to recognise patterns that previously felt difficult to understand or change.

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With greater understanding can come greater freedom — the possibility of responding differently rather than simply repeating familiar patterns.

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Who I work with

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I work with adults from a wide range of backgrounds.

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Many of my patients are thoughtful and reflective people, including professionals, who are interested in understanding themselves more deeply. Some come because of a particular difficulty or period of crisis; others have a sense that something in their lives or relationships has not been working for some time.

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You do not need to arrive with a clear explanation of what is wrong. The process of therapy can help us begin to understand this together.

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About Barry Florin​

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I have been practising as a psychotherapist for 17 years.

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My specialist training in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy was undertaken at the William Alanson White Institute in New York, an institution with a long tradition of psychoanalytic psychotherapy.

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My approach is grounded in the belief that psychotherapy is fundamentally a process of understanding: understanding the difficulties that bring someone to therapy, the experiences that have shaped them, and the patterns that continue to influence their life and relationships.

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A private setting in Mill Hill

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I see patients face-to-face in my private garden office in Mill Hill, North London — a quiet, comfortable and confidential setting in which we can work without the formality of a clinical environment.

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Sessions are 50 minutes and the fee is £75 per session.

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The frequency of sessions can be discussed together and will depend on your circumstances and what you are hoping to explore in therapy.

 

Beginning therapy

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The first step is an opportunity for us to meet and talk about what has brought you to therapy and what you are looking for.

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There is no need to have everything worked out before coming. We can use the initial meetings to think together about your circumstances and whether psychoanalytic psychotherapy feels appropriate for you.

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Initial sessions are 50 minutes and charged at the usual fee of £75.

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If you would like to discuss beginning therapy, please get in touch to arrange an initial consultation.

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