Natalie C Hansen

Research Psychoanalyst

I began my professional life as a college professor and taught writing and literature in many forms and in many settings. One of the comments I have heard repeatedly from experienced clinicians is that we can learn a great deal about human emotions, relationships, and personalities through reading literature and trying to understand the different characters and their interactions. Ultimately, this is what I was seeking in my pursing literature: an understanding of the human experience from the inside out. It wasn't until I arrived at my studies in psychoanalysis that I truly grasped the complexity of our emotional life and cognitive capacities and how they are intimately related to embodied experience. Having spent many years in my own treatment, I know first-hand how psychoanalytic understanding of emotions and of the mind can address dysfunctional patterns of thought and action. I continue to study, learning new approaches, learning from each session, in fact.

Having started my clinical work in 2018, I see patterns, always unique to the individual, that recur. These patterns are often rooted in difficult ways we feel about ourselves that then shape how we experience and behave toward others. Sometimes, the traumatic experiences we suffered as infants, children or adults seem to recur over time, at different ages, and in different situations. Traumas, in particular, are imprinted in our emotional system, at the very basic level of physical survival. Often, we have no words for such experiences and are then trapped by feelings that get stirred up by everyday life experiences. Talk therapy, psychoanalytic work, helps us move from the bodily experiences of trauma toward words and understanding, providing different perspectives and some control over what feels overwhelming.

Hesitancy to seek therapy is often because we are uncomfortable with or even afraid of our emotions. We may think that our feelings are "bad" or that we are "bad" for feeling what we feel. Psychoanalytic work specifically addresses where the label of "bad" comes from. Ultimately, there is no wrong or "bad" feeling, just feelings that need to be listened to and understood. Sometimes, the fear is that if we open the door to what feel like dangerous feelings, we will lose control or they will take us over. Again, this is a feeling, not reality. Feelings are information. They point us toward what is important to notice. Fear, shame, anger, rage, distress -- all of these difficult feelings can be integrated and thus rendered less overwhelming. This process can help with understanding the origins and intensities of addictions or can help address our troubles with self-esteem or our recurring conflicts with partners or colleagues. There are no expectations you will have to meet in psychoanalytic work. You just need to show up however you are. We go from there. Consider this an invitation to know more about yourself, the first step in healing.