starting ongoing sessions

In response to a request from a subscriber we discuss how best to begin ongoing sessions of psychotherapy. How you begin has everything to do with what you and the patient have decided to do together and why you intervene as you do. In dynamic psychotherapy the goal is to discover the unconscious source of the patient's difficulties. Consequently we don't want to engage the conscious mind but to leave room for the unconscious to speak. By leaving room for the patient to begin we can obtain a rapid and accurate assessment of where they enter the session on both triangle and can proceed accordingly.