Referral Service for Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy

Referral Service for Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy

Serving San Francisco, Marin, the South Bay, the East Bay & Sacramento
Referral Service Contact number: (415) 857-6988 (confidential voicemail)

What is Psychoanalysis/Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy?

Psychoanalysis is a method of treatment that offers a way of understanding ourselves, our relationships, and how we conduct ourselves in the world. Psychoanalysis helps people learn how they became who they are and why they do and feel the things they do. This understanding paves the way towards the emotional freedom necessary to make substantive, lasting changes.

Psychoanalysis is based on the observation that people are often unaware of the many underlying factors that influence their current emotions and behavior. Unconscious conflicts can create disharmony, unhappiness and inhibition that can often be observed through difficulties in work, relationships and characteristic ways of being in the world.

The value of psychoanalytic treatment lies in the long-term, consistent relationship with someone – the analyst or psychotherapist – who works to understand us, accept us for who we are, and who helps us with our struggles.

Psychoanalysis involves meeting multiple times per week with the analyst to deepen our access to unconscious processes that influence our perceptions and behavior.To learn more, go to: https://apsa.org/content/about-psychoanalysis

How does Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy differ from Psychoanalysis?

Psychoanalytic psychotherapy is based on the same ideas of helping people understand themselves and their inner life, but it is a less intensive form of analytic treatment where patients meet with their therapist only once or twice a week.

Who Can Benefit From an Analytic Treatment?

Psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy are especially suited for those who need to get to the root of long-term problems and patterns. Some people come to analytic treatment because of repeated difficulties in work or love brought about, not by chance, but by self-defeating patterns of behavior. Others come, because the way they have evolved to be in the world (i.e. due to trauma, poor relationship models, anxiety, and depression, etc) –substantially limits their freedom and their ability to enjoy life. Still others seek analytic treatment to definitively resolve psychological problems that were only temporarily or partially resolved by other forms of treatment.

One of the most common reasons for entering analytic treatment is the problem of finding and maintaining stable and loving relationships.

Who Can Benefit From an Analytic Treatment?

People who are capable of having and using insights and are able to tolerate intense, difficult feelings that can arise during treatment, are likely to be able to benefit from psychoanalytically informed treatments. While psychoanalysis may not be for everyone, almost anyone suffering from psychological symptoms can benefit from psychoanalytic psychotherapy.

Psychoanalytic Treatment Can Help You:

  • Get relief from painful feelings
  • Improve personal relationships
  • Become more productive at work
  • Take more pleasure from life
  • Prevent the past from interfering with the present.
  • End problematic patterns of behavior.
  • Gain greater control over life
  • Unlock creative potential
  • Understand yourself
  • Feel understood

For those seeking Psychoanalytic Treatment

Call the Referral Service at: 415-857-6988 to leave a confidential voice message.

The Referral Service will return your call to answer your questions and if appropriate, an evaluation over the phone will be done and a referral to a clinician will be made.

Upcoming Events

Thursday, March 27, 2025
SFCP Diversity, Equity, Inclusion Conversations
SFCP Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI) Conversations - Module 3
David Luna, MBA, JD
Saturday, April 5, 2025
Special Programs
An Afternoon of Poetry and Art
with Forrest Hamer and Alice Jones
Sunday, April 6, 2025
Wednesdays, February 5, 2025 to March 12, 2025
Coalition for Clinical Social Work
All of Us! - The Ones We See & The Ones We Erase
Karim Dajani, PsyD and Danny Yu, LCSW
Thursday, April 10, 2025
SFCP Diversity, Equity, Inclusion Conversations
SFCP Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI) Conversations - Module 3
David Luna, MBA, JD
Saturday, April 19, 2025
Special Programs
W.R. Bion’s Reading of C.G. Jung’s Memories, Dreams and Reflections
Joseph Aguayo, PhD (presenter); Peter Goldberg, PhD and Mark Winborn, PhD (discussants)
Thursday, April 24, 2025
Visiting Professor Weekend
Introduction to the work of Nicola Abel-Hirsch, FIPA
Peter Goldberg, PhD
Saturday, April 26, 2025, to Sunday, April 27, 2025
Committee on Groups
SFCP's Annual Group Relations Weekend
Alan Ruiz, MFA; and Janice K. Wagner, LCSW (facilitators)
Saturday, May 3, 2025
Visiting Professor Weekend
A morning with Nicola Abel-Hirsch, FIPA - Bion's Technique
Nicola Abel-Hirsch, FIPA (presenter); Laurie Goldsmith, PhD (moderator)
Sunday, May 4, 2025
Visiting Professor Weekend
Professor's Choice: On "Container/contained Transformed"
Wednesday, May 7, 2025
Coalition for Clinical Social Work
Unwound and Unwound-ing: A Poetic Psychoanalytic Exploration of Whiteness
Hazel White; Jyoti Rao, MFT; and Forrest Hamer, PhD (panelists)
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