Psychotherapy

Psychotherapy can be a daunting word—especially the “psycho” part. It tends to bring up images of stuffy old offices, cigar smoke curling through the air, and a mustached man asking about your mother. Or maybe it conjures Norman Bates, the hotel manager with… questionable boundaries. But before you run for the hills, it helps to know that the “psycho” part actually comes from something much older—and much gentler. In Greek mythology, Psyche was the goddess of the soul.

During grad school, I took a course called Psychodynamics with a professor named Mildred Dubitzky. Mildred was brilliant—equal parts scholar and stand-up comic—and she gave me a crash course in what I like to call “psyche-education.” Psychodynamics is basically the study of how our early experiences, both conscious and unconscious, shape who we become. It all traces back to Freud—yes, that Freud—whose work is as groundbreaking as it is controversial. Mildred’s take on him stuck with me: Freud was deeply flawed (especially in his views on women), but he was also one of the first to suggest that much of our life is driven by forces we don’t fully see.

Mildred was also the first person I ever heard call this work psyche-therapy—a small but meaningful tweak that highlights the mythological roots of the word. In fact, Freud originally used the German word Seele, which means “soul,” not “mind.” Somewhere along the way, Seele got translated out of existence, replaced by more clinical language that lost a bit of its poetry.

If we went back to the original meaning, psychotherapy would literally translate to “soul-healing.” Imagine typing “soul-healer near me” into Google. What comes up for you—curiosity? Skepticism? A raised eyebrow? For some, “soul” sounds too mystical; for others, it captures what therapy at its best really is: a space for something deeper than symptom relief, something that touches the spirit of being human.

In the U.S., that original depth got split into two camps: the medical model (focused on diagnosis and symptom treatment) and the humanistic model (focused on growth, meaning, and wholeness). I fall firmly in the latter camp. As a humanistic psychotherapist, I see our relationship as the catalyst for change. My role isn’t to “fix” you but to help you make sense of your inner world—to reconnect the parts that feel scattered, conflicted, or hidden. Together, we explore how your mind, body, and emotions weave together, so you can move through life with more freedom and authenticity.

So while the word psychotherapy may sound clinical or intimidating, at its heart, it’s simply the practice of soul-healing. Mildred might say it’s about making friends with the parts of yourself you’ve long avoided. I just like to call it psyche-therapy.