Photograph by Paweł Czerwiński

Psychotherapy is a loaded word. Especially the “psycho” part. It conjures up images of stuffy Victorian offices, cigar-smoking therapists (asking about your mother), or perhaps even Norman Bates, the iconic hotel owner in Alfred Hitchcock's aptly named Psycho. Luckily, the word psycho has much deeper roots, going back to Greek mythology and Psyche, the goddess of the soul.

In graduate school I took a course called Psychodynamics with Mildred Dubitzky. Just a little psyche-education here. Psychodynamic psychology says that our childhood experiences, conscious, and unconscious have a really big influence on who we become as adults. Psychodynamics originated with Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis and Freud himself has gone on to be pretty widely reviled for his misogynistic ideas. So, Mildred's appreciation of Freud's work had a big impact on me. She helped me see him as a hugely influential and flawed historical figure whose ideas have changed the way humanity understands itself. All that to say, Mildred was the first person I knew to use the word psyche-therapy, referring to the mistranslation of Freud's work and Greek mythology. One reading in particular stood out, Bruno Bettelheim's "Freud and the Soul" published in the New Yorker. 

Between Mildred Dubitzky and Bruno Bettelheim I learned that Freud used the German word "Seele" or soul when referring to the very essence of our identity, by which he meant the psyche. And in a bit of an infinity loop, Psyche in Greek mythology is the goddess of the soul. So, in the spirit of Mildred let’s hop into our time machine and ask, what's in a word? The word psychotherapy is derived from the Ancient Greek word psyche, meaning "breath; spirit; soul", and therapeia, meaning "healing" or "medical treatment". Soul-healing certainly has a different ring to it.

Now imagine, for a moment, that you're searching for a soul-healer rather than a psychotherapist. Really notice what comes up. Do you have any feelings, a gut reaction, or another sensation in your body? Do you have any thoughts, images, or judgements? Take some time to connect with your reaction. For some of you it might raise concerns about whether the work is going to be evidence-based, others might feel uncomfortable depending on your belief system or your relationship to the word soul, and some of you might imagine having a more holistic experience with a soul-healer, in part because it implies a depth that just isn’t captured by the word psycho or mind.

Given how ethereal the word "soul" is, it's not a surprise that many of the poetic aspects of Freud's prose were lost when “Seele” was replaced with “mind” for American audiences. This bit of mistranslation led to conflicting interpretations that have manifested themselves in hundreds of schools of thought, many of which fall into either the medical or humanistic model. In the medical model the client is seen as having a disorder, which the psychotherapist attempts to cure. In contrast, the humanistic model strives to depathologize the human condition, creating instead an environment in which self-actualization is possible.

As a humanistic psychotherapist I work relationally, meaning our relationship is the catalyst for change. My goal is to help you build confidence in your own natural process, resulting in a deeper personal understanding. As we uncover unconscious content in your psyche, we can ease psychic tensions that manifest in a variety of issues, allowing you the space and time to integrate your life experiences. During this process I’m seeing you as a whole person, not just a broken mind to be fixed. Therefore, as a humanist and a fan of Mildred Dubitzky, I prefer to call it psyche-therapy.