Psychoanalysis in Washington, DC
Psychoanalysis, with an emphasis on both conscious and unconscious processes.
An intensive form of psychotherapy that has incredible potential to treat longstanding challenges. Psychoanalysis explores how a person’s early life experiences impact present day struggles, and often involves an exploration of how interpersonal relationships are enacted with the therapist/psychoanalyst.
Psychoanalysis ideally entails meeting 2-4 times per week, and the intensity of psychoanalytic treatment is what contributes to its success.
Is Psychoanalysis Still Freud?
Yes and no. Yes, in that Freud’s brilliance was in his understanding that we have an unconscious life, that early experiences continue to shape the present in ways that may be out of our awareness, and that the relationship between you and your therapist is fundamental to the process.
However, much has changed in the last 100+ years. The classical model of a silent figure seated behind a couch, offering little, withholding reactions, and delivering interpretations from a position of authority is long gone.
Contemporary psychoanalysis works from the premise that the analyst is understood as a real participant in the work, not a blank screen — a person in the room with you who has her own response and subjectivity, and a willingness to acknowledge both. What happens between you and your analyst is understood as something the two of you create together, not merely a projection on your part.
This shift has practical implications. It means your analyst will sometimes share with you what they notice happening between you. Issues that arise in the therapy relationship are considered integral and generative parts of the work. Contemporary psychoanalysis understands that culture, race, gender, sexuality, class, ability, and social context are integral to your inner life, not external circumstances layered on top of it.
What Makes Psychoanalysis Powerful
Three things, and they work together rather than separately.
Each of us carries ways of being with others that took shape early and developed over our lifetime. These patterns tend to be lived rather than explicitly remembered, and in the intimacy of an analytic relationship they gradually find their way into the room.
What emerges is shaped by both you and your analyst. Your analyst is a participant in it, bringing their own responses and sensibilities, and over time the two of you may find yourselves in familiar configurations that neither of you consciously set out to create. Contemporary analysts regard these moments as among the most valuable the treatment offers, because an old way of relating that is alive in the present can be explored with an immediacy that recollection alone rarely allows.
Many people find this the most unexpected part of analysis, and it is often where the most lasting change takes place. What has long been repeated, frequently outside of awareness, can come to be understood from within and, in the company of someone genuinely engaged with you, something new becomes possible.
Much of what shapes our lives lies beyond what we can readily know about ourselves. The stories we tell about who we are and why we do what we do are meaningful, but they are rarely the whole of it, and some of what matters most has never quite been put into words.
Psychoanalysis creates the conditions for that experience to take form. You are invited to speak as freely as you can, following your thoughts wherever they lead, including to places that seem beside the point. Over time, connections begin to appear between things that once seemed unrelated, and dreams, passing images, and feelings that arrive unexpectedly take their place alongside the events of your daily life.
Your analyst participates in this as well, attending not only to what you say but to what is evoked between you, including their own associations and responses. Understanding emerges gradually and together, and what comes into view is often something neither of you could have anticipated.
Meeting two to four times a week changes the texture of the work in ways that can be difficult to appreciate until they are experienced. Sessions begin to feel less like separate appointments and more like a continuous conversation, one that is carried forward from day to day rather than reintroduced each week.
With that continuity, there is less need to catch your analyst up or to gather your experience into a coherent summary before you arrive. You can begin where you are, with whatever is present, and the thread of what you were exploring is still close at hand. Feelings that might otherwise settle or be set aside between weekly sessions remain accessible, and there is room for experiences that are only beginning to take shape to be noticed and gradually understood.
Frequency also deepens the relationship itself. Knowing you will return soon, and that you are held in mind in the interval, can make it possible to approach what feels uncertain or vulnerable with greater freedom. The analytic relationship becomes a steady presence in your life, and within it, patterns that might only be glimpsed in weekly work can unfold more fully and be understood in greater depth. This is much of what gives psychoanalysis its particular power.
Do I Have to Lie on the Couch?
Some people in analysis use the couch, and others prefer to sit, particularly in the beginning. The choice is one that you and your analyst consider together.
For those who use it, the couch can open a different kind of space. Without the need to track each other’s expressions, attention tends to turn inward, and thoughts, feelings, and images can be followed more freely as they arise. Others feel more at ease face to face, sometimes throughout the analysis. Either can support deep work, and what the choice means to you may itself become part of what the two of you come to understand.
Who Is Psychoanalysis For?
Analysis is often a good fit for people who:
- have found previous therapy helpful, yet sense that something important remains untouched
- notice familiar patterns returning in relationships, work, or family life, even when they understand them well
- are managing well in many respects but feel less connected to themselves or others than they would like
- Are naturally curious and wish to understand themselves more fully, beyond resolving a particular problem
- are drawn to a sustained and open-ended process and are able to commit to meeting several times a week
Analysis asks a great deal, in time, in resources, and in emotional investment, and it unfolds over years rather than months. People who choose it are often seeking something they have not found elsewhere: the experience of being deeply known, and the possibility of living with greater freedom, meaning, and a sense of aliveness.
Is Psychoanalysis Better Than Weekly Therapy?
Psychoanalysis and weekly psychotherapy are different forms of treatment rather than better and lesser versions of the same thing.
Many of the people we work with are in once-weekly individual psychotherapy, and that work can be profound. For many concerns it is exactly what is needed, and a great deal can change within a weekly relationship with a therapist who knows you well.
Analysis offers something distinct when difficulties are woven into the fabric of how you experience yourself and others, and when the work calls for more continuity and room to unfold. Some people begin in weekly therapy and find over time that they want to meet more often.
Others begin straightaway in analysis. You do not need to know which is right for you before reaching out. It is something we can consider together, and it can evolve as the work progresses.
How Long Does Analysis Take?
Analysis is a long-term treatment, and its length cannot be predicted at the outset. The frequency of sessions is decided together, in light of what the work calls for and what your life allows. An analysis does not end on a date set in advance. The ending is something you and your analyst arrive at together, when it feels right to both of you, and the process of ending is often a meaningful part of the work itself.
About Your Analyst
Dr. Janna Horowitz Sandmeyer is a certified psychoanalyst with over 30 years of clinical experience. She trained at the National Institute for the Psychotherapies in New York City and at the Institute of Contemporary Psychotherapy + Psychoanalysis in Washington, DC, where she holds a faculty appointment. She is also on the faculty of the New Washington School of Psychiatry and serves on the editorial board of Psychoanalytic Inquiry. Her writing has been recognized with the Ralph Roughton Award from the American Psychoanalytic Association (APsaA), and she has published in psychoanalytic journals and presented nationally and internationally.
She is passionate about the practice and potential of psychoanalytic treatment.
Fees & Insurance
We are out of network and do not participate in insurance panels. Many clients receive partial reimbursement through out-of-network benefits, and we provide the documentation needed to submit claims. Because analysis involves multiple sessions each week, fees are worth discussing openly and early. Please see our Fees & Policies page. and raise it in your consultation.
Where Sessions Are Held
For in-person sessions, our office is located at 1112 16th Street NW, Suite 440, in downtown Washington, DC, near Farragut North and Dupont Circle and convenient to K Street, Foggy Bottom, Logan Circle, and Capitol Hill.
For psychoanalysis, secure telehealth is also available for clients located in DC and Maryland.
Beginning
There is nothing you need to decide in advance. We offer a free initial phone consultation, and if you would like to explore whether psychoanalysis makes sense for you, that conversation is the place to start.