Mental Health
In the discourse of mental health, the psychoanalyst occupies a curious and distinctive place. Many approach therapy with the expectation of finding a professional who will diagnose, offer strategies, and ‘fix’ what is broken. Yet the idea of something being broken in itself is metaphorical. It needs to be given time to be spoken further in therapy. Who is breaking what? When did it happen the first time? Who says broken? is it a family member, or is it yourself? Whose language are you expressing yourself through, which simultaneously gives the impression that you are speaking as someone who knows oneself? Yet, in reality, the way we communicate is not innate; we were born into language. This points to the split between what one can say about themselves and something that is always repressed due to the prohibitions we grew up with in childhood, within our family and society. Thus, as we begin to examine what ‘broken’ means, its definition starts to shift into something entirely different.
From a Lacanian perspective, the person is not a puzzle to be solved but a speaking being (parlêtre) whose suffering is inscribed in language, desire, and the unconscious. In this post, we will explore how to choose a psychologist in Melbourne, not simply as a consumer selecting a service but as a person seeking a deeply confidential space where speech can unfold beyond the illusions of quick solutions.
When to See a Psychologist? When You Feel You Need to Talk.
The question of when to see a psychologist is itself fraught with the fantasy as if there is an objective or universal threshold: when symptoms become unbearable or when suffering reaches a measurable peak. However, psychoanalysis teaches us that the person does not necessarily seek therapy to ‘feel better’ but often because an unconscious question has emerged, which points to what has been causing suffering: What is happening to me? Why do I find myself in the same impasses, the same repetitions?
Common reasons people seek therapy in Melbourne include anxiety, depression, trauma, difficulties in relationships, or existential confusion. These manifestations are not merely disorders but formations of the unconscious, signs that something in the subject’s relationship to their desire is at stake, challenged, or threatened. This could be events in your life such as the death of a loved one, the loss of a pet, separation from homeland or family, career transitions, workplace changes, the birth of children, anniversaries, and other pivotal life events and changes. Therapy is not about ‘fixing’ but about speaking, working through, and working these symptoms. Psychoanalytic therapy is about finding new ways to relate to various aspects of life. After all, we don’t live in a box, in isolation; we exist within society, workplaces, and families, requiring us to find our own unique and sometimes innovative ways to relate and to work.
Myths & Misconceptions About Therapy
One of the barriers to engaging with therapy is the illusion that psychologists have tools or ready made solutions. A psychoanalytic approach resists this notion. Therapy is not about acquiring coping strategies but about allowing the person to encounter their unconscious by speaking of their desire and relate to their pain / suffering in a new way.
How do I Choose the “Right” Psychologist in Melbourne? There is No Right or Wrong.
Psychologists do not practise in the same way. Choosing the right psychologist for you is not merely a matter of qualifications, but a combination of factors such as transference/therapeutic alliance (takes many sessions and there isn’t a fixed time or number of sessions, it’s very subjective), theoretical orientation, the structure/frame (e.g., regularity of sessions, fee), the therapeutic setting (e.g., online/in person), and your own level of willingness to engage with your own therapy.
i) Location & Online Options
Given the vastness of Melbourne, accessibility is important. Many psychologists offer online therapy, which can be beneficial but also changes the structure of the encounter. A Lacanian analyst considers the setting of the session as integral to the work. Whether in person or online, the frame must support the emergence of unconscious dialogue, which is attached to an actual body. We move around with a body. So you could consider this, that therapy is also based in a human bond of a different kind with an Other, may be in person, or hybrid.
ii) Cost & Medicare Rebates
In Australia, many psychologists are registered with Medicare, allowing clients to receive rebates. However, Medicare often favours short-term, symptom-focused treatments. Those seeking psychoanalysis may find that private practice settings, where the work is not dictated by health insurance limitations, allow for a more sustained and long-term treatment process. Psychoanalytic treatment requires a long-term commitment. Sometimes the effects of therapy are not immediately clear, but through commitment to sessions, speech unfolds over time, allowing something new to emerge.
iii) Finding the Best “Fit“: Therapists Aren’t Outfits. It’s Parallel Work Between Two. It’s a Dialectic.
Plato used dialectic as the method of philosophical dialogue to reach truth – question, response, further question… until contradictions are revealed and understanding deepens. Hegel formalised it as a process of development:
- Thesis (an idea),
- Antithesis (its opposite or contradiction)
- Synthesis (a new idea that resolves the tension).
In Psychoanalysis:
- Dialectic plays out in the transferential relationship between analyst and analysand.
- The dialectic of desire involves how desire is constituted through speech, lack (e.g., having/not having), and the Other (e.g., limits, culture).
- It’s often about how meaning shifts through speech and its contradictions — Lacan himself was very dialectical in how he moved through concepts in his own seminars, which he gave yearly in paris during 50s through to the late 70s. Contemporary psychoanalytic research continue to study these concepts.
– Seeking Recommendations
Your therapy session is not like choosing a restaurant or seeking recommendations on best restaurant to eat at. Reviews are not the appropriate way to engage with your deeply personal experiences, inner workings, and the challenges you face.
It’s best to pick up the phone and have a conversation with the person you want to work with. Therapy is about creating a therapeutic bond based on a human connection, which can take several sessions to develop. It may take time for you to feel comfortable discussing your thoughts and feelings, and that’s perfectly okay. In our sessions, you choose the topics you want to bring, staying consistent with the psychoanalytic frame. Therapy is an ongoing process you commit to each week.
The Work of Talking and Listening
My analysands share their experiences in sessions, providing a space to talk, work through, and address issues. This process itself fosters understanding and growth. Ultimately, I work with you to help process your experiences. While your therapist is a human being too, in the therapy room, I focus solely on listening to your thoughts and feelings, keeping my own deeply personal experiences separate, which I address in my supervision or private sessions with my own analyst. This ensures that we can fully attend to yours.
You Can Bring the Difficult Feelings
Occasionally, first-time patients may look at reviews, but therapy isn’t a product with a one-size-fits-all outcome. A psychologist who may not be rated highly might be actually excellent based on their therapeutic style. Also, just like parents, whome we idealised, whome we grow up to realise were not perfect human beings, our therapists too, provide intimate spaces, which we treat with kindness and respect. It’s expected that you bring difficult topics, and you might feel anger, frustration, and distress, but the therapeutic relationship is where you talk about them.
Therapy is very one-by-one. For those seeking deeper, meaning-based work to understand why they suffer, this often points to the unconscious. Psychoanalysis is about exploring the unconscious using dreams, slips of the tongue, free associations. Freud famously stated this metaphor for the unconscious: “the ego is not the master in its own house.” Lacan expanded on Freud’s work, by describing the unconscious structurally, as the gap between speech and language, which occurs when you speak, and the analyst listens (You can read his Écrits, though they are quite challenging and are best studied in reading groups.
I run reading groups, currently in Persian (with some bilingual psychoanalysis seminars with psychologist / Psychoanalyst colleagues). There are a number of psychoanalytic associations in Melbourne (e.g., Freudian School, and Lacan Circle). I am a member of the Colorado Analytic Forum, and Lacan UK , and they run many interesting seminars, for clinicians and non-clinicians about psychoanalysis).
You Bring the Threads of the Work
A therapist works collaboratively with you, adapting therapeutic strategies to move the work forward. Sometimes, I integrate cognitive and behavioral strategies within a psychoanalytic frame, working with what you metaphorically bring to the session. I am committed to working with you for as long as you show your commitment through regular attendance and maintaining the therapeutic frame.
Therapy is not something that works based on someone else’s recommendations; you need to have your own reasons for engaging with a particular therapist. If it’s not immediately clear why you’d want to see someone (and most of the time it is not immediately obvious), giving it time over several sessions might offer some clarity – but clarity is not garanteed. As I said earlier, therapy is work, where we come together in different ways, you show your comittment to bringing your topics (e.g., saying the thoughts as they come to your mind) and I show my comittment through my presence and my listening, sometimes a reflection, an underlining of something that you say, or an interpretation. But interpretations are rare in the early sessions, because you have to speak about your knowledge first. Psychoanalysis in Melbourne is a long-term commitment, unfolding over regular sessions, often over several years.
The question in psychoanalytic therapy isn’t what is wrong with you – you are not a disorder. You are a speaking being. A person. Your unconscious has its own order – its own relationship to life events. We wonder, What is at stake in your suffering?
– Booking a Consultation
The first session is not simply a practical step; it is the beginning of an encounter with the Other – the analyst who will listen in a way that is different from friends, family, or even other clinicians. In Lacanian terms, the analyst does not assume the position of the expert who ‘knows’ but instead creates a space where the person’s unconscious can speak itself in the sessions.
What to Expect in Your First Session
i) Common Questions & Assessment Process
Unlike medicine, where the first session may involve structured assessments and scans (we don’t have those sorry! Therapy is highly subjective), a psychoanalytic approach invites the person to speak freely. The analyst listens not only to what is said but also to the gaps, slips, and repetitions in speech. The question is NOT What is wrong with you? but rather What is at stake in your suffering?
ii) How to Prepare
There is no preparation required, except perhaps the willingness to be curious by what emerges in the session. Many arrive with a fixed narrative about their issues, only to find that therapy offers a different perspective on these certainties.
FAQs
i) How Many Sessions Are Needed?
Unlike manualised therapies, psychoanalysis does not operate on a fixed timeline. The number of sessions is contingent on the therapy work itself — how the person engages with their desire, their symptom, and the analytic work.
ii) Are You Ready To Start This Work? In Some Ways We Are Never Ready, But We Start From Some Where in Therapy Sessions
This is an okay question. If you find that the therapist’s style/approach does not resonate, this is worthwhile considering whether this is due to your resistance (which is part of the therapeutic work) or whether the timing of your circumstances is not yet aligned to undertake this work. Sometimes it takes a year to be comfortable to speak freely in therapy – everyone’s timing is unique. A Lacanian analyst does not seek to get rid of anxiety in a conventional sense, but to put the anxiety to work, for example what more you can say about it (e.g., expect to talk about your activities between sessions too), and to allow something new to emerge through speech, which can at times be challenging. The commitment to ongoing work – returning to sessions and working through what has emerged – enables the analytic therapy to continue. What was once a source of discomfort in your life may reduce over time as you find different ways to approach recurring situations.
Conclusion & What Do I Do Now? We Talk
Choosing a clinical psychologist in Melbourne is not merely about finding the ‘best’ therapist but about finding the right structure for one’s subjective work. If you are interested in engaging in psychoanalytic therapy with me — one that does not reduce suffering to mere symptoms but instead sees it as a meaningful formation — please reach out for us to talk on the phone first.
For more information or to book, see Bita Psychology.