Emily Oliver Psychotherapy

What is psychoanalysis?

Psychoanalytic psychotherapy is a form of talking therapy that helps you make sense of your experiences, relationships, and the difficulties that have brought you to therapy. Together, we explore how your past continues to shape your present, as well as the thoughts, feelings, and patterns that can influence your life without you being fully aware of them. By understanding these patterns more deeply, it may become possible to relate to yourself and others in new ways.

What kind of issues can psychoanalysis help with?

Psychoanalytic psychotherapy can be helpful for all kinds of people.

Some come with specific difficulties like persistent anxiety, low mood, problems in relationships, or a sense of being stuck. Others come with a more diffuse feeling that something is not quite right, even if it is hard to name.

It may be particularly useful for those who are interested in understanding their own patterns more deeply, and who are open to a process that unfolds over time rather than offering immediate solutions.

What is your approach?

My approach is broadly psychoanalytic, and informed by critical theory, philosophy, and queer theory.

This means I see emotional difficulties as shaped not only by our personal histories and relationships, but also by the wider world we live in. Our identities, relationships, and experiences are influenced by social and cultural expectations, as well as by our own unique histories. Therapy offers a space to think about how these different parts of our lives come together.

In practice, this involves listening closely to how you speak and working with you to understand what this means. I am not directive, and don’t offer prescriptive solutions. Instead, the work develops through sustained attention to what unfolds in the sessions.

Sessions are led by you, with an emphasis on speaking freely. My role is to support a process in which something of your experience can be articulated differently, without being forced into a predefined model of what a life should look like.

Who is psychoanalysis for?

Historically, psychoanalysis has sometimes positioned itself around a narrow set of assumptions about gender, sexuality, and what a ‘normal’ life should look like. This means that many people – including those who are queer, trans, or otherwise marginalised – may feel that it is not a space for them.

I believe that psychoanalysis is most useful and alive when it remains open to all kinds of experience and identity, and that it has the capacity to put into question fixed identities, developmental paths, or normative ways of living. 

This includes making space for forms of life, desire, and identity that have often been misunderstood or excluded. Rather than approaching these as problems to be corrected, my work takes them seriously as part of how a person comes to speak, relate, and make sense of themselves.

How much does it cost?

My standard fee is currently £30 to £50 per session. If cost is a concern this can be discussed when you get in touch.

Sessions are 50 minutes, and take place weekly or twice-weekly in Central London.