Psychodynamic Therapy in Denver: Understanding Depth-Oriented Treatment for Lasting Change
You've likely noticed that some struggles don't resolve simply by understanding them intellectually or learning new coping strategies. You might know exactly why you react a certain way, recognize the patterns you're repeating, or understand that your anxiety isn't proportional to the actual threat—yet the feelings persist. The behaviors continue. The same dynamics show up again and again, despite your best intentions to change.
This is where psychodynamic therapy offers something different. Rather than focusing solely on symptoms or surface-level behaviors, psychodynamic counseling explores the deeper currents beneath your conscious awareness—the unconscious patterns, early relational experiences, and internal conflicts that shape how you move through the world. It's therapy with deep exploration, designed not just for temporary relief but for fundamental, lasting transformation.
The Evolution of Psychodynamic Therapy: Beyond Freud's Couch
When most people hear "psychodynamic" or "psychoanalysis," they picture Freud, a leather couch, and years of analyzing dreams while a silent therapist takes notes. While psychodynamic therapy does trace its roots to Freudian psychoanalysis, the approach has evolved dramatically over the past century. Modern psychodynamic therapy in Denver looks quite different from that outdated stereotype.
Contemporary psychodynamic therapists sit face-to-face with clients, engage in genuine dialogue, and integrate insights from attachment theory, neuroscience, and trauma research. While some techniques like dream analysis and free association remain valuable tools and may be part of the work, today's psychodynamic work is more collaborative, relational, and responsive to each person's unique needs. The Denver psychoanalyst of today is not a distant, interpretive authority but an engaged, attuned presence who works alongside you in understanding your inner world.
The evolution has been profound. Early psychoanalysis emphasized drives and instincts, with the therapist positioned as an objective expert interpreting the patient's unconscious. Modern psychodynamic therapy, particularly relationally-oriented approaches, recognizes that both therapist and client bring themselves into the room. The relationship between you becomes not just the context for healing but a primary mechanism through which change occurs.
This shift matters because it means psychodynamic therapy is no longer about a therapist telling you what your unconscious means. It's about collaborative exploration—discovering together the patterns, defenses, and unconscious beliefs that influence your life. It's insight-oriented therapy that respects your agency while helping you access parts of your experience that have remained outside awareness.
What Makes Psychodynamic Therapy Different? Core Principles and Focus
If you're researching therapy options in Denver, you're probably comparing approaches. Cognitive-behavioral therapy focuses on thoughts and behaviors. EMDR targets specific traumatic memories. Dialectical behavior therapy teaches emotion regulation skills. So what distinguishes psychodynamic therapy, and why might someone choose this approach?
The Unconscious Mind Takes Center Stage
Psychodynamic therapy is grounded in the recognition that much of what drives your feelings, reactions, and behaviors operates outside conscious awareness. You might find yourself inexplicably anxious in certain situations, drawn to partners who hurt you, or unable to pursue goals that genuinely matter to you. Psychodynamic therapy looks at the unconscious - Unconscious mind therapy in Denver works with these hidden patterns, bringing them into awareness where they can be understood and transformed.
This isn't about mysterious, inaccessible forces. Your unconscious includes automatic assumptions formed in childhood, emotional associations you've learned through experience, protective mechanisms developed to survive difficult situations, and conflicts between different needs or values. These operate beneath the surface, shaping your life in ways you may not recognize until therapy illuminates them.
The Past Informs the Present
Psychodynamic counseling explicitly explores how early experiences continue to influence current life. This is particularly relevant for childhood trauma therapy in Denver—understanding how what happened years ago still affects your relationships, self-perception, and emotional responses today. But it's not only about trauma. The approach recognizes that everyone's psychological development is shaped by early relationships, particularly with primary caregivers.
Attachment theory therapy, the roots of which are found in psychodynamic work, examines how your early attachment experiences created templates for relationships. If your caregivers were inconsistent, neglectful, or frightening, you developed adaptive strategies—perhaps becoming hypervigilant to others' emotions, learning to minimize your needs, or keeping people at a distance. These patterns made sense then. In therapy, we explore how they continue now, often creating the very difficulties you're trying to avoid.
This focus on past trauma therapy in Denver doesn't mean dwelling endlessly on history. Rather, it's about understanding the origins of present struggles so you can respond to current situations with greater freedom rather than reacting from old wounds.
Patterns and Repetition Reveal Deeper Truth
Have you noticed yourself repeating certain relationship dynamics? Perhaps you repeatedly feel invisible or unheard, or you find yourself in caretaking roles that leave you depleted, or conflict arises in similar ways across different relationships. Psychodynamic therapy pays close attention to these repetitions, understanding them as expressions of unconscious patterns seeking resolution.
These patterns don't just show up in your outside relationships—they emerge in therapy itself. This is where transference therapy becomes valuable. Transference refers to how you might unconsciously relate to your therapist as though they were significant figures from your past, bringing old relational patterns into the present therapeutic relationship. Rather than viewing this as problematic, psychodynamic therapists see it as extraordinarily useful information and an opportunity for new experience.
When you notice yourself worried your therapist will judge you, or assuming they're disappointed, or feeling you need to perform or please them—these reactions often mirror patterns from earlier relationships. Exploring them in therapy, where your therapist responds differently than those earlier figures did, creates the possibility for change at a deep level.
Defense Mechanisms Deserve Respect
Psychodynamic therapy recognizes that your mind has developed sophisticated ways of protecting you from overwhelming feelings, threatening truths, or unbearable vulnerability. These defense mechanisms—denial, intellectualization, projection, displacement, and many others—aren't character flaws. They're adaptive strategies that helped you survive.
However, defenses that once protected you can eventually limit you. Perhaps intellectualizing helped you cope with a frightening childhood home, but now it keeps you disconnected from your feelings and from genuine intimacy. Maybe people-pleasing kept you safe with a critical parent, but now it prevents authentic relationships. Psychodynamic counseling in Denver helps you understand these protective patterns with compassion, gradually creating enough safety that you can risk letting them soften.
Anxiety and Depression Have Meaning
Unlike approaches that view symptoms primarily as problems to be eliminated, psychodynamic therapy is curious about what your anxiety or depression might be communicating. Anxiety and depression therapy in Denver, from a psychodynamic perspective, explores what purpose these symptoms might serve, what conflicts they might represent, or what feelings they might be protecting you from experiencing.
This doesn't mean your suffering isn't real or that you're creating it intentionally. It means that symptoms often have psychological meaning beyond their surface distress. Your anxiety might be channeling anger you can't let yourself feel, or protecting you from risking connection, or expressing conflicts about pursuing what you genuinely want. Understanding this meaning opens pathways for change that simply managing symptoms doesn't address.
Inside the Psychodynamic Therapy Process: What Actually Happens
If you're considering psychodynamic therapy near you, you're probably wondering what sessions actually involve. While each therapist has their own style and each client's needs differ, certain elements characterize psychodynamic work.
Beginning with Your Story
Early sessions involve your therapist getting to know you—your current struggles, your history, significant relationships, and how you've come to be who you are. This isn't just information gathering. How you tell your story matters as much as what you share. What's easy to discuss and what's difficult? Where do emotions arise? What gets minimized or intellectualized? Your therapist is listening on multiple levels, attending to both content and process.
Free Association and Following Where Things Lead
Unlike more structured therapies with specific agendas for each session, psychodynamic therapy often uses free association—saying what comes to mind without censoring or directing your thoughts in a particular direction. This might feel awkward at first, especially if you're used to presenting yourself in organized, socially acceptable ways. But following your associations, noticing where your mind goes, reveals patterns and connections that more controlled conversation might miss.
This doesn't mean sessions are chaotic or aimless. Your therapist tracks themes, notices patterns, and helps focus the exploration. But there's more space for spontaneity, for following unexpected threads, for seeing where your unconscious leads when given permission.
Dreams as Windows into the Unconscious
While dream analysis therapy isn't the centerpiece it once was in Freudian work, many psychodynamic therapists still find dreams valuable. Dreams often express conflicts, wishes, or feelings that your conscious mind suppresses. Exploring dreams in therapy can illuminate issues you're struggling with, provide metaphorical insight into your inner world, or reveal feelings you haven't fully acknowledged.
This doesn't require complex interpretation or dream dictionaries. Often, the most meaningful understanding comes from your own associations to dream images and the feelings dreams evoke.
Working with What Arises Between You
The relationship with your therapist becomes a laboratory for understanding your relational patterns. How do you approach vulnerability with them? What do you assume about their feelings toward you? How do you handle disagreement or moments when you feel misunderstood? These aren't incidental to the work—they're central to it.
A skilled psychodynamic therapist in Denver will notice their own emotional responses to you and consider what these might reveal about your relational world. This use of countertransference—the therapist's feelings toward the client—provides valuable information about how others might experience you and what dynamics you unconsciously evoke in relationships.
Silence and Space for Reflection
Psychodynamic therapy tends to move more slowly than action-oriented approaches. There's space for silence, for sitting with difficult feelings, for letting understanding emerge gradually rather than rushing to solutions. This can feel uncomfortable if you're used to filling every silence or staying busy to avoid painful emotions. But this slower pace allows deeper material to surface and provides the containment necessary for working with intense feelings.
Linking Past and Present
Throughout your work together, your therapist helps you notice connections between past experiences and current struggles. Perhaps your difficulty asserting yourself with your partner connects to early experiences with a volatile parent. Maybe your anxiety about being judged relates to shaming experiences in childhood. These connections aren't imposed—they emerge through collaborative exploration, and when they resonate, they often create profound shifts in understanding.
Relationship Conflict Therapy: How Psychodynamic Work Transforms Connection
Many people seek relationship conflict therapy in Denver when patterns in their intimate relationships become intolerable. Perhaps you fight about the same issues repeatedly, or emotional distance has grown and you can't bridge it, or you're drawn to partners who ultimately hurt you. Psychodynamic therapy addresses relationship difficulties not by teaching communication skills (though those can be useful) but by exploring what unconscious patterns you bring to relationships.
Your early attachment experiences created an internal working model of relationships—what to expect from others, what you deserve, how safe vulnerability is, how conflict gets handled. These templates operate automatically, influencing whom you're attracted to, how you interpret your partner's behavior, and how you respond to closeness and conflict.
In psychodynamic therapy, you explore these patterns not just intellectually but experientially, as they show up in the therapeutic relationship. If you tend to avoid conflict, that will likely emerge in therapy, and you'll have opportunities to practice addressing disagreement safely. If you're hypervigilant to signs of rejection, you'll notice this with your therapist and can explore its origins and accuracy.
This work transforms relationships because it addresses the root rather than only the symptoms. When you understand why you react so intensely to certain situations, when you recognize old patterns playing out and can choose differently, when you've internalized a more secure relational experience through therapy itself—the changes ripple out into all your relationships.
Common Misconceptions About Psychodynamic Therapy
Despite its evolution, psychodynamic therapy carries lingering misconceptions that might make you hesitate. Let's address these directly.
"It takes forever and costs a fortune."
Traditional psychoanalysis does usually involve multiple sessions per week for years, which might not be practical for many people. Modern psychodynamic therapy in Denver typically involves once-weekly sessions, and while it's not usually brief therapy, it doesn't last decades. The length depends on your goals, the complexity of what you're addressing, and how the work unfolds. Some people work psychodynamically for several months; others engage in longer-term therapy. The investment reflects a commitment to deeper change rather than quick fixes.
"It's all about blaming your parents."
While psychodynamic therapy explores early relationships, this isn't about blaming parents or making excuses. It's about understanding how your development was shaped by your experiences. Most parents did their best with their own histories and limitations. Understanding how their parenting affected you doesn't require vilifying them—it's about recognizing what you internalized so you can make conscious choices now.
"The therapist just sits there silently."
The stereotype of the silent analyst rarely reflects current practice. While psychodynamic therapists do create space for silence and reflection, most are engaged, responsive, and genuinely present. They share observations, ask questions, and participate actively in the therapeutic dialogue. The relationship is collaborative, not one of passive expert and analyzed patient.
"It's not evidence-based."
Research on psychodynamic therapy has grown substantially in recent decades, with numerous studies demonstrating its effectiveness for depression, anxiety, personality difficulties, and trauma. While it was slower to embrace empirical research than some approaches, the evidence base is now solid. Psychodynamic therapy produces lasting changes that often continue after therapy ends, as the self-understanding and internal shifts you develop keep working.
"You have to lie on a couch."
Some psychodynamic therapists offer the option of using a couch, as it can facilitate free association by removing the social dynamics of face-to-face conversation. But most psychodynamic therapy in Denver happens in chairs, sitting across from each other. The couch is optional, not required.
Who Benefits Most from Psychodynamic Therapy?
While psychodynamic therapy can help with many concerns, certain situations and people particularly benefit from this approach.
You might find psychodynamic therapy especially valuable if:
You've tried shorter-term or more structured therapies that helped somewhat but didn't create the depth of change you're seeking. Perhaps you learned coping skills or modified some behaviors, but something essential still feels unresolved.
You're dealing with longstanding patterns—in relationships, in how you relate to yourself, in repeated life difficulties—that you can't seem to change despite understanding them intellectually. Psychodynamic therapy addresses why these patterns persist despite your best efforts.
Your struggles seem connected to your past—childhood experiences, early relationships, or developmental trauma that continues to affect your adult life. Childhood trauma therapy in Denver using a psychodynamic lens helps you understand and integrate these experiences rather than just managing their symptoms.
You experience chronic anxiety or depression that doesn't fully respond to symptom-focused treatment, or that seems to reflect deeper conflicts or relational wounds. Anxiety and depression therapy using psychodynamic approaches addresses the underlying psychological soil in which symptoms grow.
You're interested in self-understanding and personal growth beyond symptom relief. Some people come to therapy not with a specific diagnosis but with questions about who they are, what patterns they're living out, or how to live more authentically. Insight-oriented therapy welcomes these existential and psychological explorations.
You're drawn to exploring your inner world—your dreams, your unconscious patterns, your deeper motivations and conflicts. Psychodynamic therapy offers a space for this kind of psychological curiosity.
You're willing to invest in longer-term work for deeper, more lasting change. If you're looking for quick solutions or brief interventions, other approaches might fit better. But if you're prepared for therapy as a genuine developmental process, psychodynamic work offers profound possibilities.
Finding a Psychodynamic Therapist in Denver: What to Look For
If psychodynamic therapy resonates with you, finding the right therapist matters enormously. The approach depends heavily on the therapeutic relationship and the therapist's skill in working with unconscious material, so credentials and training are important.
Training and Credentials
Look for therapists with specific training in psychodynamic therapy. Many psychologists, social workers, and counselors integrate psychodynamic principles, but depth of training varies. Some therapists have completed psychoanalytic institutes or extensive post-graduate psychodynamic training. Others have incorporated psychodynamic concepts into an integrative practice. During an initial consultation, ask about their training and how they understand psychodynamic work.
In Denver, you'll find therapists who identify primarily as psychodynamic alongside those who integrate psychodynamic understanding with other approaches like EMDR, somatic work, or Internal Family Systems. Neither is inherently better—what matters is finding someone whose training and approach align with your needs.
Therapeutic Fit
Beyond credentials, you need to feel a sense of fit with your therapist. Do you feel comfortable enough to be vulnerable? Do they seem genuinely interested in understanding you? Does their way of being feel authentic rather than artificially professional? The therapeutic relationship is central to psychodynamic work, so these questions matter deeply.
During a consultation, notice how you feel. Are you listened to carefully? Do you feel judged or met with compassion? Does the therapist's way of understanding your struggles resonate? Trust your gut sense while also recognizing that some discomfort is normal when beginning therapy.
Integration with Other Approaches
Some Denver psychodynamic therapists practice "pure" psychodynamic therapy; others integrate psychodynamic understanding with trauma-focused approaches like EMDR, attachment-based interventions, or somatic techniques. If you're dealing with specific trauma or need concrete tools alongside deeper exploration, an integrative approach might serve you well.
Practical Considerations
Consider logistics: location, session fees, insurance acceptance, availability. Psychodynamic therapy typically involves consistent weekly sessions, so finding a schedule that works sustainably matters. Many psychodynamic therapists in Denver don't accept insurance, operating on a private-pay basis, though some do or can provide superbills for out-of-network reimbursement.
Beginning Your Journey: What to Expect in Early Sessions
Starting psychodynamic therapy can feel vulnerable and uncertain. You're opening your inner world to someone new, not knowing exactly where the process will lead. This discomfort is normal, and a good therapist will help you navigate it.
Early sessions typically focus on getting to know each other and beginning to identify patterns. Your therapist will ask about your history, current struggles, and what brings you to therapy. You'll start noticing how you relate to your therapist—what feels easy and what's difficult, what you're comfortable sharing and what you hold back.
Give the process time. Psychodynamic therapy often doesn't produce immediate dramatic shifts. Instead, understanding and change unfold gradually. You might not leave each session feeling dramatically better, but over time, you'll likely notice shifts in how you understand yourself, how you respond to situations, and how you feel in your relationships.
Expect that difficult feelings will arise. Therapy isn't about feeling good in every session; it's about creating space to feel and understand what you've been avoiding or haven't fully processed. A skilled therapist will help you tolerate these feelings without becoming overwhelmed, gradually expanding your capacity to be with the full range of your emotional experience.
Also expect that your feelings about therapy and your therapist will shift. There may be times you feel deeply connected and grateful, and times you feel frustrated, doubtful, or resistant. These fluctuations are part of the process, not signs that something is wrong. Bringing these feelings into the therapy itself—talking about what's happening in the relationship—often becomes some of the most valuable work.
About Integration Psychotherapy LLC
Integration Psychotherapy LLC offers psychodynamic therapy in Denver for adults seeking depth-oriented, transformative work. Founded by Erin McMahon, LCSW, the practice specializes in trauma-informed psychodynamic counseling that honors how past experiences shape present struggles while providing a path toward lasting change.
A Psychodynamic Foundation with Integrative Flexibility
The therapeutic approach at Integration Psychotherapy LLC is grounded in psychodynamic principles—attention to unconscious patterns, exploration of how the past informs the present, understanding of defense mechanisms and internal conflicts, and recognition of the therapeutic relationship as central to healing. This psychodynamic foundation provides the depth necessary for fundamental change, not just symptom management.
At the same time, the practice integrates evidence-based interventions when they serve the work. EMDR helps process traumatic memories that remain unintegrated. Internal Family Systems provides a framework for understanding different parts of self. Somatic techniques address how trauma lives in the body. Attachment theory informs understanding of relational patterns. These approaches are woven into psychodynamic work, used collaboratively when they might support your healing.
This integrative stance means you don't have to choose between depth-oriented exploration and practical trauma treatment, between understanding your past and addressing present symptoms. The work honors complexity, recognizing that healing requires both insight and experience, both understanding and integration.
Working with Trauma, Anxiety, Depression, and Relational Wounds
Integration Psychotherapy LLC specializes in working with adults navigating trauma and its aftermath. Whether you're processing childhood trauma, working through complex developmental experiences, or addressing more recent traumatic events, the practice provides trauma-informed care that respects your pace and honors what your nervous system needs.
The practice also serves those struggling with anxiety and depression, particularly when these difficulties seem rooted in relational experiences, internal conflicts, or unresolved past experiences. Rather than only treating symptoms, the work explores what these struggles might express and addresses the psychological soil in which they grow.
Many clients come for help with relationship patterns—repeated conflicts, difficulty with intimacy, attraction to unavailable partners, or longstanding feelings of loneliness even within relationships. Psychodynamic therapy addresses these patterns by exploring their origins and working with them as they emerge in the therapeutic relationship itself.
A Relational, Collaborative Presence
Erin McMahon, LCSW brings a warm, grounded, and authentic presence to the therapeutic relationship. Rather than maintaining clinical distance, the work involves genuine engagement, with appropriate boundaries that create safety while allowing for real connection. This relational approach aligns with contemporary psychodynamic theory, which recognizes that healing happens through the experience of being truly met, understood, and accompanied in your struggles.
The therapeutic stance is collaborative. You are respected as the expert on your own experience, while the therapist provides skill, attunement, and psychological understanding to support your exploration. Together, you determine what to focus on, what pace feels manageable, and what interventions might serve your healing.
Commitment to Depth and Lasting Change
Integration Psychotherapy LLC is committed to work that creates fundamental, lasting change rather than temporary relief. This means the practice isn't focused on brief, solution-focused interventions (though these have their place). Instead, therapy here is understood as a developmental process—one that unfolds over time, allowing patterns to emerge, new experiences to accumulate, and deeper integration to occur.
This commitment to depth doesn't mean therapy must last years or decades, but it does mean respecting that genuine transformation takes time. How long depends on what you're working with, your goals, and how the process unfolds. Some people engage in psychodynamic therapy for several months; others work longer. What matters is that the time is used well, creating space for real change.
Taking the First Step
If psychodynamic therapy in Denver resonates with what you're seeking, Integration Psychotherapy LLC offers a free consultation to explore whether the practice might be a good fit for your needs. This conversation provides an opportunity to share what brings you to therapy, ask questions about the approach, and get a sense of whether the therapeutic relationship feels right.
Beginning psychodynamic therapy requires courage. You're committing to exploring parts of yourself that might feel vulnerable or uncertain, trusting that understanding and healing are possible. This commitment deserves to be honored with skilled, compassionate care.
To learn more or schedule a consultation, visit integrationpsychotherapyllc.com.
The journey toward deeper self-understanding and lasting change is one worth taking. Integration Psychotherapy LLC would be honored to accompany you on that path.
Sources: John R. Keefe, Kevin S. McCarthy, Ulrike Dinger, Sigal Zilcha-Mano, Jacques P. Barber,
A meta-analytic review of psychodynamic therapies for anxiety disorders,
Clinical Psychology Review,
Volume 34, Issue 4,
2014,
Pages 309-323,
ISSN 0272-7358,
In the spirit of transparency and authenticity, this blog post was constructed with AI assistance for informational, educational, and marketing purposes. Erin does not use AI in her sessions or in her note-taking of sessions.
