Depth Psychotherapy is a modality that seeks to explore the inner workings of who we are and understanding an unconscious world that drives how and why we respond to our outer world. You are looking to engage in Depth Psychotherapy if you are curious about not just a single concern but an exploration of who you are consciously and unconsciously. You might sense that something is “off” with how you are responding or interacting with yourself and others. An exploration of the unconscious allows you to understand where your focus lies, what you ascribe meaning to, and what compels you to action. Psychotherapy engages our psyche through the understanding of archetypes and complexes while exploring through fantasy, dreams, personal association, symptoms, and meaningful coincidences. Our clients who are drawn to this approach may find themselves engaged in a lengthier approach. That leads to increases in self-awareness, a deeper understanding of an authentic self, and clarity that aids in deliberate and purposeful choices leading to improvements in confidence and fulfillment.
How Does Depth Psychotherapy Work?
When you are engaging in Depth work, you are attempting to understand what fuels how you think, feel, and act, which begins with understanding archetypes.
Why Archetypes?
Archetypes are instinctual energies that constellate around certain symbols such as “Hero,” “Mother,” “Child,” “Entertainer,” “Trickster,” and many more. Every image and symbol we use connects to an archetype. These archetypes reside within not just our unconscious, but a collective unconscious. Archetypes are identifiable to everyone, although the symbols we use to represent them change over time and vary person to person. Long ago, we would look at the hero archetype through tales of King Arthur. However, today, we could look at Jon Snow or Iron Man to describe that same archetype. Understanding these symbols aids us in understanding our motivations and can increase our awareness leading to change.
Complexes
While we understand these characters through the symbols they represent, the story is not complete without all the other characters guiding the story to its conclusion. A balance is struck when each character performs their role; however, we can become possessed by an archetype and feel enslaved to it, forming a complex. These complexes compel us into specific roles, attitudes, or responses, which may foster distress and provide friction within our internal desires or external connectedness. This represents that debilitating or hopeless feeling when we are aware of behavior that hurts us; however, feel unable to change course.
Shadow Work
Complexes can be elusive as they reside within our shadow. This entity houses the aspects of ourselves that we are unable to manage or attend to. Imagine Scar from The Lion King; we are aware immediately that he has villainous energy. However, we witness projected overconfidence from Mufasa, resulting in this shadowy figure consuming the king. It’s not a coincidence that Scar is comfortable entering the shadow space that Mufasa encourages Simba to avoid. Items left within our shadow plot to consume us and drive the imbalance we witness in the Pride Lands once Scar is king. Once housed within the shadow, complexes gain energy from our naivety and ignorance and become autonomous, leaving very few traces of their existence. Cultivating those experiences where we are unable to express the motivations for our actions, but instead only the dread or gunk we feel.
How Depth Psychotherapy Works
Through the engagement of depth therapy, we tug on strands within our consciousness that allows us to catch glimpses at our unconscious make-up. A few ways that a client can begin to tug on these strands is through explorations of their fantasies, dreams, or personal associations with the world around them. Delving into the understanding of archetypes and personal complexes increases self-awareness and therefore allows us to determine motivations and costs for change. This type of therapeutic journey is centered around aiding you through their personal journey, typically resulting in lasting changes. You can expect to cultivate confidence and deliberateness throughout their process leading to a higher sense of authenticity. You will be able to connect to your archetypal energies and gain control over the complexes that have formed. Instead of allowing Scar to amass power and support, you will create an infrastructure to alert you of his movement.
Obstacles
Due to depth therapy’s unstructured nature, clients can expect healing to feel as if they are navigating in the dark while waiting for their eyes to adjust. We may begin moving in one direction, finding that we are turned around or in a different space altogether. This journey is less focused on a destination but instead, focused on cultivating the confidence to wander and explore. While it sounds aimless, the hope is to cultivate confidence in clients to engage within themselves and to have the resilience to navigate how their internal world affects and influences their external one. This is a change that fosters lasting effects and teaches clients to be introspective instead of reliant on tools or prescribed strategies. To quote an old saying, “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.”
Length
It can feel daunting entering a therapeutic experience that isn’t structured or selling you on a specific outcome. However, that is because therapy is a very personal journey, and reassociating to the wounds that spark complexes isn’t a one size fits all. Just because we begin to understand an issue, does not mean we are equipped to overcome the hurdle. Therapy helps to reinforce the understanding we begin to form while also being a source of guidance, nurturing, and validation to continue to push.
Cost
Interacting with length, the cost associated with long term treatment is a common deterrent of engaging in services. Therapy is an investment, much like how an investment at the gym promotes health consciousness. Unlike the gym, which may be a lifelong subscription, therapy is a class we take for the duration we need it. It can be a class we take to learn how to be more attuned to our mental health needs, or to gain guidance in exploration, or even support while we navigate change. The frequency that you invest or engage with therapy is flexible and can be adapted to meet your needs and restrictions.
Confronting Self
Outside of logistics, an overwhelming aspect of depth therapy is understanding our shadow and the complexes it houses. No one wants to hear that their actions perpetuate or foster the mental health concerns with which we present. However, this personal accountability is what gives us access to controlling what we do with the knowledge and insights we cultivate.
Look Deeper In Yourself
If you are ready to start understanding archetypes, complexes, and doing shadow work, now is the time to contact us. Below are the therapists who offer Depth work and how to book with them.
Therapist That Offer Depth Psychotherapy
Contact us today by calling or texting 702-518-1546, email, or booking a session by hitting the appointment request button. We can normally get you into a session within 24 or 48 hours.
We offer both online therapy (learn more about online therapy here) and in-person therapy at our Las Vegas office. Our office is located in West Las Vegas right off the 95 & Rainbow. Our address is 222 S. Rainbow Boulevard | Suites 113-114 |Las Vegas NV 89145