Psychoanalysis from the Inside Out: Developing and Sustaining an Analytic Identity and Practice

In the face of considerable scepticism over the function and effectiveness of psychoanalysis, Lena Ehrlich demonstrates how analysis is unique in its potential to transform patients at an emotionally cellular level by helping them access and process long-standing conflicts and traumatic experiences.

Using detailed clinical vignettes, the author illustrates that when analysts practice from the inside out, i.e. consider that external obstacles to initiating and deepening an analysis inevitably reflect analysts’ fears of their internal world and of intimacy, they become better able to speak to patients’ long-term suffering.

This book, free from psychoanalytic jargon, stands out in its ability to help readers feel more effective, confident, and optimistic about practicing psychoanalysis by providing insights and recommendations about beginning and deepening analysis and sustaining oneself as an analyst over time. It will appeal to both beginners and experienced analysts, as well as supervisors, educators, and those interested in the workings of their minds and in building more intimate relationships.

Lena Theodorou Ehrlich is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute, and a Clinical Supervisor in the Department of Psychiatry, University of Michigan Medical School. In addition to maintaining a lively practice of psychoanalysis, psychotherapy and supervision for 30 years, she is widely recognized for her original contributions to the literature on beginning and deepening analysis and building and maintaining a psychoanalytic practice. Born and raised in Greece, she is a trilingual immigrant, a wife, mother, and avid traveler.