Only the personal can heal the personal – F.W.J. Schelling
Maybe you've wondered: Does anyone still do old-school talk therapy like you see in the movies? You know, like Good Will Hunting, or Ordinary People—something like that? Does that still exist?
Maybe you're tired of treating yourself like a machine that is "not functioning" or a lab rat who needs "coping mechanisms" or "tools"—things which, as an exasperated patient astutely pointed out to one of us, can easily be searched online and explained by AI.
Maybe the soul matters to you.
In America, therapy is often treated like a technology to be patented—a situation symptomatic of a soulless system alienated from its source. Can a soulless method heal souls? At least the mainstream is honest about not believing in the soul, when they call it "Behavioral Health" or "Mental Health.”
Whatever happened to the psyche (the Greek word for soul)?
Or psychoanalysis?
Or regular old psychodynamic therapy?
Psychodynamic therapy has roots. When you watch a film like Good Will Hunting, you're witnessing a cinematic distillation of a quasi-spiritual tradition that has developed over hundreds of years.
We trace these roots back to Existentialism, Romanticism, and Dynamic Psychiatry of the 19th century. The same generations that observed the rise of industrialization, globalization, and modernization also saw—and expressed poetically and philosophically—the spiritual effects this brave new world would have on human beings. And it is within this crisis, and out of this fertile soil, that psychodynamic therapies, theories, and lineages first emerged.
Cascadia Psychodynamic Training Clinic is carrying this torch consciously and gratefully forward into the 21st century—this torch, which is the hidden heart of modern psychology itself. We are seeking to transmit a living, expanding psychodynamic lineage that not only has deep roots in the origins of modernity, but also weaves together the Object Relations, Depth, and Existential traditions of the 20th century. We want to be a beacon of psychodynamic culture.
Therefore, our mission is to train new therapists in the art of the psychodynamic craft. Therapists in training need experience working with patients who may be frustrated with the contemporary mental health landscape, or who simply want to try something new—and simultaneously, something very old. We offer low-cost sliding scale ($40-$80) appointments with Master's level intern therapists, serving the under-insured.
Why see a therapist in training? Psychoanalyst Harry Guntrip wrote: "Good therapists are born not made, and they make the best use of training." We at Cascadia absolutely believe in good and full training, but we are investing in people who already have what it takes to be good therapists. Psychotherapy is a calling, and life itself has prepared each of them for the sacred work of healing the modern soul—they are now doing the due diligence to acquire formal credentials. Each of our intern and associate therapists is ready and equipped to walk with you into any painful or dark corner of your life. No clichés, no tools, no medicalized psychobabble.
Two humans talking about real life—past, present, and future—
Soul to soul.