Emotion-Focused Therapy for Couples (EFT-C) is an evidence-based approach that helps partners or spouses look at emotional patterns based on attachment needs and past relationship experiences to create a more secure bond. Although this approach is usually short-term, EFT-C can be adapted or combined with other approaches for longer-term therapy, especially within the context of psychodynamic therapy.

Attachment-based psychodynamic psychotherapy for couples explores how early attachment experiences with parents and caregivers influence emotional patterns and relational dynamics in adulthood. This approach can help couples build a more secure and understanding bond as it works to uncover and address roots of insecurity, feelings of disconnect, and conflict.

Object Relations Theory explores how early childhood relationships influence the way individuals relate to their partners or spouses in adulthood, which is one of the main approaches of couples psychodynamic psychotherapy. This approach can help couples better understand and adapt the emotional dynamics that influence their current relationship by looking into unconscious patterns formed through early attachments.

Bowenian Family Systems Therapy is a transgenerational approach that helps couples understand how their family-of-origin dynamics influence present patterns of communication, conflict, and emotional connection. It helps support couples in building healthier, more intentional, and emotionally safe partnerships by looking at self-differentiation and inherited relationship patterns from the past.

Existential psychoanalysis is a philosophical approach to psychotherapy that challenges the scientific and deterministic assumptions of traditional psychology by focusing on human existence, intentionality, and the lived experience of being part of the world. It looks to understanding individuals by exploring the meanings, decisions, and experiences that influence one’s reality rather than just applying universal theories and instinctual drives.

Cultural psychoanalysis is a socially conscious branch of psychodynamic theory that looks at how identity, history, and systemic factors such as racism, colonialism, and gender norms influence the unconscious mind and the therapeutic relationship. It combines personal experience with broader cultural contexts and therefore offers a more inclusive and nuanced understanding of the self and the healing process.

Attachment styles are relationship patterns that develop in early childhood based on parent or caregiver responsiveness and continue to influence how we form and maintain adult relationships. Understanding the styles of secure, anxious, avoidant, and disorganized attachment can provide insights into our emotional needs and challenges in relationships.

Bionian psychoanalysis is an approach within psychodynamic psychotherapy that deeply looks at how the mind develops the capacity to think under emotional pressure, which emphasizes the therapeutic relationship as a place to create meaning with unprocessed emotions. As it is based on Kleinian theory, it is particularly relevant for working with vulnerable mental states, trauma, and psychotic processes through concepts including container-contained, projective identification, and emotional truth.

Neo-Freudian psychology builds off of Freud’s original psychoanalytic theory while at the same time emphasizing social, cultural, and relational influences instead of sexual drives. Many Neo-Freudian theorists have reshaped our understanding of personality and development and have laid the foundation for modern psychodynamic practices that we use often today.

Adlerian Psychology, or Individual Psychology, is a psychodynamic approach developed by Alfred Adler that focuses on the unity of the individual, the importance of social connections, and the drive for self-improvement. This approach is based on the belief that behaviour is shaped by both internal experiences and social context, with a particular emphasis on feelings of inferiority.

Neuropsychoanalysis is an interdisciplinary field that brings together neuroscience and psychoanalysis, and provides a deeper understanding of how the unconscious mind, emotional experiences, and brain function are connected. It provides insight into the biological factors of subjectivity by integrating brain research with psychoanalytic theory and helps us explore the mind both biologically and psychologically.

Relational psychoanalysis is a contemporary psychodynamic framework that focuses on the role of relational dynamics, including past and present as well as internal and external, in shaping the psyche. It revolves around the therapeutic relationship, the multiplicity of self, and the therapist’s subjective engagement.

Interpersonal psychoanalysis is a psychodynamic approach developed by Harry Stack Sullivan that focuses on the role of early and ongoing relationships in shaping the sense of self and emotional well-being. This therapy emphasizes that psychological distress usually is as a result of relational patterns and interpersonal conflicts.

Jungian psychology, or analytical psychology, is a depth-oriented approach within the psychodynamic framework that focuses on the psyche’s natural drive toward wholeness through integrating unconscious elements, archetypal patterns, and symbolic meaning. Developed by Carl Jung, it explores inner transformation through concepts such as individuation, the Self, shadow, dream analysis, and typology.

Lacanian psychoanalysis is a unique approach within the psychodynamic framework that explores how language, desire, and unconscious processes shape subjectivity, with a focus on the symbolic structures that influence identity and mental suffering. It examines how individuals relate to the Other, navigate the Imaginary, Symbolic, and Real, and uncover the unconscious roots of their symptoms through speech.

Self psychology, developed by Heinz Kohut in the 1970s, is a psychodynamic school of thought that focuses on the development, cohesion, and repair of the self through empathic relationships and the fulfillment of unmet developmental needs. It emphasizes the role of early parenting or caregiving, selfobject functions, and therapeutic empathy in shaping mental health and treating narcissistic and identity-related difficulties.

Object Relations Theory emphasizes how early relationships, especially with early caregivers are internalized as mental and emotional “objects” that shape an individual’s sense of self, relational patterns, and psychological development throughout life. These object representations form the unconscious foundation for how individuals experience themselves and others, usually resurfacing in adult relationships and through therapy itself.

Ego psychology is a psychoanalytic school of thought that focuses on the role of the ego in regulating impulses, planning, and adapting to the world on the outside, while demonstrating the ego's conflict-free functions and independent energy. It expands beyond classical psychoanalysis and instead, integrates biological, psychological, and sociocultural influences to provide a more comprehensive understanding of human development and functioning.

Psychodynamic psychotherapy provides fathers a supportive and non-judgemental space to explore the often unspoken emotional challenges of fatherhood by uncovering unconscious patterns shaped by past experiences. These challenges can include an expectation to provide, identity shifts, relationship difficulties, and more. Through this process, fathers can strengthen their emotional well-being, deepen connections, and reframe what it means to show up for themselves and their families.

Psychodynamic psychotherapy offers compassionate support for maternal mental health by addressing complex emotions that come with pregnancy, fertility challenges, postpartum adjustment, and reproductive grief, while also helping mothers navigate the ongoing mental load, identity shifts, and relationship challenges that extend beyond the early parenting years. This approach helps explore unconscious patterns and unprocessed emotions, leading to resilience, emotional healing, and a deeper connection to oneself and others.