Sometimes people come to therapy because something has become difficult to carry alone. At other times, they have been managing for years. They work, maintain relationships, and attend to what others need, yet something in their own life remains troubling. The same questions return, even when circumstances change.
You may have spoken about these difficulties before. You may understand something about where they began and still find yourself caught in them. Looking for long-term psychotherapy in Melbourne can begin here: with a wish to give these experiences time and a place in which they can be spoken and worked through session by session.
What keeps returning
A relationship ends, and another begins, but a familiar difficulty emerges. You find yourself wanting closeness and becoming uneasy when someone comes close. You may repeatedly feel overlooked, criticised, or responsible for keeping everything together. Perhaps you achieve what you thought you wanted and find that the dissatisfaction remains.
For some people, the difficulty takes the form of anxiety, low mood, persistent self-doubt, or thoughts that will not settle. For others, there is no clear name for it. There is a sense of being caught, or of living according to expectations that no longer seem to belong to them.
These are things we can begin to speak about in therapy. What matters is how they occur in your life, the words you use for them, and the questions they raise for you.
Giving the work time
Long-term psychotherapy allows for ongoing work across a period that is discussed as treatment develops. You do not need to know at the beginning everything you wish to address, or how long you will want to continue.
What brings someone to the first appointment may open onto other questions. A difficulty at work might lead to speaking about authority, recognition, or the impossibility of saying no. Grief may bring questions about love and the place someone occupied in your life. An apparently recent problem may have connections with experiences that have remained difficult to speak about.
In my practice, there is room to follow these connections and to return to something when it emerges differently. This requires time, regular meetings, and your participation in the work. The direction of treatment is considered through what takes place in the sessions.
How I work
I am Bita Riazati, a registered psychologist and Lacanian psychoanalyst. I offer psychotherapy in Melbourne, with consulting rooms in Hawthorn and Belgrave. My work is informed by psychoanalysis and an attention to each person’s particular history, speech, and way of relating to others.
In sessions, I listen carefully to what you say. We may attend to a phrase that returns, a contradiction, a memory, or something that surprises you as you speak. What seems incidental can become important. There is also room for uncertainty, including the times when you do not know what you feel or what you want.
You can begin with whatever is occupying you. There is no need to prepare a polished account or make your experience sound more serious than it feels. The work develops through your speaking and our encounters in the sessions.
Understanding something and living it differently
People sometimes arrive saying, “I know why I do this, but I keep doing it.” Having an explanation can leave further questions about why a particular situation continues to hold such a place in your life.
We can work with that gap. What happens at the moment you agree to something you do not want? What makes another person’s disappointment so difficult to bear? What is at stake when you feel you must get everything right?
These questions have different implications for each person. I approach them through your experience, without assuming in advance what the answer should be. Your own account, including where it changes or becomes uncertain, matters to the work.
Language and the place you speak from
I work in English and Persian with people from diverse cultural backgrounds. You may wish to speak about migration, family expectations, belonging, or the experience of making a life across different places and languages.
These questions can also involve what has been left behind, what you wish to preserve, and what you want to do differently. Sessions offer a place to explore how these matters enter your life and relationships, in the language we agree to work in together.
Beginning long-term psychotherapy in Melbourne
The initial sessions are an opportunity to speak about what has brought you, ask questions, and consider whether we can work together. We discuss practical arrangements, including fees, frequency, and appointment times. Ongoing therapy involves making a regular place for the sessions within your life.
Questions about continuing, changing the arrangements, or ending therapy can also be brought into the sessions. They are part of the work we can discuss, alongside what you are finding difficult and what you notice changing in your life.
Appointments are available in person in Hawthorn and Belgrave, with online sessions by prior arrangement. The suitability of online work can be discussed when you enquire.