Dr. Benjamin Brent, MD

As a clinician, I bring a psychoanalytically-informed approach to helping people with symptom relief, emotional pain, and interpersonal growth. This involves a focus on the role of emotions in a person’s mental life, a consideration of how psychological defences may complicate achieving greater personal fulfillment, and exploration of how the relationship that unfolds between me and the patient may shed light on problematic interpersonal patterns.

For most people, I find initially, at a minimum, a weekly treatment is necessary for a meaningful therapeutic process to develop and resonate in a person’s life. In some cases, based on an individual’s level of need, complexity of care, life circumstances, and interest, I may recommend a more frequent treatment (i.e., two or three sessions weekly). Finally, for some people who have been struggling with chronic interpersonal problems and unresolved emotional distress starting early in life, a psychoanalytic treatment may be most effective. Psychoanalysis is an intensive (i.e., 3-4 times per week) form of therapy. A central feature of psychoanalysis is the attempt to bring into a person’s consciousness unreflected upon (“unconscious”) wishes, feelings, thoughts, & fantasies that may be undermining the achievement of what Freud proposed to be the ultimate goal of therapy — the ability to work and love.

I integrate psychiatric medications in the therapeutic work whenever appropriate for reducing emotional suffering, enhancing the capacity for reflection on painful experiences, and facilitating relational understanding.

Importantly, because my work is focused on helping people enhance and develop self-reflection in the service of greater personal fulfillment and functioning, I do not prescribe psychiatric medications for people unless they are also engaged in a psychotherapeutic process with me.