The comment came and went in under four seconds — something about having someone double-check the deck before it went to the board, said mid-meeting, aimed at no one in particular, forgotten by everyone in the room roughly the moment the conversation moved to the next slide. Everyone, that is, except the person who had built the deck, who carried it out of the conference room, through the rest of the afternoon, into the parking garage, and home, where it was still being turned over at eleven that night, replayed from four or five different angles, each one somehow worse than the last.
By Saturday it had migrated into an entirely unrelated argument about weekend plans — one that had nothing to do with any deck, board, or comment, though it was clearly, on some level, about exactly that.
Heinz Kohut, who founded the school of psychoanalytic thought known as self psychology, spent much of his career studying what happens to a sense of self that depends on being adequately mirrored — seen, reflected, and affirmed by the people around it — when that mirroring falls even briefly short. Kohut called the resulting wound a narcissistic injury — a term that has little to do with grandiosity and everything to do with a sense of self fragile enough that an offhand slight can register with a force wildly out of proportion to what was actually said. The comment about the deck wasn't really about the deck — it landed on whatever in the self was already waiting, unmirrored, for exactly that kind of confirmation.
From outside the reaction, the size of it looks bewildering — a stray comment in a meeting nobody else remembers, producing an entire weekend of static. From inside it, the math is different. The comment didn't create the vulnerability; it located one that was already there, tuned to a particular frequency long before this week's meeting existed. What actually gets injured in these moments is rarely the immediate situation — it's an older, unfinished need for a kind of steady, accurate mirroring that may not have been reliably available the first time it mattered, one that a passing comment from a boss or colleague can reach without either of them knowing they've touched it.
The people I work with in Connecticut — in West Hartford, Simsbury, and Avon, as well as across Fairfield County — often arrive with a version of the same experience: a reaction that felt far larger than the moment could account for, and no good explanation for why. Psychodynamic therapy isn't really about shrinking the reaction, or teaching someone not to mind a stray comment so much — it's about what the comment found already waiting there, and how long that particular wound has been running its own private schedule, unattended.
The deck went out fine the following Monday, more or less unchanged. The comment about it did not stay contained to the meeting where it was made.
I work with adults across Connecticut — including West Hartford, Simsbury, Avon, and Fairfield County — through telehealth sessions. Prospective clients are welcome to reach out at jonathanwalsh@hushmail.com or to request a complimentary 15-minute consultation through this site.
Frequently Asked Questions about Psychodynamic Therapy
What is psychodynamic therapy?
Psychodynamic therapy explores how early relationships and unconscious patterns shape the way we think, feel, and behave in the present. It focuses less on specific symptoms and more on understanding the deeper dynamics that keep them in place.
What does psychodynamic therapy help with?
It is well-suited for recurring relationship patterns, persistent feelings of stuckness, anxiety, depression, and the gap between knowing what you want to change and actually changing it.
How is psychodynamic therapy different from CBT?
CBT works directly on thoughts and behaviors in the present. Psychodynamic therapy uses the lens of the past to understand how patterns move in the present, treating insight into their origins as part of what makes change possible.
Who is a good fit for psychodynamic therapy?
It tends to work well for people who have tried other approaches and remain stuck, or who are drawn to understanding themselves at a deeper level rather than managing symptoms alone.
Jonathan Walsh, LMHC, LCMHC, LPC is a licensed therapist offering psychodynamic therapy via telehealth in Connecticut and several other states. He is a member of the New England Center for Existential Therapy and has completed core training at the Institute for Existential-Psychoanalytic Therapy. Learn more about Jonathan.