Following my post the other day, I’m reminded how complex—and often underestimated—change really is. We change many times in life, in many ways.
Change, broadly speaking
Change is multifaceted and not always “for the better” or lasting. It can be sparked by outside influence, deep realization, rupture, or slow maturation. In broad terms, it can arise from:
- Imitation and suggestion: we pick up values and behaviors from our surroundings.
- Insight and crisis: realizations—or existential doubt—reorder priorities.
- Trauma and fear: shocks and avoidance reshape emotion and action.
- Bond and pressure: relationships and social norms pull us to adjust.
- Learning and biology: experience, age, and chemistry move us over time.
But what do we mean by change, in analysis?
First things first: the hypothesis of the unconscious
Starting an analysis requires a hypothesis: that there is an unconscious—something in us that speaks and steers without our awareness. Sigmund Freud founded psychoanalysis by making this very supposition. Each analysis, in a sense, repeats that history: it starts from a supposition about the unconscious and, through the work, arrives at encountering it as one’s own discovery. To truly begin, one must make this hypothesis about oneself: that there is a part one does not fully know, and that does not always go where one intends.
Taking this seriously does not reduce freedom; it expands it, by making available to thought what would otherwise move us beneath awareness. From here, discourse moves from certainty to fertile doubt—and the symptom can become a messenger rather than an enemy.
In analysis
In analysis, change happens when certain preliminaries are in place. It’s like fruit: it falls when it’s ripe. You don’t force it; you tend the soil. Those preliminaries involve the shift from complaint to curiosity—from blaming circumstances to questioning one’s position and discourse.
A clinical example
A patient kept saying he was being ignored at work. Over time, he admitted he didn’t know how to handle relationships and began to entertain a hypothesis: that feeling excluded was safer than risking awkwardness. This paradox became visible only when he suspended his certainties about himself and others.
There are many ways to put this—and many possible catalysts for change. Here are a few that came to mind:
- The work starts when you stop reacting to what you feel and start speaking it.
- Change in analysis begins when you stop explaining and start questioning your beliefs.
- When you simply start speaking, without worrying about having something to say.
- The turn comes when you suspend knowing and ask: What if I’m wrong?
- From defensiveness to inquiry: letting discomfort become material for analysis, not a reason to withdraw.
- The turn may happen when you stop talking about others and start talking about yourself.
- Change may happen when you question the script you keep enacting—even as the stage changes.
- From “What happened this week?” to “What comes to mind now?”; from listing “facts” to following the unconscious and free associations.
- The question isn’t “Who is to blame?” but “What do I repeat?”
- When you stop hunting for solutions and instead ask: “How did I get here?”
- When you ask: What gain—conscious or not—do I get by staying here?
- Change isn’t becoming “good”; it’s recognizing the underlying logic of your choices.
- The turning point comes when the symptom becomes a messenger, not an enemy.
- Not crafting a coherent, polished narrative, but probing the blanks, contradictions, and paradoxes in your story.
- Stepping out of the victim role: recognizing you’re not only a passive observer of what happens, but also an active participant.
- From expecting answers from others to attempting an answer in the first person.
- From “I’m surrounded by idiots” to “What blind spot might be mine?”
- Realizing you’re in the desert: no one else as guarantor of truth, comfort, or blame.
How else might you put it?