Research

The central promise of psychotherapy is that a person can learn to understand themselves in a new way. But how does this happen? Why can some things be examined clearly while others remain in a blind spot? And what does the therapist actually do in those decisive moments when something shifts?

My doctoral research at the University of Helsinki investigates the development of a new kind of agency in psychotherapy and psychoanalysis. How does a person who has been stuck in relation to a difficult experience begin to find new room to move? This change is born in a relationship that enables one to see more and to grasp possibilities that were not available before.

The development of self-observation and agency is the shared goal of all forms of psychotherapy, though the means vary. Research shows that all psychotherapies work — yet the differences between therapists are large. My research focuses precisely on those micro-moments of change where new possibilities are negotiated: where a person reaches for something new, what becomes an obstacle to it — and how the very obstacle can become a vehicle for change. In particular, I study how the relationship to difficult experiences such as shame, sexuality, and vulnerability can transform: how a person moves from helplessness toward a more active relationship with their own vulnerability. And it is precisely this new kind of agency that makes the end of therapy not an ending but a beginning — the person gains access to their own vitality, relationships, and what matters most to them in a fundamentally new way.