Anxiety, panic attacks, fears, trembling, anger, guilt, shame — these feelings often have unconscious origins that conscious reasoning alone cannot reach. Psychoanalytic work with anxiety aims not only to relieve symptoms but to understand where the anxiety originates.

How anxiety shows up

Anxiety has many faces: a racing heart, a tight stomach, circling thoughts, a sense of approaching danger that cannot be named. It can arrive suddenly as a panic attack, or as a constant tension that accompanies you day after day. Many people therefore avoid places, people or feelings, which brings relief in the short term but narrows life in the long term. If anxiety keeps returning, it does not mean you managed it badly, but that its message has not yet been understood.

A psychoanalytic view of anxiety and panic attacks

Freud understood anxiety as a signal — a warning that something repressed is approaching consciousness. A panic attack, in this sense, is a moment when defences briefly fail and the body reacts before the mind can name what is happening.

Therapy is not only about calming techniques, but about understanding what the psyche is actually protecting you from. Once this becomes clearer, anxiety often loses some of its intensity.

Psychotherapy for anxiety and panic attacks in practice

In practice, this means exploring when anxiety first appeared in this form and what was happening in your life at the time.

How I work with anxiety and panic attacks

With anxiety I am not only looking for a way to ease it, but also for what was happening when it first appeared, and what is approaching in you when it speaks up today. Often it is something you do not yet dare to truly feel or say. When it becomes possible to think and say it, anxiety often loses part of its power. Therapy is weekly, in Ljubljana or online.

Psychotherapy for anxiety and help with panic attacks in Ljubljana

I offer psychoanalytic psychotherapy for anxiety and panic attacks in Ljubljana or online (by video call). At the beginning we agree on three introductory sessions (45–50 minutes each), in which you see how I work and whether psychoanalytic psychotherapy suits you. After that we agree on regular weekly sessions.

If anxiety, panic attacks or fears have been with you for a long time, keep returning or limit you in everyday life, psychotherapy can offer a space where we understand together where they come from and what they are telling you.

More about how psychotherapy works and how to book an appointment.

Frequently asked questions about anxiety and panic attacks

Does psychotherapy help with anxiety and panic attacks?

Psychoanalytic psychotherapy for anxiety and panic attacks does not look only for a way to ease the difficulty, but for an understanding of what it is communicating. I work with the causes of distress and not only with the distress as expressed. Once we find the cause, and during the psychotherapeutic process, symptoms often ease or disappear.

How long does psychotherapy for anxiety and panic attacks take?

Duration is individual and depends on the therapeutic goal and on how long the difficulties have been present. Psychoanalytic psychotherapy can last from a few months to a few years. One session lasts 45 to 50 minutes; usually once a week, and by arrangement sometimes several times a week.

Do I need to know where my anxiety comes from?

No. You often do not know the cause at the beginning, because it is part of the unconscious. You do not need to have already put into words what is troubling you. Together we explore it through what comes to your mind and through the patterns that show up in our relationship.