Identity crises often emerge when a person's existing way of life stops working — when beliefs about oneself prove insufficient or alien. Psychoanalytic therapy does not offer quick answers but a space for genuine exploration.

How an identity crisis shows up

An identity crisis often appears when your earlier roles, goals or beliefs stop carrying you. You ask who you are beyond what you have done or what others expected of you, and whether you are living your own life or one that others imagined for you. It can be a feeling of standing at a turning point, or only a quiet restlessness that something is no longer truly yours. Such moments are uncomfortable, but they are also an opportunity for long-postponed questions to finally be asked.

A psychoanalytic view of identity crises

Winnicott described the distinction between a true and a false self — the latter forms when a child learns early to adapt to the environment's expectations at the expense of authentic responses.

In therapy, this means identifying what was adapted to others' expectations and distinguishing it from what is genuinely yours.

Psychotherapy for identity crises in practice

In practice, this often means returning to questions that were abandoned early because there was no room for them.

How I work with identity crises

Therapy is not a place where I tell you who you are. It is a place where you can slowly explore what is truly yours: what you took on because it seemed necessary, and what you have long forgotten or pushed aside. This takes time and a relationship in which it is safe to try being different. Sessions are weekly, in Ljubljana or by video call.

Help with identity crises in Ljubljana

I offer psychoanalytic psychotherapy for identity crises 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 you no longer know who you are, what you want or where you belong, psychotherapy can offer a space to genuinely explore who you are.

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

Frequently asked questions about identity crises

Does psychotherapy help with identity crises?

Psychoanalytic psychotherapy for identity crises 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 identity crises 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.

Is uncertainty about oneself normal?

Uncertainty about who we are and what we want is common at turning points and is not a problem in itself. It becomes hard when it lasts a long time or holds you back. Then psychotherapy can be a space to explore who you are.