Services
Psychotherapy
Psychoanalytic or psychodynamic therapy provides a confidential space where you can discuss problems that are difficult to reveal to others in your life. Each person’s life story and experiences are unique, and Dr. Melnyk tailors the treatment to each person. Dr. Melnyk is familiar with other approaches that focus on behavior, including cognitive behavioral therapy, dialectical behavioral therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy, and motivational interviewing. These techniques combined with the psychoanalytic approach can alleviate suffering and bring about change.
Contemporary Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis allows more time to discover and explore aspects of self that have remained hidden. You will have an opportunity to fully explore repetitive patterns. The task is to look for, understand, and create meaning in one’s life. The relationship with the analyst itself is also reparative. Psychoanalysis has been shown to alleviate emotional suffering, improve awareness and ability to regulate emotions, enhance your capacity to form and maintain close relationships, strengthen decision making capacity and a sense of agency in your life, increase work fulfillment, and help grieve past losses, among other benefits.
Medication
Psychiatric medication is beneficial when there are symptoms of a mood disorder like depression or bipolar disorder or an anxiety disorder like generalized anxiety, panic disorder, social anxiety. Often psychotherapy alone will alleviate symptoms, however when symptoms significantly interfere with functioning medication can be very helpful. Obsessive compulsive disorder and attention deficit disorder also improve with psychiatric medication. Psychiatric treatment, when indicated, often enhances the therapeutic process. Sometimes medication stops working or is no longer needed, and in these cases Dr. Melnyk will help you taper off medicines.
Consultation & Teaching
Kristen Melnyk is a psychoanalytic psychotherapy supervisor for UCLA psychiatry residents and Wright Institute Los Angeles therapy interns. She has taught courses at the New Center for Psychoanalysis spanning topics such as Winnicott, Intersubjectivity, Diversities, Anxiety symptoms, and Ethics. She is the organizer for an APsaA online peer consultation group that has been meeting for over three years. Dr. Melnyk is available for consultation to therapists and psychiatrists in private practice.
