Online Psychoanalysis in Washington, DC

Psychoanalysis is intensive talking therapy — usually three or more sessions a week — for difficulties that keep coming back. Instead of managing a symptom, it works out why the pattern repeats. I am a board-certified psychoanalyst and have practiced, taught, and written about this work for over fifty years. All sessions are held online by secure video.

I work with adults in Washington, DC and, through PsyPact, in participating PSYPACT jurisdictions. Most of them have already had therapy. Something helped for a while, and then the same mood, the same argument, or the same impasse came back. That is not a failure of effort on their part. It usually means the treatment addressed the surface and left the reason underneath it untouched.

“Understanding why you feel what you feel is the beginning of lasting change.”

Is analysis right for you?

Long-standing patterns that repeat despite insight
Difficulties that returned after previous therapy
A wish to understand yourself, not only feel better
Willingness to meet several times per week
A free 15-minute consultation settles the question

The problem

When symptom relief keeps wearing off

Recurring difficulty has a logic to it. The pattern that keeps reasserting itself — in mood, in relationships, at work — was usually formed early and now runs largely outside awareness. Because it is not in awareness, insight alone does not dissolve it, which is why people often understand their problem perfectly well and remain stuck inside it.

It tends to look ordinary from outside. Partners who turn out, again, to be the wrong ones. Achievement that never quite registers as achievement. Anger that arrives out of proportion to what provoked it. A depression that lifts and returns on its own schedule. Each of these has reasons, and the reasons are rarely the ones a person would nominate first.

Short-term treatment can quiet the symptom without ever reaching what produces it. Relief that comes that way is real, but it often has a shelf life — which is what brings a good many people to analysis after everything else.

The method

How psychoanalysis works

Psychoanalysis reaches material that briefer treatment cannot, by raising frequency and lowering the pressure to perform. Meeting several times a week, you say what comes to mind without editing it into a report. Over months, the pattern stops being something you describe to me and starts happening between us — where it can be examined while it is live.

Three things do most of the work. Free association — speaking without deciding first what is relevant — lets connections surface that deliberate reflection would have filtered out. Dreams give a route to material that has no words yet. And the relationship that develops between patient and analyst reproduces, in miniature and in safety, the very patterns that cause trouble elsewhere, which is what makes them available to change rather than merely to discuss.

None of this is mysterious in practice. It is two people talking, several times a week, for a long time, with one of them trained to listen for what is underneath the words — including the difficulty finding them.

The process

What working together looks like

A free 15-minute consultation
You tell me what brings you. I tell you honestly whether I think analysis is the right instrument for it. If it is not, I will say so, and help you find what is.
Two or three consultation sessions
No commitment yet. We look at the difficulty together, in more depth than a phone call allows, and decide jointly whether to begin.
Setting the frame
We agree on frequency and fixed session times. The regularity is not administrative — the reliability of the frame is part of what makes the deeper work possible.
The analytic work
Free association, dreams, and what develops between us. Symptom relief often arrives in this period, well before the characterological change does.
Working through, and ending
Understanding something once is not the same as being free of it. The final phase is repetition in a new key, and the ending is decided together — not by a session count set in advance.

Expected results

What analysis can and cannot promise

Analysis does not come with a timeline, and anyone offering you one is guessing. What it offers instead is a different kind of change: not a symptom successfully managed, but a pattern that has lost its grip. In my experience relief that arrives this way tends to hold after treatment ends, because the reason for the difficulty has been addressed rather than the difficulty alone.

Reactions become legible

Feelings that used to arrive from nowhere start to have a history and a trigger you can see coming.

Choices stop feeling compelled

In relationships and at work, the same decision stops presenting itself as the only one available.

Relief that persists

Change that comes from the root tends to outlast the treatment, rather than fading once sessions stop.

Symptoms ease earlier

Anxiety and mood usually improve well before the deeper characterological work is finished.

An honest caveat: analysis is a substantial commitment of time and money, and it is not the right instrument for everyone. For a great many people, once- or twice-weekly psychoanalytic psychotherapy does the job better. That is exactly what the free consultation is for.

Your analyst

About Dr. John J. Hartman

Dr. John J. Hartman, board-certified psychoanalyst providing online psychoanalysis in Washington, DC

I have practiced psychoanalysis for over fifty years, and have spent much of that time teaching it — at UCLA, Michigan, and the University of South Florida, where I am currently Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry. As a Training and Supervising Psychoanalyst at the Florida Psychoanalytic Center, I am one of the analysts responsible for training other analysts.

A.B. Harvard College, magna cum laude with highest honors, Social Relations
Ph.D. University of Michigan, Clinical Psychology
Certificate Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute
FABP Board-certified psychoanalyst, American Board of Psychoanalysis
Training & Supervising Analyst Florida Psychoanalytic Center
Licensed Washington, DC (PSY200001229) · Florida · Michigan
PsyPact Telehealth authorized in participating PSYPACT jurisdictions, including Maryland and Virginia

Full credentials and appointments · scholarship and publications

Fees

What psychoanalysis costs

First 15-minute consultation	Free
Individual session (50 minutes)	$325

A sliding scale is available — ask whether you may be eligible. Payment by cash, check, Venmo, Zelle, or wire. I do not bill insurance, but if your plan covers out-of-network mental health care you may be able to submit my bills to your insurer for reimbursement. Office hours are Monday to Friday, 10:00 am to 5:00 pm, by arrangement. Full fees and insurance details.

Common questions

Questions about psychoanalysis

What is the difference between psychoanalysis and psychotherapy?

Frequency and depth. Psychoanalysis usually means three or more sessions a week, which allows patterns to appear in the treatment itself and be examined as they happen. Psychoanalytic psychotherapy is once or twice weekly and applies the same understanding in a less intensive form. Both use the same method; analysis simply reaches further.

How long does psychoanalysis take?

There is no fixed length, and any specific promise would be a guess. Analysis is measured in years rather than sessions. Symptom relief often arrives well before the deeper change does. The ending is decided together, when the work has done what it came to do.

Does psychoanalysis work online?

In my experience, yes. I have practiced by secure video for years and the depth of the work carries. Many patients find that speaking from their own home makes candour easier rather than harder. All sessions in this practice are held online.

Do you take insurance?

I do not bill insurance directly. If your plan covers out-of-network mental health care, you may be able to submit my bills to your insurer for reimbursement. A sliding scale is available — ask whether you may be eligible.

Who is psychoanalysis right for?

Adults with long-standing patterns that repeat despite insight, difficulties that returned after previous therapy, and a wish to understand themselves rather than only feel better. It asks a real commitment. For many people once-weekly therapy is the better instrument, and the free consultation is where that gets decided.

Begin with a conversation.

The first 15-minute consultation is free, and carries no obligation. Online sessions only, for residents of Washington, DC, Florida and Michigan, and — through PsyPact — participating PSYPACT jurisdictions including Maryland and Virginia.

Call (813) 787-2048 Prefer to write first? Email Dr. Hartman