Dr. Alice Erickson

I earned my PsyD (Doctor of Psychology) degree at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology and I have worked in different settings including university/community counseling centers, dual diagnosis treatment centers, and psychiatric hospitals (Austen Riggs Center).

I work from a psychoanalytic orientation. This approach emphasizes the importance of both past and present experiences, relationships, emotions, patterns of being, and the unconscious. While it is natural to want to move away from suffering, it is when we give it a voice that healing can begin. Though genetics can play a role in the development of psychiatric problems; symptoms are some of the ways our psyche and body deal with pain that has not been understood, contextualized, and articulated.

My goal as a psychoanalytic therapist is to help my patients notice how their symptoms are not accidental experiences to dodge, but rather meaningful communications to explore. Only through this inquiry can patients tap into interpersonal and intrapersonal as well as conscious and unconscious phenomena that have shaped their life and continue to contribute to their suffering.