When people ask me to explain what is Contemporary Psychoanalysis, I find this quote from Levenkron most helpful ...

"the bottom line is that patients want to, need to be listened to. They want a therapist who can listen to them in depth....That is what psychoanalysis is, that is what we offer; we listen to people in depth, over an extended period of time and with great intensity. We listen to what they can say and to what they don't say; to what they say in words and to what they say through their bodies and enactments. And we listen to them by listening to ourselves, to our minds, our reveries, and our own bodily reactions. We listen to their life stories, and to the story that they live with us in the room; their past, present, and future. We listen to what they already know or can see about themselves, and we listen to what they can't see in themselves ..."