Psychoanalytic psychotherapy can enable internal changes and consequent changes in our lives that we long for but that might seem unattainable. Sharing and exploring our lived experiences, as well as our emotional and cognitive response to them, with a trusted other, can, over time, change aspects of ourselves that may seem frustratingly, even mysteriously, immutable. We can learn to navigate with increased agency feeling states that have paralyzed or overwhelmed us; we can find more freedom from compulsive behaviors and from relational patterns in which we feel trapped; we can expand our range of internal and interpersonal possibilities. Through psychoanalytic exploration of our conscious and unconscious experience, we can come to know ourselves with greater honesty and compassion, enabling us to act out of our authentic desires where we might have previously felt trapped in defensive actions that have not served us.