Stuck in Life

Feeling like life has lost some of its color, that relationships are on repeat, or that one's career is "going nowhere fast" may be reasons why you may stuck in life. As a psychodynamic psychotherapist and board-certified psychiatrist, Dr. Kleinman can help you address this confusing state of mind and develop a clearer, more directed, and more satisfied perspective on life.

What does it mean to be stuck in life?

Sometimes we can find ourselves having done all the things we were told to do by our parents, our community, or society at large, and still feel like something is missing. Perhaps we are missing a sense of accomplishment; perhaps we miss a sense contentment; perhaps we'd be glad to just feel some satisfaction in life. But given the vagueness of the feeling, it can be hard to know what it means or what we can do with it.

How does one get to the point of feeling stuck in life?

While everyone may have a different experience, several issues could lead to a feeling of being stuck: 

• Having unclear goals in life
• Having goals that feel necessary but unattainable
• Feeling uncertain about what you want for yourself
• Having a hazy or low sense of self-esteem
• Feeling unclear about values in your life
• Feeling adrift in relationships in your life
• Struggling to rebound after relationship loss
• Struggling to feel a strong internal sense of identity

Some people may have felt a strong sense of direction for much of their life and only recently lost sight of it. Others may feel like forces stronger than them had a large influence in their life, but with the loss of these strong forces, they now feel adrift. Still others may have vascillated between feeling a strong sense of direction that ebbs and flows over their life, leaving them to feel lost in between those times. 

Feeling stuck in life may cause mild symptoms that resemble anxiety or depression without meeting full criteria for either disorder.

How does Dr. Kleinman approach the feeling of being stuck?

Dr. Kleinman offers Psychodynamic psychotherapy, which is a talk therapy that meets once or twice per week. It can help you address feeling stuck by exploring the underlying forces that may be causing it in the first place. This includes exploring your sense of self and personal identity, reflecting on your experience of how the world works, and examining your patterns of interacting with and relating to other people.

Dr. Kleinman’s approach may help people who have had limited improvement after trying other courses of treatment or who have had successful treatment in the past, but have not been able to sustain their improvement.

Dr. Kleinman will tailor your treatment to your personal needs and follow your progress closely to ensure meaningful progress.