Elisa Rosa Quarta
clinical psychologist, psychoanalyst and psychotherapist in training
Berlin Mitte
About me
Elisa Rosa Quarta
clinical psychologist, psychoanalyst and psychotherapist in training
Lacanian psychoanalysis
Sessions can be held in Italian, English or German.
How it began
It was an afternoon in late spring, and I was playing badminton with a friend when, almost playfully, I blurted out my desire. Once I had said out loud that I wanted to become a psychoanalyst, I had to reconsider many things, including letting go of the prospects for research and an academic career that were opening up as I came to the end of my master’s degree in Literary Theory. Swallowing my desire back down, though, was out of the question: I knew it was something too precious, something that had emerged after years of working on myself in analysis, and I instinctively felt that the time had come for me to lose something I had considered fundamental to who I was and to my personality, and to make room for something new.
The common thread guiding my work as a clinical psychologist, psychoanalyst and psychotherapist in training is rooted in the memory of that afternoon and, in keeping with the psychoanalytic orientation of my approach, involves thinking about distress and questioning it, to understand what it is trying to tell us about our desires and what we are failing to see that concerns us intimately — and that sometimes even reaches into our bodies rather than let itself be ignored. This goes beyond the form a symptom takes: it is important to me to see my patients as people with a unique story, not as walking diagnostic labels.
Lacan · Séminaire VII
Personal suffering carries a great deal of information: my task is to help my patients decipher it, to untie these knots of pain through work with speech and the signifier.
I follow a psychoanalytic approach grounded in the teachings of Jacques Lacan. The primary aim of the work I offer my patients is to identify the knots in the distress that so often permeates our days and prevents us from making the most of our potential, from living a full life in touch with our desires. Personal suffering carries a great deal of information: my task is to help my patients decipher it, to untie these knots of pain through work with speech and the signifier. The element of surprise in psychoanalysis and the unfurling of discourse as it connects to the circuit of the drive produce therapeutic effects that can act on the deep structure of the subject, changing them permanently and allowing them to find less death-dealing ways of living and enjoying.
The teachings of the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan (1901–1981) form one of the most complex and, at times, opaque theoretical edifices of the last century. From surrealism to knot theory, by way of structuralism, optical schemas and topological figures, over more than forty years of work Lacan developed a way of approaching the question of the human that returns to Freud and to the logic of the unconscious, arguing that it is structured like a language that continually impinges upon the real of the body.
Services
Psychoanalytically oriented listening differs greatly from cognitive behavioural therapy. This is not a space where practical strategies for eliminating distress are proposed or taught; instead, distress is worked through by understanding the hidden meanings it carries. Untying these knots will bring about a deep and lasting improvement in well-being.
In general, the analytic position is profoundly different from the psychotherapeutic one, in which the practitioner positions themselves as the one who knows what is best or works better for the patient. A psychoanalyst does not work with a predetermined grid of values in which some behaviours are positive and others negative, but questions what, for that particular subject, is a source of anguish, dissatisfaction or behaviours that are not in keeping with their desire.
In keeping with my approach, I do not offer work that takes place entirely online: psychoanalysis is also a matter of the body, and it needs in-person sessions at a certain frequency to function properly. I do, however, offer a hybrid way of working, combining in-person and remote sessions. Only in the case of psychedelic experience integration is it possible to agree in advance on a short course of work (up to 12 sessions).
Areas of experience
I have gained experience in several broad areas, which you can read more about below, but I am entirely open to exploring suffering in all the forms it may temporarily take, even when it has no name within the palette of diagnostic labels.
001—
Narcissisms
Lacan · 1949
Narcissistic personality disorder is probably one of the most widespread and controversial diagnostic labels in contemporary society. People who find themselves on this spectrum usually struggle to give their suffering a face and to develop a desire for change. The work I offer in these cases seeks to welcome the doubts and questions of those who suspect they may be suffering from this condition, leaving room for the wounded child who may have taken shelter behind an unempathetic way of being with the Other to slowly emerge and speak.
I also welcome the questions of people who find themselves repeating dysfunctional relationship dynamics involving emotionally unavailable or abusive partners, and who feel drained and tired of this repetition. Understanding together the underlying causes of these relational entanglements is, to me, the most useful way of changing one’s position in relation to these others.
002—
Relationships and work with couples
Lacan · Séminaire VIII
We are living through a historical and cultural moment of profound change in the dynamics of couple relationships. The monogamous, exclusive structure of a relationship is increasingly being discussed and called into question, while new ways of being together are emerging alongside the traditional model of the monogamous couple.
The desire to open up a relationship, to enter a polyamorous constellation, or to find a “tailor-made” balance together with one’s partner can sometimes bring confusion and a sense of being lost. Equally, those who wish to invest in an exclusive relationship may feel inadequate or unable to meet the expectations of a contemporary society that explicitly encourages us to be “open”.
I welcome enquiries from individuals who sense that there are issues within their relationship, as well as from couples or constellations wishing to embark on a shared process, driven by more than simply the need to communicate more effectively. In this space, we work with this tumult of desires and feelings, sometimes opposing yet equally present in the mind, to bring a little more into focus about what the subject, or subjects, want for themselves — and to try to say something about what stands in the way of realising it.
003—
Integration of psychedelic experiences
Lacan · Séminaire XI
During an experience of altered states of consciousness brought about by psychedelic substances, it is possible to go beyond the boundaries of what can be put into words, or to feel panic or a sense of being overwhelmed. Memories, thoughts or emotions that we believed belonged to the past, or that we did not remember at all, may also resurface.
Here, the work I offer involves confronting this material, exploring it and slowly reconnecting it to the chains of conscious thought. In a space free of stigma, we can reconstruct together what that psychedelic experience was trying to tell us about ourselves, and integrate these messages into our present.
Important: in Germany, the administration of psychedelic substances for therapeutic purposes is possible and legal only in a small number of experimental, tightly controlled settings. I do not offer psychedelic-assisted therapy, but rather the discussion and integration of material that may have emerged over the course of a patient’s life and their personal use of psychoactive substances.
004—
Depression and anxiety
Lacan · Séminaire X
Depression and anxiety are two familiar faces of suffering. They may appear at different levels of intensity, coming and going. Or, on the contrary, they may permeate every day with the feeling, perhaps slight but nonetheless constant, that something does not add up when we take stock of our happiness and satisfaction with our lives. Anxiety can make us feel that we are never enough, and that we need to keep running towards what we believe to be our goals.
The psychoanalytic approach does not teach us how to control anxiety or refute depressive thoughts. Instead, we ask where this distress is trying to lead us, what it is trying to tell us that concerns us so deeply: only by listening to this message will the symptom disappear. I gladly welcome anxious and depressive patterns into my armchair, to unwind the thread of their discourse.
005—
Eating disorders
Lacan · Séminaire IV
A characteristic feature of eating disorders is the difficulty patients have in recognising that they are suffering from problems with food, most often severely debilitating ones. The fluctuating relationship with one’s reflection in the mirror and the mood swings typical of these disorders can make it extremely difficult to bring the problem into focus, hindering or greatly delaying the moment of seeking help. The subject at war with their body does not know why: psychoanalysis can take up this question and allow the coils of language to make room not for a truce, but for peace.
Alongside this, I offer counselling for the parents of minors with eating disorders, as well as for those who are wondering whether their child may have a problem of this kind. Eating disorders are common even among very young patients, and support and understanding from the family are extremely important in these cases.
Contact
Lacan · La Lettre volée
To arrange an appointment, you can use this form or contact me by phone or email.
In-person sessions:
Mulackstraße 37
10119 Berlin Mitte
+49 176 59277456
hi@elisarosaquarta.com
Hybrid sessions: In-person sessions in Berlin combined with online sessions.
The first session has a fixed fee of €25.
The fee for the following sessions is agreed between analysand and analyst.
Why the fee is part of the work
In psychoanalysis, paying is not simply buying a service: the fee is part of the work itself. Freud already advised against treatment free of charge, and asked that money be spoken about as openly as anything else. Lacan added that the analyst pays too: with words, with their own person, with their most intimate judgement.
That is why there is no single tariff. Lacan himself set the fee case by case, and in the Lacanian clinic in France and Italy it is common practice to adapt it to each person, so that analysis can be accessible without ever being free. What matters is that the fee counts for the person who pays it: an amount that is felt, so that the work keeps its value, and that does not become an obstacle to continuing it.
So it is not a negotiation but an agreement, reached together in the first sessions, taking into account each person's situation and the frequency of the sessions. It can be discussed again if circumstances change.