Working with me
I am a psychoanalyst-in-training based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Wellington, working both online and in person with local and international patients.
My background in the arts and humanities informs my analytic work. Psychoanalysis has long been connected to literature, philosophy, and the study of language. This perspective supports careful attention to how people speak about their lives and to the meanings, patterns, and nuances that emerge in their speech over time.
I have completed clinical training with the Centre for Lacanian Analysis Aotearoa and hold a PhD in the Arts from the University of New South Wales.
I welcome people from diverse backgrounds and experiences. My work remains attentive to the ways social and cultural factors — including gender, class, race, sexuality, and history — shape the lives of those I work with.
My approach
My practice is informed by a Lacanian orientation, which emphasises the role of language and affect in psychological suffering.
Through careful attention to a person’s speech over time, recurring elements in their experience begin to emerge, bringing into view the structures that shape their difficulties and symptoms.
In this way, psychoanalytic work opens the possibility of developing a different relationship to symptoms, discovering new ways of living that move beyond the anguish they cause.
Beginning analysis
To begin, we meet four times over the course of a month to explore what brings you to analysis and whether this work feels right for you. If we decide to proceed into analytic work, sessions are typically held weekly or twice weekly. Fees are discussed according to individual circumstances.
Richard B. Keys
Psychoanalyst-in-training with the CLA
Doctor of Philosophy, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
Clinical Member, Centre for Lacanian Analysis Aotearoa
Member, International Forums of the Lacanian Field
Contact: richard.benjamin.keys@gmail.com