Many people wrestle with what to do with the past in therapy. Common fears include falling into self-pity, having one's partner hold what can feel like an endless grudge against them, falling into despair, never moving on with one's life, etc. The problem with the past is not the past. The past is done. However, the past needs to be reconsidered when we discover how much we keep bringing the past into the future. When we begin to see patterns in our lives like being afraid of commitment, sabotaging ourselves, becoming over-reactive with friends or partners (either emotionally or becoming way too overly rational; in other words, way too defensive with others), and so on, we are likely confronted with how we are dragging our past into our future. Unfortunately, many people who refuse to think about their past stay mired in their past more than they realize. Carl Jung once said (I paraphrase) that whatever remains unconscious is lived out in fate.
While it is probably not fruitful to conduct an "archaeological dig" of one's past, learning how patterns that we live that stem from the past is just plain smart. We all need to learn from our mistakes. That is just common sense--unless we refuse to learn from our mistakes. One gentleman that I worked with was so bent on avoiding the experience of pain or disappointment, that he would continually talk himself out of even the most pleasurable experiences. By exploring this, we were to come to see how he had failed to grieve and experience past pains so that he was essentially pushing his pain from those experiences, and the fear of experiencing them, off into the future. You might say he was projecting his past into the present and the future. So this exploration of his symptoms led to explore the the past, but with the goal of finishing it and learn how to experience himself in the present. You see, he could not let go of his past because by avoiding those feelings, he had been dragging them into the future. Sometimes the past cannot be simply swept under the rug. One goal of therapy should be to learn to live in the present, facing the challenges that experiences bring, but also free to get the most out of our lives!
While it is probably not fruitful to conduct an "archaeological dig" of one's past, learning how patterns that we live that stem from the past is just plain smart. We all need to learn from our mistakes. That is just common sense--unless we refuse to learn from our mistakes. One gentleman that I worked with was so bent on avoiding the experience of pain or disappointment, that he would continually talk himself out of even the most pleasurable experiences. By exploring this, we were to come to see how he had failed to grieve and experience past pains so that he was essentially pushing his pain from those experiences, and the fear of experiencing them, off into the future. You might say he was projecting his past into the present and the future. So this exploration of his symptoms led to explore the the past, but with the goal of finishing it and learn how to experience himself in the present. You see, he could not let go of his past because by avoiding those feelings, he had been dragging them into the future. Sometimes the past cannot be simply swept under the rug. One goal of therapy should be to learn to live in the present, facing the challenges that experiences bring, but also free to get the most out of our lives!
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