Is therapy just dredging up the past?
A question that often arises in therapy is “What good does it do to rehash the past?”
It’s a good question. When life is painful and we’re struggling emotionally, on the surface it can feel counterproductive to slow down and start to explore what is happening internally and how our history plays into it. We want to feel better, so we tell ourselves to stop thinking a certain way and move on. Poking around in the past, particularly into the painful bits, is not appealing.
I get it.
Let’s think about moving house for a moment. I’ve moved a number of times over the years and in the course of packing up my belongings, there have always been a few boxes that never get touched. You know the ones; they sit at the top of the wardrobe and are simply picked up and brought along to the new place, contents unchecked. I don’t even know what’s in them anymore, let alone what relevance they hold, so I continue carting them around with me. I move into my new home and put them in their designated spot at the top of my new wardrobe. There they remain, gathering dust and taking up precious room.
What would happen if I opened those boxes?
What would I find?
There might be photo albums that remind me of how I got to where I am today; certain people, events and experiences that influenced the choices I made and the path I took. Snapshots capturing my growth and development from a child to an adult. Memories; joyous as well as painful.
I might find things that I stuffed in there because, although they were possessions that I no longer needed or particularly wanted, for whatever reason I couldn’t bring myself to let go of.
There may even be junk that doesn’t even belong to me, but somehow became my responsibility to look after.
Therapy can be the process of such discovery.* Through therapy we can gently unpack the boxes of our past, taking the time to hold and examine the objects in our hands. Allowing ourselves to understand and acknowledge their significance and how they shaped how we view ourselves. It’s not wallowing, it’s honouring.
And sometimes it’s not all bad. Sometimes we discover beautiful treasures that we forgot we possessed; perhaps a creativity, a boldness, a playfulness, a gentleness, a strength that got buried at the bottom of the box. We then have the joy of dusting them off and displaying them somewhere pride of place in our lives.
As Brene Brown expresses in her book Rising Strong; “Looking back is done in the service of moving forward with a whole and integrated heart.”
Are there boxes in your wardrobe?
* Therapy should never be a one size fits all approach. The therapeutic process should always take into account the level of trauma present and take care to keep an individual emotionally safe.
For more information about the therapeutic process, or to enquire about accessing my support as a therapist, please click here.