Following on my belief about individual uniqueness, I strive to understand the very specific issues that people bring into therapy. At the same time, we are all somewhere on our life path of development as whole human beings. So, from this perspective, I help my clients heal from their struggles coming from their past and the effect of these struggles on their current day life. The real goal is to create a positive future. It is as important to look forward to where we are going, as it is to heal from the past.
What does it mean to heal from the past?
When we confront problems inside or outside ourselves in our current day life, it is helpful to realize that we are often “misguided” by what we have learned from the past, and the decisions we made about how to care for ourselves in times of stress or even trauma. Throughout our lives, beginning at a very early age, we have found ways of coping with the challenges that we face. Sometimes, when we chose how to respond to difficult situations, we used a way of coping that worked then but doesn’t work now in similar situations. Often, we discover that, “Yesterday’s solution is today’s problem.”
For example, if as a child, you were abused by someone you hoped would take care of you, you may have found a way to “distance” yourself from that person when they became abusive or toxic in some way. You intuitively did this in order to simply feel safe. If this “distancing” was your strategy in the past, it might be that today you struggle with worries about being close to other people or experience feelings of loneliness. In your unconscious mind, you may feel unsafe, while in “reality” this is just illusion created by your tendency from the past to over protect yourself. That is, in current time, you might be distancing yourself when it is unnecessary. Since you are doing this without realizing it, you may end up feeling lonely today.
In our work, we will change the “habit” of responding that is no longer useful into new habits of thinking and feeling that lead toward greater joy in life.