Why Does My Therapist Ask About My Past?
Often at the start of your therapeutic work, your therapist will explore earlier experiences and ask to hear parts of your past. This can sometimes be unclear to people why this is important when the issues you are facing are present… like today, not 20 years ago. This post explains how bringing parts of your story into your present awareness can serve you well today.
It provides context: Yes, you are facing challenges now but your history often shows up in your present life. Understanding parts of your story provides context around your values, your encounters in relationships during formative years and brings to light potential, internalized beliefs you have about yourself and the world around you now.
It highlights old emotions that show up today: Your therapist might ask you if your current emotions feel familiar. Ask yourself if there have been other times in your life when you have felt this way. Pause, and the experience(s) from your past might appear. When you are having painful emotions like grief, shame, rejection or loneliness it often triggers old wounds and can amplify your current feelings even more. Your past gives you an understanding of why emotions might carry so much intensity.
It brings empathy for yourself: If you experienced trauma in your past, your reactions to a present interaction might be connected to an old fight, flight, freeze or fawn survival response that is on overdrive today. Family, friends or other people in your life may have given you feedback that you overreact in certain situations. Instead of responding to yourself with judgment, you can have curiosity around what happened to you. This survival response can show up in ways where you are distrustful of others, people pleasing, overly independent, or have difficulty receiving love and support.
How to transform your history into helpful change going forward:
The way you responded in the past might have served you well and helped you survive but hinders you today. Maybe you had to be a people pleaser to help bring some peace in your family or maybe you had to take on a parental role at a young age. There are many different ways children, teens, and young adults act in relationships to get their needs met. It’s important that you honor the fact that you did the best you could with what you knew. Once you grasp how your history shows up today, you can reshape how you interact in your life now and in the future.
Practical tips:
Pause: Allow yourself a handful of seconds to breathe and collect your thoughts before responding to that email, text or person. Creating space between one moment in an interaction to the next, gives an opportunity for groundedness and authenticity in how you show up in the world.
Ground: Take a deep breath and remind yourself that you are in the present moment and not the past. Take in your surroundings and notice what you see, hear, smell and feel.
Reflect: Consider asking yourself if you have felt this way before and if there are old wounds being activated. Be non judgmental and curious in this process. It is a lot easier to find clarity to this question when there is a genuine desire to understand.
Acknowledge: If it has not been said enough, historical experiences show up in the present moment. Say to yourself something like, “this feeling of rejection is similar to those times I was bullied growing up” or, “the pressure I feel and thoughts that I am not good enough are triggering memories when I felt this way in my family”.
Validate: Follow up by responding to those feelings with, “rejection hurts and of course I want to feel loved and valued” or, “it’s a burden to carry all that responsibility”.
Do a both/and: You can both acknowledge the pain you are experiencing while also recognizing that you are a different person than you were years ago. You are a person with more tools, perspective, strength and are resourced enough to make changes now.
Visualize: Imagine your core self turning towards the emotions or the younger versions of you. Your emotions and your younger selves need attention, not neglect. Give them the love and affection they needed and continue to need.
