When the Past Is Present: Healing the Emotional Wounds that Sabotage our Relationships

by David Richo

A poignant thing about us humans is that we seem hardwired to replay the past, especially when our past includes emotional pain or disappointment.

In transference, feelings and beliefs from the past reemerge in our present relationships.

What chance do people have to be just who they are to us when we are comparing them to others while neither we nor they realize it is happening?

There are two ways in which this can happen: (1) we might project onto each other our own beliefs, judgments, fears, desires, or expectations; (2) we might transfer onto each other the traits or expectations that actually belong to someone else.

mindfulness is actually attentiveness to a flow.

To live mindfully is not about a way of seeing reality as if it had stopped for us but flowing with reality that never ceases to shift and move.

Transference is essentially a compulsion to return to our past in order to clear up emotionally backlogged business.

To be present mindfully does not mean living with no history—an impossible, useless, and dangerous task.

We sometimes take comfort in wishful thinking, a faux version of hope that does us no good. True hope is based on visible potential for change, a reality. Wishful thinking is based on projection, a concept.

The more a new situation resembles the past, the more bodily stress do we feel and the harder it is for us to release it.

Transference is an unconscious displacement of feelings, attitudes, expectations, perceptions, reactions, beliefs, and judgments that were appropriate to former figures in our lives, mostly parents, onto people in the present.

transference, displacement, and projection. They are unconscious mechanisms our ego uses to defend itself against stress.

I project onto another person characteristics, positive or negative, that I am unconscious of in myself; I shift onto others the traits, feelings, and motivations that belong to me.

I may also project my beliefs about someone or about what someone feels.

I displace onto person B the feelings appropriate to person A.

Displacement mistakes one person for another, often an innocent bystander for a protagonist.

In transference I displace onto others the feelings and expectations that rightly belong to my parents, family, former partners, or any significant others.

To be stuck is to refuse to say yes to reality as it is and to move on from there.

All this misdirected identification shows us that what we fail to integrate can become represented later by something else and we are then even more misled.

We do not engage in projective identification because we are deceitful but because certain feelings are unbearable and we are seeking a safe way to diffuse them.

Transference is a redirection of unresolved energy toward a safer object.

if someone does not make time for us, we might simply notice it and work around it, while there may also be some impact on our feelings.

If, however, this is reminiscent of how unavailable our mother was in childhood, we might feel the blow more heavily.

If mom was always loving, we might expect that same quality of love from a narcissistic partner who is unable to provide it.

A lack of love from a partner, resembling the lack of love from a parent, may lead us to despair that all we will ever be able to find in others is failed attunement to our needs.

A lack of love means not receiving the five A’s of adult love: attention, acceptance, appreciation, affection, and allowing us to be ourselves.

Wanting the five A’s is not a sign of weakness nor a sign that a lot was missing in the past.

It is always legitimate to want to be appreciated or prized, for instance. It is a sign of health when we acknowledge the legitimacy of our longings.

If we missed out on one or all of the five A’s, two possible results may occur, both painful: We might now need them in an extreme way. Our heart is then a bottomless pit, never getting enough. A second alternative is despair, not believing that the five A’s of intimacy are there to be had, not trusting that anyone or anything can provide or foster them for very long.

How can I make despair a question rather than an answer?

In the transference based on hope we ask those we love, often tentatively and indirectly, to provide us with what was missing from our past.

In the transference based on expectation we demand this.

In the transference based on despair we anticipate and fear repetition of failures ...

We imagine that an adult partner will disappoint us as our parents did, and we shame ourselves for being unworthy or blam...

Hope helps us trust the givens of our lives as ingredients of growth and helps us to say yes to them no matter what they lead to, that is, unconditionally.

Expectation may lead us to attempt to force others to give us what we need, directly or in passively aggressive ways.

Instant anger is often a sign of transference.

For instance, in a childhood in which a boy’s every move was scrutinized by his mother, his innate need for freedom of movement (the “A” of allowing that is often the dad’s role to ensure) was ignored and he felt stifled.

attention, acceptance, appreciation, affection, and allowing, for instance

Transference happens because humans relate in rhythmic, flowing ways, give and take, back and forth, event and repetition.

“Why didn’t you get here earlier?” asked by a friend may lead us to infer, “I am disappointing to him and not adequate,” a reaction transferred from childhood judgments about us.

We address the problem when we call it by name. We admit to ourselves what is really going on and our part in it, that is, we own our behavior and feelings.

In addition, we are willing to look at our wounds and how we may have wounded others.

This means staring into an experience rather than attempting to fix it quickly, rushing past it, glossing over it, or minimizing its impact.

When two people have an issue between them, each person’s unique timing certainly has to be respected. One person may be ready to deal with an issue while the other needs more time.

We do not make it happen; it simply results, because addressing and processing lead to dissolving of the problem.

Resolving a problem in a relationship entails making agreements and keeping them.

To integrate our experience means reshaping our lives in accord with what we have gained and learned from addressing, processing, and resolving.

We implement what we have...

Addressing leads to a release of energy in the form of feelings. Processing these feelings leads to a shift so that they finally evaporate. Processing also leads us to resolve things by making agreements to bring about changes. This resolution leads to letting conflicts become matter-of-fact rather than ego-invested. Then we redesign our lives to match our newfound changes. This is integrating.