When someone comes to therapy to address an issue that is negatively impacting their life, part of the therapist’s job is to build an understanding of what is getting in the client’s way of living a more fulfilling life. This understanding evolves as more becomes known about the person and the nuances of their life history.
The approach of a therapist is informed by their theoretical framework, a guide the therapist uses to account for the client’s struggles; a guide that focuses the therapy and helps move the client toward their goals. In numerous psychotherapy approaches, our early childhood experiences are viewed as central to understanding our current behavior. How the client’s past is actually incorporated into sessions by therapists can vary widely depending on what is occurring in a particular session and the relevance of the past in the moment (as determined by what the client is needing).
Working with the past in therapy
At some point in therapy, you may need to focus on events that continue to trouble you from your childhood or adolescence. In these instances, the experiences being explored occurred long ago, but these past traumas remain emotionally, somatically and behaviorally impactful in the present because they were never adequately dealt with.
It might not be immediately obvious, however, how these past events remain alive in the present day. Working on past traumas in therapy does not mean one is simply exploring historical events. Instead, client and therapist are examining how the past is currently alive and relevant for the client.
…you might be stuck in this emotionally disconnected or shutdown way of being without realizing how these unresolved past traumas continue to fuel the disconnectedness that negatively impacts your life today.
For instance, in order to psychologically survive a traumatic, emotionally overwhelming event in childhood, you may have had to emotionally shut down and disconnect from your body during or soon after the traumatic experiences. This protective reaction (the shutdown and disconnection) can become ingrained and follow you long past the traumas they were designed to help you manage. As an adult, you might be stuck in this emotionally disconnected or shutdown way of being without realizing how these unresolved past traumas continue to fuel the disconnectedness that negatively impacts your life today.
How the past is alive in the present
Psychodynamic and attachment theories highlight parent-child dynamics that impact how early relationship patterns shape our relational engagement as adults (Safran, 2012; Wallin, 2007). This understanding can be helpful for someone who struggles to form meaningful connections with others. Through the attachment lens, you can gain important insights about how your past attachment wounds continue to influence the way you show up in your current relationships.
For instance, you might have discovered that it was safer for you as a child not to reach out to others because your caregivers consistently reacted in ways that made you feel self-conscious, rejected or humiliated about needing them, especially when you were vulnerable or in greater emotional need. Because of this, you learned that contact with others when you are in need adds to your distress and that under these conditions it is preferable for you to lock away your feelings whenever possible. However, at some point you may discover that this solution of hyper-independence comes with its own emotional costs.
The above relational dynamic might show up in the following ways in your current relationships:
1) As an adult you might experience yourself as “too needy” because you learned early on that expressing your psychological needs led to painful consequences. For example, if one of your caretakers was quick to anger whenever you or your siblings showed enthusiasm or excitement, you may have internalized this relationship dynamic by developing a highly self-critical part of you that launches into self-attack whenever there is the desire to express yourself.
This inner critic can move so swiftly that it squashes any awareness that you even have needs.
This inner critic can move so swiftly that it squashes any awareness that you even have needs. When this occurs, longing and desire are flattened before they can register in your conscious mind. Low-grade depression and an inability to experience joy can result from this inner emotional flattening.
2) You might quickly distance yourself from others and from your own emotions whenever certain feelings arise. For example, you may physically isolate, or zone out on your phone, or consume alcohol/drugs. These are non-relational attempts to remove yourself from a particularly uncomfortable emotional state, such as loneliness or feelings of uncertainty or inadequacy. Rather than explore and understand these feelings, your habitual avoidance prevents these feelings from being examined.
3) Anger can become a stand-in for emotional vulnerability; anger, in these instances, is a distancing reaction, pushing others away so that they do not see that you are hurting. Although your anger may cause problems for you, it is preferred because it effectively takes you out of the discomfort associated with more vulnerable emotions.
Because of this learned, habituated avoidance, it might not even seem like an option to reach out to your partner (or someone you trust) for emotional comfort when you are distressed. Your defensive reactions (defensive here means protective) occur rapidly, without much, if any, thought or awareness. When the angry or addictive part of you takes over, you are no longer in the driver’s seat, and your ability to make decisions can become significantly hampered.
4) On the flip side of this dynamic, you might find yourself reacting negatively — for example, becoming agitated or emotionally shut down — whenever your partner/spouse or someone close to you experiences certain emotions. In these instances, your difficulty tolerating the feelings of another is tied to your intolerance of these emotions within yourself. If you cannot sit with your own sadness or self-doubt, for instance, you are going to struggle to hold a space and stay present when those close to you have similar reactions to the ones you avoid or attack within yourself.
When the solutions to past wounds become the present day problem
Samuel sought out therapy for his struggles with excessive porn use and a history of depression. He felt that he was in a crisis because he was seriously considering starting an affair with a coworker and he acknowledged that this would devastate his wife and probably end their marriage of fifteen years. A part of him was desperately trying to fight off the urges to cheat on his wife while he sheepishly admitted that another part of him lit up emotionally at the idea of having sex with this other woman.
Within the first few months of therapy the following picture started to emerge of Samuel’s inner psychological world:
There is a conscientious, hard-working part of him who felt overly responsible for making others happy. This part of him felt worn-down, but Samuel felt unable to slow down and give himself permission to enjoy a more balanced life.
There is a depressed part of him who keeps Samuel emotionally small and inhibited so that he wouldn’t take any risks that would result in him “looking like a fool in front of others.” This depressed part acted as a counterweight to a creative part of him that fantasized about playing music and joining a local band that performed in small neighborhood venues — his fear of failure triggered the depression, and once depressed, he no longer felt conflicted about his desire to perform because this desire was now muted.
The part of him that watched porn in secrecy would periodically jump in and take over, offering Samuel a temporary and powerful escape from the emotional weight he felt in his role as provider and people-pleaser.
As the porn viewing lost its effectiveness in giving Samuel the momentary respites that would quiet the painstakingly conscientious part of him, another part of Samuel emerged that initially fantasized about his coworker. The erotic charge of these fantasies helped Samuel feel less depressed (and momentarily more alive). After his coworker showed interest in him, Samuel began to make himself more emotionally available to her and was now considering inviting her to have drinks with him (as a step toward starting an affair with her).
Your inner protectors are hard at work dealing with your past
Understanding Samuel through the theoretical lens of Internal Family Systems (IFS), he has developed protector parts of his personality that work hard to distance him from emotional experiences he finds unbearable (Anderson, Sweezy & Schwartz, 2017; Schwartz & Sweezy, 2020).
The overly conscientious, hard-working part of him helps to manage his life by keeping him busy and successful — and in therapy he discovered that an objective of this manager part is to prevent Samuel from deeper feelings held by a younger, traumatized part of him.
Samuel’s two other parts (the part that uses porn and the part of him emerging that is affair-prone) are also protectors, but these parts jump in whenever the hard-working, success-driven manager part fails to keep certain painful feelings at bay. When this distress breaks through, these more extreme protectors take over and direct Samuel toward activities designed to quickly eradicate his distress. These types of protectors are called “firefighters” in Internal Family Systems therapy because their role is to extinguish painful feelings after these feelings have entered into consciousness. Samuel’s affair-prone and porn-watching parts are firefighter protectors.
While your protector parts (managers and firefighters) are designed to buffer emotional distress and help you navigate your life successfully, the activities of firefighter protecters can be extreme and detrimental…
While your protector parts (managers and firefighters) are designed to buffer emotional distress and help you navigate your life successfully, the activities of firefighter protecters can be extreme and detrimental . . . even though their intention is to help in dealing with what is currently troubling you.
But where is the distress (that the protector parts of you are working so hard to manage) coming from?
Parts of you may be stuck in the past
According to the Internal Family Systems model (Schwartz & Sweezy, 2020), “Any personal experience of being rejected, abandoned, shocked, scared, or abused (physically, sexually, or emotionally) can burden our most sensitive parts with fear, shame and emotional pain.” (p. 59)
When this occurs, our young fragile parts take on extreme negative beliefs that they are worthless or unloveable.
These traumatized parts of us (called “exiles” in Internal Family Systems) are sequestered away by the protector parts so that the pain, fear, shame and self-loathing they hold can’t take over and flood us. This pain from the past is locked away within us and is therefore alive in the present (though the exiled, traumatized part may be locked within an experience that occurred long ago). The past experiences stored in our exiled parts continue to impact the protector parts’ behavior, even though you may not remember the painful experiences held by your exiled parts.
As mentioned above, Samuel had a younger, exiled part of him that carried the pain of his past. When he was eight years old, his father began having affairs that devastated the family. His father abandoned much of his parenting responsibilities, and Samuel’s mother was overwhelmed with grief and fear about financial security. When Samuel was ten, his father filed for divorce and moved in with the woman he was having an affair with. During this painful time period, Samuel became very dutiful in an effort to take care of his mother, though he faced the painful reality that he could not take away her grief.
When he began therapy, Samuel didn’t remember much of his childhood. After high school, he became hyper-focused on working and claiming his independence. His protector parts worked diligently to keep the pain from his past safely hidden away from his consciousness, the pain that his younger, exiled part held. Healing cannot occur without the wounded part being seen. And so, because this exiled part yearned for healing, the feelings it held would break through, requiring more extreme behaviors from the protector parts in order to keep the pain — and the exile — locked away.
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Until the pain from the past that is alive in the present is healed, you will have to find ways to distance and numb these feelings in subtle and profound ways. A great deal of your psychological resources may be tied up in your protector parts, resources that are being channelled into keeping your vulnerable parts outside of your awareness. You may not realize that this is occurring, and you may not realize that when your past isn’t healed, you remain more fragmented and less in control of the direction of your life.
Rich Nicastro, PhD, is a licensed clinical psychologist based in Austin, TX. He offers teletherapy to individuals and couples throughout the United States.
Article References
Anderson, F.G., Sweezy, M., Schwartz, R.C. (2017) Internal Family Systems Skills Training Manual: Trauma-Informed Treatment for Anxiety, Depression, PTSD & Substance Abuse. Pesi Publishing & Media.
Safran, J.D. (2012). Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Therapies. APA.
Schwartz, R.C., & Sweezy, M. (2020). Internal Family Systems Therapy. Second Edition. Guildford Press.
Wallin, D.J. (2007). Attachment in Psychotherapy. Guilford.
