That Was Then, This is Now: An Introduction to Contemporary Psychodynamic Psychotherapy (Part 4)

Part 4 of 7: The past lives on in the present.

Index

This work is in seven parts. Here are links to each section.

Part 1: Roots of misunderstanding
Part 2: Unconscious mental life
Part 3: The mind in conflict
Part 4: The past lives on in the present ◀
Part 5: Transference
Part 6: Defense
Part 7: Psychological causation

The past lives on in the present

Through our earliest experiences, we learn certain templates or scripts about how the world works (a cognitive therapist would call them schemas). We learn, for example, what to expect of others, how to behave in relationships, how to elicit caring and attention, how to act when someone is angry with us, how to express ourselves when we are angry, how to make people proud of us, what it feels like to succeed, what it feels like to fail, what it means to love, and on and on. We continue to apply these templates or scripts to new situations as we proceed through life, often when they no longer apply. Another way of saying this is that we view the present through the lens of past experience, and therefore tend to repeat and recreate aspects of the past. In the words of William Wordsworth, the child is father to the man.