Making Connections to the Past: Lowering the Temperature in Relationships!

Many clients use psychotherapy to talk about present day conflicts with spouses, co-workers, friends, etc. If a client is recognizing that they are reacting more strongly to a situation than they feel is appropriate to the given situation, then I will sometimes ask if there is anything about the current situation that reminds them of an earlier time in life. Not only does this open up an opportunity to explore one's life more deeply, but it also provides the client with an opportunity for greater insight into the effect of one's past on the present. One of the values of psychotherapy is to help clients to learn how to react in the present without baggage from the past. Perhaps an example is the best way to describe how this process works.
Let's say that as a child you grew up in a home where your mother was very manipulative and controlling. Instead of being direct and clear about her wants, she would use coercion and shaming to get you to do many of the things that are often expected of children. Your response to this was to comply but it was not without a cost to your emotional development.
Now, today when you are in a subordinate relationship with a supervisor who also tends to be manipulative you find that all you want to do is get away from this person. Your reaction to her is to either run away or to yell and scream. If you are able to make the connection to the past, in this instance by realizing that your supervisor is reminding you of a particular part of your mother's personality, or of particular experiences growing up, and if you can begin to use that knowledge to help you to realize that your reactions to the supervisor are being inflated by your own history, you might start to find that there are ways of responding to her that you hadn't previously realized. This is a good example of where coping mechanisms that developed in childhood out of neccessity may not be particularly helpful as an adult and can be useful to examine in order to develop a greater range of choices in the present.