Someone recently asked me: “so why are you therapists so preoccupied with the past. We can’t change what has happened so why not let sleeping dogs lie?”
It’s a very good question.
The answer to that question depends to a large extend of the theoretical orientation of any individual therapist that you ask. For me, the past is mainly interesting in so far as it impacts on the present. That is, does experiences or emotional patterns from the past interfere with the way we live our lives.
The problem is that people are often unaware of when past emotional reactions are being activated. A good indicator that past feelings are being triggered is when our emotional response is out of proportion to the environmental trigger. That is, our emotional response is a lot bigger than you would have expected given the triggering event. Something relative minor happens, we have a huge emotional reaction and the people around us are left wondering: “what on earth just happened to her??” For example, you leave a message on someone’s phone and they don’t get back to you for three days. You’re then flooded by feelings of rejection and torture yourself for days about how they don’t care, everyone always rejects you, no one ever really likes you, you’re never good enough etc. It then turns out that the person you called was away and didn’t get your message until later. Hmm… For most of us (probably all of us) we have certain themes that we are sensitive to. For some it may be rejection or abandonment for others it can be a sense of failure or being worthless or feeling unlovable.
Whatever our particular theme, it is helpful if we can learn to become aware of when emotional reactions from our past are triggered. The power of the past is often that it “works behind the scenes” so to speak. Once we put the spotlight of attention on past experiences and emotions, they lose their ability to control us. The goal is not to try not to be triggered – that is impossible as these experiences and emotions are embedded deep within our brain – but to recognise when we are being triggered. This recognition gives us the power to stop acting out old patterns of pain.
This is why I am interested in the past.
So, in answer to the above question: yes if the dogs are truly sleeping by all means let them lie. But the problem is often that they are barking and pacing and whining and scratching at the door and in general making a nuisance of themselves.