Psychotherapy: Healing the Wounds of the Past to Fully Live in the Present

Throughout life, especially in childhood, we make unconscious decisions that help us survive:

• “When I show love to my mom, she becomes unpredictable. Conclusion? People can’t be trusted. Better to keep my distance and not show affection to anyone.”

• Or:“Dad didn’t hit me yesterday when the house was clean and everything was in order. From now on, I’ll do everything perfectly so he won’t hurt me.”

We eventually forget we made these decisions—but we keep living by them, day in and day out.

“Perfectionism helped me, right? It got me praise, good grades, success...”But then comes the fatigue, the resentment:"My boss is happy. My husband comes home to a spotless house and doesn’t have to lift a finger. But… sometimes I wish he would help, too."

A small seed of dissatisfaction can begin to surface—often ignored at first.But over time, as patterns repeat, that seed may grow into sadness, depression, even unexplained bursts of anger.

Psychotherapy often means going back to those early memories—painful ones we may not even want to remember, but which hold the key to the change we’re seeking today.

This is where the therapist’s empathy matters deeply.Fully aware that their questions might stir up long-buried emotions, memories, even sensations, the therapist approaches carefully—with the client’s full consent, and only as far as the client feels ready to go.Pacing is everything. Feeling heard and taken seriously is essential.

Recently, during a training exercise, I shared a story that felt both painful… and almost laughable.A silly argument with some friends had left me feeling unimportant.I dismissed it in my mind—“Really? After everything I’ve been through, this still bothers me?”

But in that moment, my peers didn’t roll their eyes or smile condescendingly.They simply listened. And that allowed me to trace that moment back to a much earlier one.I was acting out the same old behavior I’d learned as a teen: “Fine, I’ll take my toys and go play somewhere else.”Back then it helped me cope. Now—it just left me feeling alone.

When I began my own therapy—long before I ever imagined becoming a therapist myself—there was a session where I couldn’t stop crying. I could barely speak.And that’s when my therapist taught me something that didn’t truly sink in until I started working with clients:

“We’ll go only as deep as you want to go.”

At the time, I brushed it off. Like my mother, a nurse, I was used to ripping off band-aids—no matter how deep the wound.But over time, I learned to be gentler with myself.Not every healing process has to feel like walking through hell before reaching the light.

Some things take time.Each of us has our own inner “time zone.”A good therapist will respect that.And the rest is up to us—whether and when we choose to begin.

With love,Florența