Does talking about the past really help me in the present?

Your troubles in the present may never shift if you don’t look at your past experiences. Here’s why.

It’s part of normal human psychology to develop schemas in childhood. These are blueprints of how we think the world works, what we expect relationships to be like and how we view ourselves. We carry those blueprints into adulthood and they have a huge impact on our everyday lives. They determine how we are in relationships, how we experience the world and how we feel about ourselves. If you want to change your present, you need to understand your blueprint.

“So, tell me about your childhood…”

It’s one of the most popular stereotypes of psychotherapists, that we just want to talk about past experiences and blame everything on your parents! No wonder when people approach our services for help, they often stress that they want to let go of past events and stick to their present troubles.

After all, if you can find tools to tackle your current problems without digging up memories of painful times, why bother? The past is the past, right? There’s nothing you can do to change it.

Well, kind of… you can’t change your past experience, but you can change your thoughts and feelings about it (your blueprint). And you can change the power your blueprint has over your mind and your current life.

How our childhood shapes our beliefs and behaviour

That last part is really important. As young children we tend to believe what adults tell us, without questioning it. So if a parent tells their son that crying is babyish, then the boy accepts that.

He carries the belief with him into adulthood, feeling it as a natural truth. Even if people tell the man it’s fine to cry, even if he gets it rationally, the belief that crying is babyish still feels true to him.

He might have problems in an intimate relationship as an adult, because he can’t show his partner when he’s hurt. If he is given the guidance ‘You just need to open up more when you’re upset,’ it probably isn’t going to help because that feels so wrong to him.

To change his feelings and behaviour in a way that sticks, he needs to change the underlying belief. And to change the underlying belief, he needs to understand that it is just a belief, not a truth. This involves reflecting on his early experiences and acknowledging the impact of all the times others told him to stop crying or praised him for being a brave little soldier. This can be done in individual therapy.

These early beliefs we hold onto come in lots of different flavours, many of them negative. Some of the most common are:

• Beliefs about oneself, such as:
  • I’m weak
  • I’m unlovable
  • I’m stupid
  • I’m too much
  • I’m ugly.
• Beliefs about other people, such as:
  • others can’t be trusted
  • women are manipulative
  • men are thugs
  • people are selfish
  • other people are stupid.
• Beliefs about the world or life in general, such as:
  • the world is a dangerous place
  • life is hard
  • it’s dog eat dog out there.

So many of these beliefs that underpin our adult behaviour just aren’t true! Sometimes, the people we picked them up from don’t even believe them themselves. The parent who tells their son to be a brave little soldier might only be doing it because they can’t bear the hurt of seeing their son crying. The reason a child calls a classmate stupid might be because they fear that they’re stupid themselves. The grandparent who declares their grandchild ‘too much’ might just be embarrassed that they haven’t the energy to keep up.

Yet the child hears these things and takes them to heart, embedding them into their personality. They incorporate these beliefs into a blueprint for how the world is, then they look for evidence that that blueprint is right.

So the next time a teacher says “There there, don’t cry,” to our brave little soldier, he remembers what his parent said and hears the teacher’s comment as a rebuke (you shouldn’t cry) rather than an attempt to comfort him. In this way, the beliefs get reinforced.

We all do this – looking for things that fit with our blueprint and dismissing things that don’t – as we feel more secure when our blueprint isn’t challenged.

Attachment styles and relationship patterns

Many therapists use an attachment-based approach. This approach looks at the childhood blueprints people develop around relationships and how that blueprint then causes problems is their adult relationships.

To greatly oversimplify attachment theory, if our significant childhood relationships were secure due to our parents/caregivers being attuned to, and responding to, our needs and helping us to manage our emotions, we will likely be able to form secure relationships as adults. However, if we felt insecure in these early relationships, we may find it harder to form healthy adult relationships.

Imagine a girl whose parents are neglectful. Instead of having an experience of how a healthy relationship feels, she grows up learning how to be in relationships with neglectful people. When she is choosing who to form an adult relationship with, she may unconsciously choose a person who will neglect her, because that feels familiar and fits with her blueprint.

Developing an understanding of her attachment style and its origins can help to loosen the control that her past has over her, and help her to have more choice in her present situation. This is another example of how we can’t change our past, but we can change how we think and feel about it in the present, and that gives us more freedom from it when we are making choices about our future.

We can change not only who we are in relationships with, but also how we are in relationships. As a child, the girl with neglectful parents will develop coping mechanisms (ways to help keep herself safe from the neglect). Perhaps she will become very independent, looking after herself because she cannot rely on her mum and dad to do it. When she grows up, she is likely to behave in the same way in her adult relationships, even with people who don’t neglect her.

This might seem strange. Why doesn’t she see that the coping mechanisms no longer help once she’s away from her parents? It’s partly because the coping mechanisms are unconscious habits – she doesn’t realise she is behaving that way or may not know how to act differently – and it’s partly down to her blueprint. Her blueprint says that others are neglectful, so she expects partners and friends to be neglectful and looks for any hint of inattention as evidence that they are.

She may then revert to the old and familiar ways to cope by that served her so well as a child – relying only on herself. Only now they might not serve her well. Instead, they may create problems – her partner may complain that she takes charge of everything, her friends may be hurt that she doesn’t open up to them, she may find it hard to delegate at work, the stress of doing everything on her own may impact her health, and so on.

If you are curious about how this applies to you, book an initial consultation to learn more about your own attachment style and relationship patterns. Or, if you are having difficulties in your current intimate relationship, consider couples therapy. Most couples therapists incorporate attachment theory into their approach.

Learning to let go of the past

So, the coping mechanisms that serve us well as children often create problems in our adult relationships.

Ironically, letting go of the past doesn’t mean forgetting about it or ignoring it. Rather, we move forward by looking at our past lives, facing difficult memories and learning how they impacted our mind and thus affect our present situation. By doing that, we reduce the power of the past over us, and we start to notice improvements across our lives – in relationships with others, at work, in our health, and so on.

What happens when we look at the past?

Perhaps it would be helpful for me to explain what happens when we look at the past in therapy.

In terms of what goes on in the room, it’s simple: the client tells the therapist what has happened to them and together they make connections between past and present, exploring how the past has impacted the client.

If the past experiences are upsetting, then the client may cry or feel angry, for example. That’s normal and therapists are used to being with clients in distress. The therapist will be supportive and compassionate, and will allow the client space to feel whatever they feel.

In terms of what happens internally for the client, there are two main components: feeling the feelings and correcting the blueprint. Difficult past experiences can weigh us down, and expressing our feelings around them helps us to feel lighter. So crying or expressing anger, for example, gives a client some release.

When a client talks about the past, the therapist will be thinking about what messages they have taken from their experiences and how those messages have contributed to their blueprint. In particular, we’re looking for negative messages and distortions that are inhibiting the client’s current life.

Going back to the example of the man who was told not to cry, we would be looking at instances where he heard that message. We would help him to see that his response (to stifle his tears) was a way of coping with someone else’s unhelpful and distorted view of the world. Once he really gets that, his inner voice saying I must not cry will become quieter and he will be freer to make different choices, such as being more open about his emotions in his intimate relationships.

Looking at the past can feel scary

e understand that the thought of looking at the past can be scary. That’s normal and our warm, friendly therapists are well trained to support clients who feel scared. They will help and guide you, and they won’t force you to talk about anything you’re not ready to.

Therapists know that there is no point rushing clients to talk about their past until they are ready. It’s important that the process happens at your pace. You are always in control. You can dip your toe in the water then, if it felt too much, not go back to the subject for weeks or months if you like. At One Therapy London, we offer open-ended therapy. What that means is that there’s no limit on the number of sessions you can have: you can take your time, and your therapist isn’t going to rush you.

While fear about looking at the past is normal, I hope you can take some comfort when I tell you that clients often find it easier than they thought it would be. They also tend to be surprised by how much it can help their lives, and to be glad they made the decision to go there.

So, I encourage you to take that first step and book an initial consultation. It’s the route to living with greater freedom from your past.

Kate Crawford is Head of Therapy Services at One Therapy London.

Last updated: 26 May 2026

Published: 31 March 2022