Why does the mind hold you to the past even when it is over?

In the psychotherapist's office, it often happens that some patients bring up situations in which they are linked to the past in such a way that they almost start to live in that other time. In this way, the present no longer has its place and loses its strength and intensity, and new decisions and connections almost stop happening.

These people, who have this strong attachment to the past or to a specific phase, are often linked to a past love (relationship with parents that was not resolved). In many cases, this love did not even exist or did not have the grandeur that the almost pathological fixation makes the person, chained to the past, really believe in the power of fantasy, which becomes an idealization.

When the investigation into the life history and psychological structure is expanded, it is possible to enter into some hypotheses that much of this (idealized) love was the result of a need to maintain a story, sometimes mythical, that gives meaning, even if on a fantasy level, to that person's life.

What would be the psychological mechanisms that cause certain people to become fixated and paralyzed in another place in their history? And why does this past represent something so strong that it brings individuals to a huge standstill?

Revisiting psychoanalytic theory
Some studies of the Attachment Theory, developed by John Bowlby, show how the development of the emotional bond between the baby and their caregivers is a preponderant factor in helping in the development of biological and emotional needs. In his theory, he states that every individual is born with the ability to have an attachment system. When the child can have this exchange with those who care for them, in relation to their needs, safe development begins, which leads the child to seek to bond and repeat this experience, which was fundamental for their healthy development.

When this does not occur, the child begins to experience a development of insecurity, fears, great difficulties and conflicts in future relationships. Studies indicate that this excessive attachment to the past can be characterized by people who feel insecure and need to guarantee something that was supposedly very good. In our development, there may be a fear of experiencing new situations - due to the pain, fear and insecurity of old experiences. Some people turn to the past in an attempt to keep something they already know and that has gone through a process of idealization and transformation.

This attachment to the past can act as a protective barrier against pain, leading to an avoidance of new attachments. The need to live in the past seems to provide a layer of protection, so that even painful memories can be transformed into good situations. In many cases, something that was so painful (a relationship with parents or a romantic relationship) becomes so strong that the person is unable to maintain and create a new love (therapy work can give a new meaning).

This is also a mechanism found in melancholy, when one is unable to mourn what no longer exists. According to Winnicott, the first object relationships between the child and those who care for them will be decisive for future healthy relationships to occur. Many patients with narcissistic difficulties, who were unable to have this relationship of affection and love with their parents, may become compulsive about affection, resorting to experiences of idealization.

A clinical example
Rachel came looking for therapy, bringing up the issue that her marriage had been wonderful and she could not accept why her husband no longer wanted to continue this fairytale marriage. She was 60 years old and had left her job as a lawyer to dedicate herself to the life she had always dreamed of. As the analysis progressed, it was possible to perceive other nuances of this marriage.

Her husband, from a traditional São Paulo family, was the possibility she had always wanted to leave a simple life and parents who had emigrated to Brazil after the Second World War. According to Rachel, this husband was the prince of her dreams, although therapy showed quite the opposite regarding his character. In addition to being a relationship with levels of cruelty, he had traits that repeated the way his father had always treated the women in the family.

United by hate
Some marital relationships, maintained by lack of love and indifference, destroy the possibility of an emotional exchange. The long waits to improve the relationship and return to the lost paradise - and return to being what we dreamed of. What would be the answer?

Therapeutic work teaches that hatred can nourish perverse relationships (love of destruction). Loves idealized by fantasies that make it impossible to experience the pain of a conflict and, sometimes, a breakup. The possibility of finding oneself without the masks that provide false protection, as well as realizing that, before people see themselves in a pseudo conjugal relationship, each person is unique and endowed with possibilities and confrontations.

Perhaps one of the ways out of these perverse pacts and experiences in a past that has long ceased to exist is the courage to be able to feel fragile and face the need to break away from destructive fantasies.

*Text written by psychologist Dorli Kamkhagi (CRP: 15511), head of Psychology at Brazil Health

Anxious or avoidant? Understand how type of attachment can affect relationships

Source: CNN