New Therapy

“The only wholly true thought we can hold about the past is that it is not here.”

There is no redeeming value to remembering difficult past times. There are no powerful forces lurking in the past creating who you are today. Who you are right now is a product of your past but only by the fact that you are choosing certain beliefs, behaviors and thoughts based on previous experiences.

Going back and sorting through this painful memories only conditions the brain to be more upset. The real work is being totally present and mindful of how you think and behave right now, and being willing to challenge all your beliefs and assumptions.

You are a product of these beliefs and not your past. There are reasons why regressive therapy never worked, it focused backwards when we need to learn how to look deeply into the present moment. If you are sick, miserable, anxious or unhappy it is because of who and how you are right now, and how you were yesterday and last week.

Through the use of fMRI’s and SPECT scans and very long term patient research of over 45,000 respondents we are now assured that regressive or psychodynamic therapy may create more negative-neuroplasticity and does not show positive patient outcomes.

In as little as 5 years ago psychotherapy techniques were taught based on assumptions that could not be proven. Today we have the ability to track millions of patient outcomes and utilize a variety of biobehavioral and scientific tools to design new ways to treat patients.

The new frontiers of treatment will not be about talk therapy or a therapist assisting the patient in “remembering” but in a teaching role instructing the patient in how to train the brain for health, peace and maximal productivity.

Dr. Resa Robinson
Department of Behavioral Sciences
Stanford University School of Medicine

 

Brave New World! So in keeping with the positivist, a-historical American migrant experience! I have no doubt that curing TMS involves reprogramming the neural pathways in the brain and you have to do that right here in the present moment. But if talk therapy gets you to do just that, it's just one more strategy in your tool kit depending on what works for the individual patient. I like Dr Robinson's set of goals: "Health, peace and maximal productivity". Sounds like a perfect recipe for American consumerism writ large with Smiley emoticons! I still think tackling personal history can teach you a lot about yourself and help you chart an informed course for the future. Rommel and Patton both "led from the front," but they both learned military theory from von Clausewitz.

 

Bruce

I gather from your posts you are a history buff. I like ancient wisdom because it has stood the test of time. Here is one from the Bible: “ To Plow a straight row a man must always look forward” or Lott’s wife turning to a pillar of salt for looking back.

In fact the term “Repent” means to turn around – stop looking the wrong direction – stop looking back.

Here are more modern versions: People who drive looking in the rear view mirror will eventually crash, or the wake does not drive the boat.

I am coming to believe that personal history is a journey undertaken once with eyes wide open and then we engage the ancient ritual of a right of passage and don’t return.

 

Hi there
Digging up the past endlessly and with a blame/victim approach is not something i wish to do nor would i find it helpful but, for me at least, understanding a little of my past and how that shapes where I am now really helps me start to move on in the here and now with greater compassion and forgiveness. To myself but also to my carers who had their challenges and influences too.

So like most things in life- for me it's grey rather than black and white.

 

Bernard, what you're talking about is reprogramming your neural pathways so that your past does not determine and predict your future. If you feel that going over old material helps you accomplish that reprogramming in the here and now fine. I agree with RikR that just endlessly digging up old material and dwelling on it is counterproductive if you don't transform that sort of tragic knowledge using compassion and forgiveness.