Connecting the Past and the Present: Healing Abandonment and
Abuse through Awareness
Many people I work with in therapy or in my writing-as-healing
classes discover stories that surprise them--stories about the
mistakes they felt their parents made, power imbalances in the
family, or stories about physical or sexual abuse. The darker
stories are often a surprise: when writers sat down to write,
those issues were not directly on their minds, but deep,
revealing stories erupted from the pen. Though they were
unexpected, for some they were a relief. People who have been in
therapy have had the same kind of experience--the subject matter
in the forefront of the mind is not the material that
"accidentally" arises during the session. The therapy session
begins with a particular subject in the present--for example
dissatisfaction at work or trouble in a relationship, but often
travels back in time with associations to parents, school, or
past relationships.
It has become a clich