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