How Psychodynamic Therapy Transforms Ghosts From The Past

New research shows how understanding the "why" heals old wounds.

Have you ever found yourself upset, frustrated, or anxious in a new situation that feels familiar? Or perhaps you have experienced an intense reaction and wondered afterward, “Why did I react like that?”

As a psychodynamic psychotherapist, I help people identify and process these moments, which are often signals of underlying issues from the past that get replayed in the present. In psychodynamic therapy, we identify and heal these emotional echoes or "ghosts" that haunt us.

As William Faulkner said, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

Old wounds tend to appear when we feel anxious or vulnerable. These underlying issues often show up as anxiety, reactivity, defensiveness, shutting down, nightmares, and even avoidance of intimacy or joy. When something in the present moment resembles an earlier dynamic, we can unknowingly slip into old emotional scripts.

Psychodynamic therapy helps us get in touch with our emotions, understand the "why" of these deeply rooted patterns, and take action to overcome them. While these defenses or old patterns may have served to protect us or help us survive earlier in life, they can also block our current growth.

A new study reveals that short-term psychodynamic psychotherapy is equally as effective as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to treat depression. The randomized controlled trial of 100 participants compared 16 sessions of CBT (with 3 monthly booster sessions) to 28 sessions of short-term psychodynamic therapy and found that psychodynamic therapy was equally as effective as CBT to reduce symptoms of depression. Psychodynamic therapy uniquely helps people get at the root cause of their recurring relationship, career, or family issues.

The Past Is Never Dead

Psychoanalyst Hans Loewald once said that the work of therapy is to help us transform the ghosts that haunt us into ancestors.

The past is never dead, especially when it comes to our inner emotional life. In childhood, we learn who we are in the context of our relationships. We interpret others' responses to us—especially those of caregivers—as messages about our worth, safety, and place in the world. If those early relationships were inconsistent, neglectful, critical, or enmeshed, we carry these unprocessed emotional experiences into adulthood, where they are repeated.

These old wounds do not disappear with time. They often remain beneath the surface. For example, if you felt dismissed as a child when expressing your needs, you may have learned to hide them and later experience difficulty asking for help as an adult. This independence you developed may be a strength, but it can also lead to burnout, resentment, and disconnection from others.

Transference: The Emotional Time Machine

In psychodynamic therapy, transference is the concept that we unconsciously direct feelings, expectations, and relational patterns from early figures in our lives onto people in our current lives. You might, for example, experience a friend's criticism with the same shame or dread you felt around a highly critical parent. Or you might avoid conflict because you learned early on that expressing anger meant rejection or punishment.

This transfer of emotional energy from past to present happens to all of us. The problem is not that we have these reactions, but that we often are not aware of them and do not understand why we are having them. We think we are reacting to the here and now, when in fact we are being pulled into an emotional time machine that is set on repeat.

But once we begin to understand where and why those feelings originate, we gain a powerful sense of agency. We can start to separate then from now.

How Old Wounds Can Hold Us Back

For example, you may feel uncomfortable speaking up in a group at work, especially when there are more senior people present. No one says or does anything overtly negative, yet you feel self-conscious and unable to feel like you can contribute to the discussion, even though you have a lot you could say. Other people may not notice this, but for you, this discomfort is real and familiar. This could indicate early experiences in your family or peer groups when you were ignored, dismissed or even bullied.

The bottomline is that old wounds can sneak into your present life. We bring the emotional past into new contexts, often without realizing it. But once we begin to understand where those feelings originate, we gain a powerful sense of agency. We can start to separate then from now.

Change Begins with Awareness

Awareness it the first step in that transformation-- not with judgment, but with curiosity. You might ask yourself:

• When I feel triggered, does the emotion feel familiar—like a pattern I have felt before, maybe even for years?

• Am I relating to people in ways that are shaped by past experiences?

• Am I stuck in old patterns that keep holding me back?

• Do I keep hoping for a different outcome each time I repeat this pattern?

These answers provide emotional clues.

Rewrite Your New Narratives

Awareness and emotional processing in psychodynamic psychotherapy opens up the door to lasting change-- it can soften your responses, deepen your relationships, and allow for more honest communication. Therapy also empowers us to be in the driver's seat of our lives and to choose differently. We are not doomed to repeat the past— we just need to understand the "why" first.

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