Tara Fields, Ph.D., L.M.F.T., has been a Marriage and Family Therapist in private practice in Los Angeles and Marin County, California, for over 20 years. Here Dr. Fields discusses the ways in which old wounds and past traumas can prevent one from finding or maintaining healthy relationships and offers advice on turning these crises into opportunities for healing as well as greater intimacy, love, and compassion.
Q: To begin, could you say a little about relationships and why they’re so important?
A: No matter our age, sexual orientation, or politics, we all want to love and be loved. Some of us don’t have trouble finding a partner, but the challenge comes in maintaining a healthy connection. Other people spend their lives looking for love and sadly are never able to find a partner to create a loving and secure bond with.
Q: What gets in the way of finding and maintaining a healthy relationship?
A: One of the most common pitfalls I see is when one or both partners have unrealistic expectations as to what the relationship or the other person will provide for them. They may consciously or unconsciously make their partner entirely responsible for their happiness. Often this is fueled by the erroneous belief that simply by finding the perfect mate, years of past emotional damage will be magically repaired without any real work on their own.
It is true that when someone is in a secure and loving relationship with a partner who truly accepts them, warts and all, that person may feel safe enough, perhaps for the first time, to muster the emotional courage needed to both access and commit to the work needed to process and repair past trauma.
Q: Why is it important to address old wounds, even though they were not caused by one’s current partner?
A: In my work with individuals and couples over the past 20 years, I’ve found that unresolved wounds from childhood or past romantic relationships are the primary barrier for creating and maintaining healthy relationships in the present. Old wounds and attachment injuries can unfairly be transferred onto current partners who may feel that they are paying the price for those who have gone before them.
There is a saying in A Course in Miracles that “love brings up anything unlike itself...to be healed.” What the Course is saying is that the experience of feeling or being truly loved can take the lid off of a Pandora's Box of old traumas from past relationships that have been hidden or kept at bay. Love can trigger the opposite of itself. If we take ownership of these wounds, and do the work to repair them, we can find peace, be more present in the moment, and experience healthy love. But if these wounds, or old demons, go unattended, they can damage, and for many destroy, current relationships.
Q: Can you give us some examples of old wounds that might threaten a current relationship?
A: A common erroneous belief many people share, though they believe they’re the only one, is the deeply rooted underlying assumption that if someone truly knew them they would find out that there is something wrong with them, they’re defective, or unlovable...that they’re just not okay. This conditioned belief often has its origins in childhood. A child relies on their parents for what is called healthy mirroring. If a parent reflects back to a child that he or she is loved, lovable, and fundamentally okay, then that child grows up with a strong and healthy sense of self, which enables them to create and sustain healthy intimate relationships as an adult. Sometimes, a child never had a secure attachment to a loving parent or that parent was unable or unavailable to provide healthy mirroring. If instead the caregiver or parent reflects back that the child is lacking or not lovable, it may be very challenging for that person to create a loving, secure relationship as an adult. Some examples of why parents might not mirror love and stability to their children are alcoholism, narcissism, and/or physical or psychological abuse.
Q: How does one begin to repair past traumas, such as the ones you’ve just described?
A: To repair wounds like these, we need to have at least one healthy relationship as a model. For many that can be a good friend or a therapeutic relationship. Often having one healthy and secure relationship in which the person is not being exploited in any way becomes a new and healthy template for intimate relationships. The sense of safety and security created by the healthy therapeutic relationship allows a person to explore all parts of themselves, including the aspects that they have been led to believe are unacceptable. It can be transformative to have their therapist treat them with loving care, kindness, and acceptance. This healthy and reparative mirroring supports the process off challenging and letting go of false beliefs about not being lovable. The therapeutic relationship provides a corrective emotional experience for the person who has never experienced a healthy bond. Often it is this that facilitates the greatest healing, more than the specific issues that are explored.
This new model for a caring relationship offers a patient the hope and belief that they can go out in the world and create a healthy relationship on their own. For most, the first step is to reach out to a trusted friend or find a mental health care provider. Just start the process, whether that is through individual counseling or a support group, such as a women’s or men’s group, twelve-step program, or church group. The goal is to find a place you can safely explore how your behavior may be hindering you or helping your quest for love and how to create new and healthier behaviors.
Q: How can people who have already found a satisfying relationship prevent old wounds from damaging or destroying it?
A: I encourage people to explore old traumas that are being reactivated in their present relationship by engaging with them in couples counseling, or else through one of the individual or group counseling options I mentioned earlier. For a person already in a relationship, couples counseling offers the added benefit that the couple can use a Marriage Therapist’s guidance and advice to use these wounds to create greater empathy and understanding of their beloved, which will in turn create a stronger bond and deeper intimacy between them.
Crisis creates opportunity. Confronting old wounds can be a great opportunity not only to heal your individual wounds, but also to create safety for your mate to access issues they’ve not yet confronted and begin a process to repair them. One of the positive aspects of being in a nurturing and safe relationship is that often the person feels safe enough to talk about past traumas. While the individual with the wound is 100 percent responsible for acknowledging and healing the wound, that person’s partner can provide the support, compassion, and love to enter and stay in the healing process.
To read more advice from Tara Fields, Ph.D., visit her website at www.drtara.com.
Q: To begin, could you say a little about relationships and why they’re so important?
A: No matter our age, sexual orientation, or politics, we all want to love and be loved. Some of us don’t have trouble finding a partner, but the challenge comes in maintaining a healthy connection. Other people spend their lives looking for love and sadly are never able to find a partner to create a loving and secure bond with.
Q: What gets in the way of finding and maintaining a healthy relationship?
A: One of the most common pitfalls I see is when one or both partners have unrealistic expectations as to what the relationship or the other person will provide for them. They may consciously or unconsciously make their partner entirely responsible for their happiness. Often this is fueled by the erroneous belief that simply by finding the perfect mate, years of past emotional damage will be magically repaired without any real work on their own.
It is true that when someone is in a secure and loving relationship with a partner who truly accepts them, warts and all, that person may feel safe enough, perhaps for the first time, to muster the emotional courage needed to both access and commit to the work needed to process and repair past trauma.
Q: Why is it important to address old wounds, even though they were not caused by one’s current partner?
A: In my work with individuals and couples over the past 20 years, I’ve found that unresolved wounds from childhood or past romantic relationships are the primary barrier for creating and maintaining healthy relationships in the present. Old wounds and attachment injuries can unfairly be transferred onto current partners who may feel that they are paying the price for those who have gone before them.
There is a saying in A Course in Miracles that “love brings up anything unlike itself...to be healed.” What the Course is saying is that the experience of feeling or being truly loved can take the lid off of a Pandora's Box of old traumas from past relationships that have been hidden or kept at bay. Love can trigger the opposite of itself. If we take ownership of these wounds, and do the work to repair them, we can find peace, be more present in the moment, and experience healthy love. But if these wounds, or old demons, go unattended, they can damage, and for many destroy, current relationships.
Q: Can you give us some examples of old wounds that might threaten a current relationship?
A: A common erroneous belief many people share, though they believe they’re the only one, is the deeply rooted underlying assumption that if someone truly knew them they would find out that there is something wrong with them, they’re defective, or unlovable...that they’re just not okay. This conditioned belief often has its origins in childhood. A child relies on their parents for what is called healthy mirroring. If a parent reflects back to a child that he or she is loved, lovable, and fundamentally okay, then that child grows up with a strong and healthy sense of self, which enables them to create and sustain healthy intimate relationships as an adult. Sometimes, a child never had a secure attachment to a loving parent or that parent was unable or unavailable to provide healthy mirroring. If instead the caregiver or parent reflects back that the child is lacking or not lovable, it may be very challenging for that person to create a loving, secure relationship as an adult. Some examples of why parents might not mirror love and stability to their children are alcoholism, narcissism, and/or physical or psychological abuse.
Q: How does one begin to repair past traumas, such as the ones you’ve just described?
A: To repair wounds like these, we need to have at least one healthy relationship as a model. For many that can be a good friend or a therapeutic relationship. Often having one healthy and secure relationship in which the person is not being exploited in any way becomes a new and healthy template for intimate relationships. The sense of safety and security created by the healthy therapeutic relationship allows a person to explore all parts of themselves, including the aspects that they have been led to believe are unacceptable. It can be transformative to have their therapist treat them with loving care, kindness, and acceptance. This healthy and reparative mirroring supports the process off challenging and letting go of false beliefs about not being lovable. The therapeutic relationship provides a corrective emotional experience for the person who has never experienced a healthy bond. Often it is this that facilitates the greatest healing, more than the specific issues that are explored.
This new model for a caring relationship offers a patient the hope and belief that they can go out in the world and create a healthy relationship on their own. For most, the first step is to reach out to a trusted friend or find a mental health care provider. Just start the process, whether that is through individual counseling or a support group, such as a women’s or men’s group, twelve-step program, or church group. The goal is to find a place you can safely explore how your behavior may be hindering you or helping your quest for love and how to create new and healthier behaviors.
Q: How can people who have already found a satisfying relationship prevent old wounds from damaging or destroying it?
A: I encourage people to explore old traumas that are being reactivated in their present relationship by engaging with them in couples counseling, or else through one of the individual or group counseling options I mentioned earlier. For a person already in a relationship, couples counseling offers the added benefit that the couple can use a Marriage Therapist’s guidance and advice to use these wounds to create greater empathy and understanding of their beloved, which will in turn create a stronger bond and deeper intimacy between them.
Crisis creates opportunity. Confronting old wounds can be a great opportunity not only to heal your individual wounds, but also to create safety for your mate to access issues they’ve not yet confronted and begin a process to repair them. One of the positive aspects of being in a nurturing and safe relationship is that often the person feels safe enough to talk about past traumas. While the individual with the wound is 100 percent responsible for acknowledging and healing the wound, that person’s partner can provide the support, compassion, and love to enter and stay in the healing process.
To read more advice from Tara Fields, Ph.D., visit her website at www.drtara.com.