News

Seeing People As They Really Are

August 1st, 2008

SEEING PEOPLE AS THEY REALLY ARE  

Psychotherapist Dr. David Richo talks about his book "When the Past is Present" 

By Anne Marie Cummings



Psychotherapist David Richo explores our tendency to transfer potent feelings about people from the past onto the people currently in our lives, whether they are our intimate partners, coworkers, or friends.  This can become a major stumbling block in relationships, preventing us from seeing others as they really are.  Richo offers valuable insights and practical guidance on how to recognize this destructive pattern and free ourselves from it.  When the Past is Present helps readers to: understand how the wounds of childhood become exposed in adult relationships - and why this is a gift; recognize strong attractions and aversions to people in the present as signals that we may be reliving the past; heal emotional wounds of the past so that they won't sabotage present-day relationships; use mindfulness to become aware of how we slip into the past in day-to-day life-and to bring us back to the present moment.

 

In the first chapter of your book, When the Past is Present, you talk about transference and what that is.  Can you sum it up for me in one or two sentences? We continue to bring into our new relationships some of the unfinished business from relationships in the past.

Please provide a common example of this?   To recognize that any strong feelings give you a clue especially when they have to do with attraction or repulsion to something else going on that's piggy-backed from the past.  Another way of saying it is, nothing is current.  Everything is picking up energy from the past.  There are clues as to how we may still be holing on to things from the past that never got cleared up.

Reading your book was really wonderful, but also very intense.  I felt like I was taking an in-depth look into the psychology of human beings and how we act or react whether intentionally or not.  I appreciated your references to mindfulness throughout your book.  How do you associate mindfulness in terms of recognizing when we or someone else is transferring onto us?  On one hand, if someone transfers onto you and it's negative, you don't want to take it too seriously because it's about somebody else.  Someone can find you really attractive, but that could be because you remind them of someone else.  Mindfulness brings us directly into the present - mindfulness makes it possible to have relationships that are real. 

I like how you mention that "psychological freedom happens when we find the courage to enter the here-and-now reality of ourselves and others, shorn of the decorations and detritus of our history."  Since everyone transfers onto others to some degree, when does this psychological freedom happen for those relatively "healthy" individuals?   It happens when you're no longer caught up in the past. And of course we can never clear out the past completely.  There are always some elements that we hang onto.  At least looking for where the paths may be lurking in every relationship, keeping our eye on that, and saying, "what part of this is based on the past?" For instance, let's say you were brought up in a home where nobody paid attention to you, and you find you're overly needy in your present relationship.  It could be that the lack of attention in your earlier life creates this yearning in you or maybe a bottomless pit, so the yearning you have today is about what's missing from before, not about what your present partner can or can not do.  This would mean the work that's facing you is grieving the past and what you didn't get, it's not about making the partner give you the attention you need.  The person we're with may not be the person we're with. 

You often mention the five A's of adult love: attention, acceptance, appreciation, affection, and allowing.    Those five A's are my definition of love rather than the pitter patter feeling in the heart one gets - that initial rush of sexual attraction.  The five A's are about forming a deeper connection than the buzz that most of us look for.  Instead of it being the "Sex in the City" approach, the guy that rings all the proper bells and whistles which might be warning signals, the five A's show me where my work is rather than the answer to my prayers. 

So if we did not receive one of those things growing up as a child, we look for it in our adult relationships?  And yes, we do look for it in our adult relationships by looking for it in a bottomless pit kind of way which can't be fulfilling.  We really need to be grieving what we didn't get rather than looking for it elsewhere.  If you did receive the five A's you received the capacity to be satisfied with the five A's in moderate doses for the rest of your life, rather than the endless craving that you never get enough. 

Where I started to feel a sense of hope in your book was when you explained that we repeat certain scenarios in our lives in order to resolve them, we can re-create our past in order to free ourselves in the present, if we allow ourselves the journey to the next step or phase of completion in our lives.  Can you talk to me more about this?  There's a sense of hope because you can work things out in two ways.  The first is by grieving what you didn't get and appreciating what you did get.  This grieving is to experience your sadness about what was missing, your anger that it was missing, and your fear that you'll never find anybody else who will be able to make up for what was missing.  And of course that last one would explain why you would cling to someone who would give it to you.  You can jump over grieving if you find someone who fulfills everything.  In the romance phase everybody looks great.  Everyone is on their best behavior.  That's nature's way of assuring that we do get together and then once we are together everything comes out.  The second way is what you do within the relationship to work on the relationship issues of the here and now. You address what's going on, you talk about what the problem is by processing, you resolve and then you integrate - what I call APRI.  So address the problem, process the feelings coming up and see how they connect with the past, resolve the problem by agreeing to do things differently, and integrate by redesigning your life to match your newfound changes.   A simple example is if you and your partner go to parties and you notice that your partner leaves you alone and talks to the attractive women at the party.  This bothers you, so you address the issue by bringing it up with "I" statements, not "you" statements, such as, "I felt alone when you appeared at the party and you talked to all these women."  That's addressing.  Processing is, "Here's what I felt.  It reminded me of the times in my childhood when all the attention went to my brother and I felt alone.  It reminds me of that sense of abandonment."   And then resolving is when you and your partner are willing to make an agreement such as, "you can talk to other women, but you'll hang out with me and you'll introduce me, and integrate me from now on."  Now you have an understanding between you, and it's no longer an issue.   

So in your opinion, if an adult has unresolved issues from his past, he needs to get the help of a therapist to work out those issues that are preventing him from moving forward in his life?  Yes.  Some people can do it without therapy, but mostly it's the kind of thing you work out in therapy.  The whole issue is to notice that transference connects to the past.  Many of us don't get that far.  You can spend all this time talking about your relationship, but the real issues could be about the relationship with your father.  I'm almost wanting to say that the only real full relationships we have are with our parents and everybody else is a replica of that.  I don't know if it is.  I hope not, but they certainly make a big impression on us.  They're not just minor characters.  We can definitely say that they are the main characters in our story.  They were with us when our brain was being formed.  They were more influential on who we became; nobody else could be that influential.  That's why so many people get excited by gurus because it feels familiar to have someone controlling in the way a parent did, or maybe you never had someone so it feels like they are caring.  Did you notice the Emily Dickenson poems that I used in my book?

Oh yes.   

The poem by Emily Dickenson, "A Loss of Something Ever Felt I." 

A loss of something ever felt I-
The first that I could recollect
Bereft I was-of what I knew not
Too young that any should suspect...

There she gives the specifics about this - she is looking for the good things in life because she didn't get them before. 

You mention that transference is a code, yet we can recognize when transference is happening in our present day relationships based on certain behaviors.  What are some of those codes?  Some of what goes on in the relationship is in code rather than a direct explanation, or direct knowledge.  This really does mean something.  When you're doing all this transferring, it's a code for something it does.  It's that the past is not just about your parents, it's about former partners. 

That would mean that we are always transferring?  Yes, always, but there are moments that you're not transferring and that's mindfulness.  That's when you can suddenly turn and look at the person you're with and say, "Oh, you're Jane, or John.  You're just you."  And then a minute later you're back to evaluation, the ego, the mindsets of ego being all the things you do that don't really go anywhere.

You also say in your book that, "some people really do resemble other people."    Yes, that's true, we're not crazy, some people really do resemble other people, but when we act on the fact that someone resembles another person, we're acting as if this were really the other person, rather than just a resemblance.  Again, if you're mindful you'll just see the reality as it is. 

I have a friend who always ends up dating guys that look almost exactly alike.   A good phrase for people who are attracted to the same types is, "we are doomed to repeat what we keep incomplete."  Now remember this is enormously entertaining and dramatic and so that explains why someone would keep doing it. 

Well, I don't think she finds it to be entertaining, but I certainly think it's funny how every time she's in a new relationship they all look like the guy she previously dated.  She must be doing this subconsciously.    That's what it comes down to.

And by bringing this to our attention in your book is so that we notice that we may be transferring onto someone or they may be transferring onto us.  Is this the purpose of your book?  Yes, the whole idea.  So that we can start noticing rather than letting it just continually slip away.

You also write about positive transference.   Positive transference is when you have a great experience of someone and now you have a good experience of someone in the present.  An example of this is...let's say a teacher in your grammar school took a special interest in you, spent extra time with you, helped you become a better student, and helped you find yourself a little more.  Later in life, you decide to become a teacher, and you might be the same way towards other people because you have a positive transference from a past person.  You are imitating that person's good behavior. 

"Until a woman is free of mother- or father-meaning, she is not yet real to us.  Until a man is free of father- or mother-meaning, he is not real to us."  This obviously has to do with separating from our parents and finding others to play their parts for us.  Can you tell me more about this?    A person's not supposed to have any meaning from somebody else.  They're supposed to have their own meaning.  You are you, not somebody else.

You also refer to mindfulness in terms of seated meditation on page fifty-six as a way to relate to the present without being attached to or blinded by the transferences that surround our past experience.  So for those who practice seated meditation, they are hopefully able to notice when they or others are transferring, and they are able to let them go more easily.  Would you say that's the goal for everyone, to let go of these things from the past that hold us back?   Yes, exactly.  Let them go because they no longer serve.  What you want is real.  If you want entertainment and drama, the big meltdowns, then they work just fine, you can stay where you are.

I enjoyed chapter four on Reactions and Reacting because your first section is on Persons, Pets, Places, and Things.  I thought it was interesting how you included pets in this section.  For instance the way we treat our pets reveals how we may have been treated in childhood.  Or how we wish we were treated.  It's either how we were, or how we wish we were treated.  It's either the repeat or the substitute, but if you get the healthy five A's, it would be moderate, not overdone.  If you now have a partner and you need them constantly around you, you've seen people like that right?  Always together, like they're twins who can never be apart.  When you see people like that it makes you wonder.  What about your own person existence? 

I think most people will identify with your section "On the Job Too," because I think many people today do look for jobs that feel like family, where they feel loved and appreciated for who they are and they are looking for more than that matter-of-fact relationship and maybe this is when transference becomes tricky?  That's right, and all the while you think this is just a job, but you are doing something else with it and they don't want to play that game.  Your boss is not your father whereas you might be trying to get that, and it's not being offered.  Confusion can result.  Remember that some people thrive on the confusion and it feels right at home to them.

Another area of our lives where transference occurs is in the family - and you so poignantly state that "family members may criticize us when we share about ourselves candidly or when we want to discuss serious topics."  You suggest that the healthy response is to "recognize that such conversation is impossible and becomes toxic, frustrating, or hurtful to us," and then it "limits our conversations to small talk," and that we best take care of ourselves by "knowing the limitations of others and acting accordingly."  It's unfortunate that we have to limit ourselves to small talk - and I've noticed that it's not easy to do, especially if you are used to opening up to that person.    That's right, yes.

In chapter five you talk about our fears, one being "Comings and Goings."  I think everyone will relate to this in some way.  Why is that?  This is the biggest issue for us as humans because it was so important in childhood that your mother not go, otherwise you feel abandoned.  Comings and goings are about challenge.  Coming is challenge and going is "he's leaving and I feel abandonment."  This is why comings and goings are so scary.   As soon as your partner comes in you already have the fear that he might go, unless you trust him and feel safe.  But you've had experiences in the past that get transferred onto the present so you're going by your past experiences even though he could be completely trustworthy.  Airports and bus stations, those are places associated with tension because they're all about comings and goings.   

When do we stop our compulsion to repeat the same scenario over and over again?  For example the woman who always is in relationships with men who physically abuse her.  When will that woman change?  Never, unless she does the work; and the work is grieving the past and addressing the present.

In chapter eight you mention that sometimes someone will cry when getting a massage, what, in your opinion, is happening at that moment?   You're finally knowing what it's like to have a need fulfilled in a beautiful, calm, and safe way.  That combination of fulfillment and safety is exactly what you always wanted.  You feel what it's really like to get those needs fulfilled.

 

Throughout David Richo's book he offers practices at the end of each chapter, and he guides readers towards these practices with the acronym APRI:  addressing, processing, resolving, and integrating the issues at hand. 

Addressing leads to a release of energy in the form of feelings.  Processing these feelings leads to a shift so that they finally evaporate.  Processing also leads us to resolve things by making agreements to bring about changes.  Resolving leads to letting conflicts become matter-of-fact rather than ego-invested.  Then we redesign our lives to match our newfound changes.  This is integrating.

 

Dr. David Richo is a psychotherapist, teacher, and author who leads popular workshops around the country at such venues as the Esalen Institute, New York Open Center, and Spirit Rock Meditation Center.  He is the author of How to Be an Adult in Relationships, The Five Things We Cannot Change, The Power of Coincidence, and Shadow Dance.  He lives in Santa Barbara and San Francisco, California. 

<<< Back