David Richo is a psychotherapist, teacher, and writer who leads popular workshops around the country. He is the author of numerous books including How to Be Adult in Relationships and The Five Things We Cannot Change. Richo begins this book with an astute observation: "A poignant thing about us humans is that we seem hardwired to replay the past, especially when our past includes emotional pain or disappointment." The specific focus of When the Past Is Present is transference, which he defines as "an unconscious displacement of feelings, attitudes, expectations, perceptions, reactions, beliefs, and judgments that were appropriate to former figures in our lives, mostly parents, onto people in the present." This process can become a stumbling block in our present relationships with intimate partners, friends, co-workers, or strangers.
Anyone who has transferred the wounds of childhood to adult relationships knows how scary and compulsive this can be. When we engage in this destructive behavior, we are attracted, disgusted, excited, or peeved by others. Our strong reactions of approach or avoidance are signs that we may be reliving the past and should take notice. Richo presents an in-depth explanation of transference and its connections to expectations, reactions, fears, the compulsion to repeat, memories of mistreatment, the physical dimension, regrets and disappointments, and the archetypes we live with. Along the way the author shares exercises and practices to help us live in the present moment, deal with the critic within, handle the dread of abandonment, enter another's world, and allow conflicts to help us.
