The deepest compass of the mind goes awry. Intuition and creativity become damaged. Sensitivity to self and world dampens. Above all else, the therapist must return to his clients the permission to feel. We bring about this return of the permission to feel in a variety of ways.
Present events have their own reality.
Often, however, they resonate with or trigger old feelings. In fact, present events trigger a surprising number of internal experiences which are exactly congruent with experiences from the past. When a therapist leads a patient to experience a series of congruences between a present and past event, the tumblers of the mind fall into place, and the past event is re-experienced with great intensity. We encourage the reliving of past experiences because only after this occurs does the mind break free of its bondage to early trauma. Until an event is re-experienced, as fully as possible, it remains anchored and unchanging in the depths of the mind.