How Understanding Your Past Can Transform Your Present
Many people come to therapy with a quiet question they can’t quite shake. Why does this keep happening?
Why do the same emotional patterns repeat, even when you’re trying so hard to do things differently? Why do certain situations or relationships trigger reactions that feel bigger than the moment itself?
Psychodynamic counselling offers a space to gently explore these questions. Rather than focusing only on what’s happening now, it helps you understand where these patterns began, so change becomes deeper and more lasting.
Why Patterns Keep Repeating
Most of us develop coping strategies long before we realise we’re doing so. These patterns often make sense once, usually in response to earlier relationships or experiences. But over time, they can start to feel limiting, confusing or painful. These strategies will be holding a purpose in your life, but the external formation of that is no longer serve you or aligning with who you are now.
You might notice similar dynamics playing out in relationships, an inner critic that never quite softens, or emotional reactions that feel hard to explain. Psychodynamic counselling helps you explore these experiences with curiosity rather than judgement, offering insight into why they exist and how they’ve been protecting you.
What Is Psychodynamic Counselling?
Psychodynamic counselling is a form of therapy that focuses on understanding the unconscious processes shaping your thoughts, feelings and behaviour. It recognises that early experiences - especially within relationships - influence how we see ourselves, others and the world.
Working with a psychodynamic therapist involves exploring emotions, memories, and relational patterns as they arise in your life and in the therapeutic relationship. This isn’t about digging up the past for the sake of it, or analysing everything you say. It’s about noticing what feels important, what gets repeated, and what might be asking to be understood.
Unlike short-term, symptom-focused approaches, psychodynamic counselling looks beyond quick fixes. The aim is to create lasting change by understanding the roots of your difficulties, rather than just managing surface-level effects.
How the Past Shapes the Present
Our earliest relationships often teach us what to expect from others and what’s expected of us. These lessons can shape attachment patterns, self-worth and how safe it feels to rely on someone else.
You might find yourself drawn into similar relationship dynamics again and again, or reacting strongly to situations that others seem to brush off. Inner critical voices, difficulties with boundaries, or a deep sense of not being “enough” often have origins that make sense when viewed through this lens.
Psychodynamic counselling offers space to connect these dots gently, helping you understand your emotional responses rather than feeling controlled by them.
Psychodynamic Counselling and Trauma
Trauma isn’t always about one clear event. It can also be about experiences that felt overwhelming, unsafe or unmet over time. These experiences can shape how your nervous system responds to the world long after the danger has passed.
Trauma counselling within a psychodynamic framework recognises that healing isn’t just about talking through what happened. It’s about creating safety, trust and choice in the present. A trauma-informed therapy approach works at a pace led by you, ensuring that exploration feels containing rather than re-traumatising.
Working with a trauma therapist means prioritising emotional safety, building stability first, and allowing difficult material to emerge only when it feels manageable.
What Happens in Psychodynamic Therapy Sessions?
Psychodynamic therapy sessions are open, reflective and led by what feels important to you. There’s no pressure to arrive with a set agenda or to talk about anything before you’re ready.
Together, we might explore thoughts, feelings, memories, dreams or reactions in relationships- including the therapeutic relationship itself. Rather than offering advice or solutions, the focus is on understanding, insight and meaning-making over time.
For many people new to therapy, this can feel unfamiliar at first. But over time, trust builds, patterns become clearer, and new ways of relating to yourself and others begin to emerge.
Integrative Counselling at Mind & Miles
At Mind & Miles, psychodynamic work sits within an integrative counselling approach. This means depth and insight are combined with practical support when it’s helpful.
An integrative therapist draws on different therapeutic models to meet your needs, rather than fitting you into a single fixed approach. This allows therapy to support both understanding and coping, helping you make sense of your experiences while also developing ways to navigate day-to-day challenges.
Who Can Benefit from Psychodynamic Counselling?
Psychodynamic counselling can be particularly helpful if you’re experiencing long-standing anxiety or low mood, repeated relationship difficulties, or struggles with identity or self-esteem. It can support people who have experienced trauma, neglect or emotional wounds that still feel present. Many people seek psychodynamic counselling after trying other approaches and finding themselves still feeling “stuck”. Others are drawn to it because they want a deeper understanding of themselves and their emotional world.
Psychodynamic Counselling and Short-Term Therapies
Short-term therapies can be incredibly valuable, particularly for managing specific symptoms or crises. Psychodynamic counselling offers something slightly different. Rather than focusing solely on techniques or tools, it aims to understand the underlying causes of distress. This depth can support long-term change, especially when patterns feel deeply ingrained. Both approaches have their place, and choosing therapy is about finding what fits your needs at this point in your life.
Counselling at Mind & Miles
My work at Mind & Miles is trauma-informed, integrative and grounded in compassion. I offer a space where you don’t need to perform, explain yourself away, or minimise your experiences.
Psychodynamic counselling here is about creating room for your full story, including the parts that feel confusing, contradictory or hard to put into words.
Therapy becomes a place where you can feel seen and heard, often in ways that haven’t been possible before.
Is Psychodynamic Counselling Right for You?
You might be considering this approach if you want to understand yourself more deeply, notice patterns repeating in your life, or feel that past experiences are still shaping your present. You may be open to exploring emotions over time and curious about change that goes beyond surface-level fixes.
Reaching out doesn’t require certainty, just a willingness to begin.
Starting Counselling with Mind & Miles
Mind & Miles offers confidential, supportive counselling tailored to you. Sessions are available online. The first step is simply making contact and having a conversation about what you’re looking for.
You can book a counselling session, speak to a psychodynamic therapist, or get in touch with Mind & Miles today.
Understanding where you’ve come from can change how you live now. Psychodynamic counselling offers a space to make sense of your story, develop compassion for yourself, and move forward in a way that feels more aligned and free.
