A woman in her late 20s was getting married and was concerned because every relationship ended in conflict. She was certain that this was a result of her childhood where her parents fought frequently. She was certain that she had learnt from her parents and this caused the relationship conflicts.
She found it easy to become focused and absorbed in recalling an experience where her parents had argued. They were in the kitchen. She was under the table and was terrified. I invited her to imagine that she could have a different experience and she readily imagined her asking her parents for a hug. She smiled as she created this experience.
Then she revisited a time when they were in the car. Her father was driving, her mother was in the passenger seat and she was in the back seat. She was very interested to imagine instead, that she asked for an ice cream, preferring chocolate, and her parents gave her this instead of arguing.
We revisited several other incidents, she imagined a preferred outcome, and then said that she knew that she had imagined these preferred experiences, that they weren’t real, but now she was recalling other times when something like these did actually happen.
She left happy and satisfied. I didn’t hear from her after this so I don’t know if the marriage was how she wanted, but her mood was very different, evidencing that this was at least possible in contrast to the absolute certainty of catastrophe that she began with.
I see an 84 y/o woman whom I have seen a bit longer than you saw your patient....33 years. She has significant trauma and felt betrayed by her mother around a seminal experience many years ago. Just today I began to hear something positive about her mother and we began to focus on a variety of things she learned from her mother as well as a number of her strengths. This brought forth much emotion and my patient began to speak of the grief and loss in her family in a softer way. I am interested to try imagining different outcomes as you suggest. Thanks.