Constructing the past: An existential-phenomenological analysis

Beginning with a critical overview of more typical therapeutic assumptions regarding linear causality and the fixedness and constancy of the past, this paper argues from a perspective that emphasises 1) the distinction between the past per se and the remembered past; and 2) the fluidity of the remembered past. the author then presents an alternative argument, derived from existential-phenomenological analysis, that the principal function of the remembered past is to both reflect and validate the currently maintained and future-directed self-construct. Some initial implications for psychotherapy and counselling raised by this hypothesis are discussed both generally and via a brief case vignette.