I shall never forget one of my women patients who tor­tured herself with her unhappy past, so much so that she destroyed any chance for happiness in the present. She had lived for years in bitterness and resentment, as a direct re­sult of a serious harelip that caused her to shun people, and to develop over the years a personality that was stunted, crabby, and completely turned against the world and everything in it. She had no friends because she imag­ined that no one would be friendly with a person who looked so "awful." She deliberately avoided people, or, what was worse, consistently alienated people with her sour, defensive attitude. Surgery cured her physical prob­lem. She tried to make the adjustment and to begin living with people in harmony and friendliness, but found that her past experiences kept getting in the way. She felt that, despite her new appearance, she could not make friends and be happy because no one would forgive her for what she had been before the operation. She wound up making the same mistakes she had made before and was as un­happy as ever. She did not really begin to live until she learned to stop condemning herself for what she had been in the past and to stop reliving in her imagination all the unhappy events that had brought her to my office for surgery.
Continually criticising yourself for past mistakes and errors does not help matters, but on the other hand tends to perpetuate the very behavior you would change. Memories of past failures can adversely affect present per­formance, if we dwell upon them and foolishly conclude —"I failed yesterday—therefore it follows that I will fail again today." However, this does not "prove" that uncon­scious reaction patterns have any power in themselves to repeat and perpetuate themselves, or that all buried memories of failure must be "eradicated" before behavior can be changed. If we are victimized, it is by our con­scious, thinking mind and not by the "unconscious." For it is with the thinking part of our personality that we draw conclusions, and select the "goal images" that we shall concentrate upon. The minute that we change our minds, and stop giving power to the past, the past with its mis­takes loses power over us.