I think it's that it's hard to communicate to another person how we are feeling. I would be very very surprised if every person on pc read these articles and said yes that's exactly how I feel, partly because it's not how they feel, and partly because they just won't understand it the same way as the next person.

I wouldn't say that the concept of emotional flashbacks is new. The idea of repetition compulsion is kinda based on it - we have these old bad feelings that repeat, and we try the old bad ways, over and over, to make it come out differently. Sometimes we're not ready to hear it - which is such a cliche, but what has been helpful for me is to find a benchmark (as we used in computers) - a test process that you try every six months or however, to measure how much you've changed. In my benchmark process, my t was interpreting exactly correctly, but it was too painful to hear at first. Who wants to hear, you sound like your mother?? I told him, no offense, but no wonder you're divorced - nobody wants to hear that in ANY context!!