Sorry you had to deal with that; it must have been very confusing as a kid. The shifting especially.

I talk about aspects of my childhood, especially anything traumatic or attitudes that my parents had that may have had a strong influence on me. I guess what I'm trying to say is that even though I do do a psychoanalytic type of therapy, we tend to only focus on the distant past as it relates to what is going on now or in the recent past.

The point of talking about childhood things for my therapist is not to work them through as if a child again, but rather to free myself from being too influenced or restricted by my past. Does that make sense?