All that we are, our virtues and flaws, our preferences and dislikes, our ambitions and fears, and, of course, our habits, all stem from our past. And in all of these, our past is present.

We often think we have left it behind; however, it can make its presence felt at any moment. Childhood, school years, happy moments, traumatic memories; our past does not pass away. It is always present. And our happiness, our peace, but also our ability to create the future we long for, depend directly on our ability to live harmoniously with our past. How can this be achieved?

To understand how the past affects our present, we must study how our memory works. Our past lies there: not behind us, but within us. However, our memories are not so much objective data as reconstructions we have invented.

The revolution in neuroscience gives us access to unexplored fields: there is a way to return to the unpleasant events of the past to neutralize their toxicity, as well as to recall lost happiness in the present to enjoy it again. Intervention in our past is no longer scientific fiction but science and, most importantly, a way of being available to everyone.

Freud and Lacan invited us to embrace a past we could not change; the new therapists trained in neuroscience ask us to change our past to welcome the future.