My aim is to seek understanding for the reasons one seeks therapy.  Not to offer immediate solutions.

By looking into the past to help think about the present, one may find clues to help explain the strength of one's feelings and emotions, their behavior and reactions to situations, the way they cope or attempt to find relief.  Why one may feel different to others, or increasingly isolated and turn to self-defeating ways of managing themselves. 

How one has coped thus far, the strategies one may have used to numb oneself from mental pain, to avoid contact with others or reality, can all be thought about.  Even to consider the emergence of new challenges which derail us without notice into unknown states of mind.  

My experience is primarily in the NHS with adults (18 and over), presenting with complex needs.  Past diagnoses are not as relevant to me as coming to know and understand the patient.  Even presenting issues, as real as they can seem at the time, are often symptoms of deeper rooted conflicts.  It takes time to trust a therapist and to make sense of the unresolved puzzle a patient comes with.  But we can try.