Notes On…Developing the Negatives

I was watching Broken Hearts Club the other night, and something about it stuck with me. Dennis, the main character, is an aspiring photographer who captures moments of his friends' lives, documenting their experiences, relationships, and struggles. But it was a scene where Dennis was in the darkroom that really struck me—watching him develop his photographs, watching the images slowly come to life in the chemical bath. What began as a negative—a blurry, unclear imprint—gradually transformed into something vivid, full of depth and meaning.

Therapy is much the same.

The negatives of our lives—the painful memories, the moments of fear, failure, or regret—often feel overwhelming and disorienting. When we’re in the thick of them, they can seem like nothing more than darkness, clouding our ability to see beyond the pain. But just as a photograph needs shadows to create depth, our struggles add layers of meaning to who we are.

In Broken Hearts Club, Dennis captures not just the lighthearted moments but the full emotional spectrum of his friends' lives. Therapy, in its own way, does the same. It offers a safe environment to expose our hidden wounds to the light of awareness, piece by piece, until a fuller image of ourselves comes into focus. The process is slow, sometimes painstaking, requiring patience as we sit with emotions that are difficult to face. But healing, like developing a photograph, isn’t about rushing—it’s about trusting that what first appears as distortion will, over time, reveal something clearer.

What emerges is a more complete picture—not just the highlights of joy and success, but the shadows that give those moments contrast and depth. Therapy doesn’t erase the dark spots; it helps us understand them, integrate them, and see how they shape the richness of our lives.

When we allow ourselves to develop fully—without fear of what the darkness holds—we begin to see that our hardest moments weren’t just obstacles. They were part of the composition all along.