The pain of a broken dream or failed project deserves to be fully experienced, without rushing. Discover why authentically going through these silent griefs is essential to your personal growth.

Reading time: 6 minutes

“We will no longer need grief”

This is how Marco Diella, psychologist and psychotherapist in transactional analysis, provocatively titled his presentation at the FAT (Festival of Transactional Analysis) which I attended on May 10, 2025 in Rome. A profound questioning of our contemporary relationship to suffering and its necessary passage.

The silent death of our dreams

While Diella spoke about the death of loved ones and the importance of giving meaning to this loss, I found myself reflecting on another type of grief: that of projects that don’t materialize. That professional dream that fades, that family ideal that proves unattainable, that life project that suddenly collapses.

As a certified counselor in transactional analysis, I observe this silent pain daily, often unrecognized by a society that demands we always be performant and resilient. A society that forces us to “heal quickly” and doesn’t tolerate the slowness necessary to metabolize loss and name what we have lost.

The voices of the ego states that should support us

Diella reminded us of the importance of our inner Parent: the positive Nurturing Parent that allows us to listen, give permissions, be in contact with the need for support, that voice that tells us “what you’re experiencing is okay,” that authorizes us to feel without judgment.

And the positive structuring Normative Parent that allows us to provide structure, comfort, attention, that also offers us rituals to traverse pain with dignity.

But what happens when these voices fade precisely at the moment of failure?

Our inner Child then remains exposed to the emotional storm, without protection or understanding. “You should already be better, you should already have passed this, instead you’re still here,” these external messages become internal tortures.

The need to authentically traverse pain

In a world that pushes us toward quick and superficial solutions, we risk losing sight of a fundamental truth: pain from the loss of a loved one, a project or a dream needs human time and authentic presence.

We must traverse the pain. As Maria Luisa De Luca, President of the “Grief and Growth” Association, emphasizes, grief has a fluid, intermittent nature that oscillates between orientation toward loss and orientation toward growth.

The point isn’t to go beyond but to have an inner guide that allows us to welcome. The Parent’s function is to provide structure, containment, nourishment to what we are.

Giving form to loss

It’s fundamental to understand that pain isn’t our enemy: it’s by going through it that we grow. Each failed project, each broken dream brings with it precious teachings that we can only acquire if we accept to fully feel that suffering.

Pain is necessary for our growth because it forces us to stop, reflect, transform ourselves into something new and more conscious. This means transforming this bond that will forever be alive in us, giving it space inside us. It’s therefore not replaced but integrates what has been.

The transformation of the bond

In our era that privileges immediacy, perhaps we should rediscover the ancient wisdom of grief: that profoundly human process that teaches us to give form to absence and to keep alive within us, transformed, what seemed lost forever.

It’s not about forgetting our broken dreams or failed projects but integrating them into our story as necessary chapters of our evolution.

As a counselor, through the profound and transformative tools of transactional analysis, I accompany you in a journey of true integration of loss. No ready-made solutions or injunctions to get better quickly: an authentic human relationship where your pain finds listening and your growth takes form.