When I participated in a basic encounter group, I had the experience of being urged by a relatively directive facilitator not to "talk about the past" but to "talk about the 'here and now'." (Morotomi, 2009, p. 39)

6. To what extent does the client express his feelings, and to what extent does he rather talk about them? (This scale differentiates direct expression from report about one's feelings, regardless of whether the feeling is past or present).

Example:
  "It comes to me now how scared I really was last night."
  "I was scared last night."
(Gendlin et al., 1960, p. 211; Gendlin, 1962/1997, p. 249; bold added)

... as to content it might well be about a past event, for example, intensely experiencing sadness now, about events of long ago. (Gendlin et al., 1968, pp. 222-3)

There are two pasts, two ways the word "was" can work: One is the retroactive past, made from the carrying-forward occurrence of what was implied. The other is the remembered past behind us on the linear track. Certainly, sometimes we do confuse these two. And, that is just because they are not the same. (Gendlin, 1991, p. 65)

"Oh, now I know what it was. I was afraid of her all this time." (Ikemi, 2017, p. 167; bold added)

It is not because you were able to say what you wanted to say that you got it off your chest, but because you got it off your chest that you know it was what you wanted to say. (Chikada, 2002, p. 59; bold added)

The present ... gives the past a new function, a new role to play. ... Not only is it interpreted differently, rather, it functions differently in a new present.... (Gendlin, 1996, pp. 14-5)

...for that past must be set over against the present within which the emergent appears, and the past, which must then be looked at from the standpoint of the emergent, becomes a different past. (Mead, 1932, p. 2)

Because of the lack of precise terms, Rogers' emphasis on present experience has been widely misinterpreted to mean that a client need not deal with his past experience. In such a reading of his view, Rogers' reference to the present is taken to refer to conceptual content. Rogers is misunderstood to mean that a client need only deal with the content of his present life, not with his early experience. However, Rogers means that whatever the client deals with (past or present conceptual content), it is optimally dealt with only through present experiencing. (Gendlin, 1958, p. 13; 1962/1997, pp. 247-8; bold added)

I respond more to present feelings than to statements about past experiences but am willing for both to be present in the communication. I do not like the rule: “We will only talk about the here and now.” (Rogers, 1970, p. 50; bold added)

It is insufficient merely to recall a past incident, one has to psychodramatically return to it. … the memory of an experience—simply talking about it—leaves it isolated as a deposit of the past-as lacking in life as the ruins of Pompei. You are left with the opportunity to make some clever reconstructions, but you don’t bring them back alive. (Perls, 1966, pp. 65-6; bold added)