Cold Case Therapy: What Dept Q Gets Right About Healing Old Wounds

I’ve been absolutely glued to Netflix’s new series Department Q,  the Edinburgh based crime drama that’s got everyone talking.

But underneath all that gorgeous Scottish architecture and noir atmosphere, there’s something deeper happening that’s got me thinking about basements. Literal ones. Metaphorical ones. And why we avoid them both.

Carl Morck, the lead detective, is rough around the edges — scarred by his own past mistakes and haunted by guilt. When he’s assigned to Department Q, the cold case division, leading a team of brilliant misfits, he’s basically been told: “Here…. deal with the problems everyone else gave up on.”

Sound familiar?

The Basement of Forgotten Things

While Carl and his team sift through dusty, abandoned case files deep in their Edinburgh office basement, most of us have our own emotional archives we avoid opening.

That childhood humiliation. The heartbreak that changed us. The moment we quietly decided we weren’t enough.

Cold cases, every one of them.

And just like in the show, we’ve often been told those cases are closed.

“That was years ago.” “You just need to get over it.” “Why are you still thinking about that?”

Or maybe you’ve done the opposite.  You’ve analysed it to death. You understand exactly why you react the way you do, where it came from, what triggers it. You know the psychology textbook explanations by heart. And yet you are still stuck.

But here’s what Department Q gets absolutely right: Old wounds don’t vanish just because we ignore them. They don’t expire with time. They become patterns.

When the Past Starts Driving the Present

Carl’s past trauma drives his obsessive need to solve cases — but it also isolates him, makes him very difficult to work with and keeps him stuck in patterns of guilt and self-punishment. Yet when channelled through the right framework (his team, proper support, fresh perspectives), those same intense responses become investigative strengths.

It’s the same with our emotional cold cases.

That time you were rejected? Your brain quietly filed it under “People leave.” Now it runs that programme every time someone gets close.

That moment you were criticised? Filed under “I’m not good enough.” Still running twenty years later, every time you try something new.

Your subconscious doesn’t know time. It just knows this pattern kept you safe before. Let’s run it again.

You Can’t Solve It with Logic Alone

What I love about Department Q is how Carl’s team approaches cold cases differently. They use new angles, fresh thinking and spot patterns where others don’t.

Akram has this brilliant ability to sift through hundreds of dusty case files scattered across the floor and instantly know which ones are worth pursuing. He organizes them, prioritizes them and puts the most relevant ones on Carl’s desk. Rose, meanwhile, brings an almost obsessive attention to detail and refuses to let anything slide, her persistence often uncovers the crucial evidence everyone else missed.

Good therapy works the same way.

Your logical mind has already tried to solve your stuff. You’ve analysed it. Read about it. Understood it. You know exactly why you do what you do.

But here’s the frustrating truth, understanding a pattern doesn’t automatically change it.

You need someone who can look at all your emotional “case files” — the jumbled mess of memories, triggers and patterns — and quickly identify what’s actually driving your current struggles

That’s where approaches like IEMT come in. Think of it as spring cleaning for your mental basement. Your brain stores emotional memories in a jumbled, unprocessed way that keeps triggering your alarm system inappropriately. It’s like having boxes of old case files scattered everywhere, and every time you accidentally kick one, it sets off a whole emotional reaction that doesn’t even belong to your current situation.

IEMT uses specific eye movement patterns that help your brain properly file away those scattered emotional memories. Instead of leaving them lying around like open case files, constantly nagging at you, they get stored as “historical information” rather than “current threat alerts.”

Hypnotherapy works differently. It’s like having a direct conversation with the case manager who's been running those old files, updating the threat assessments to match your current reality rather than the survival protocols you needed years ago.

Here’s the thing. You don’t need to spend years down in that emotional basement. You just need someone with the right investigative approach to properly close those cases that are still affecting you today.

Your Investigation Starts Now

So what emotional cold cases are gathering dust in your basement?

What patterns keep showing up that feel frustratingly familiar? What old hurts are still running the show, decades later?

You don't need to keep living like the crime is still happening. You just need the right tools to close the case.

Unlike Department Q's endless backlog, your emotional cold cases can actually be solved - properly processed and filed away where they belong.

And you can finally move forward, free from those dusty basement files that have been running your life for far too long.