Susie Orbach: Why can't pain, once understood and engaged with, allow for a speedy rewrite of a physical or mental template and thus bring quick relief?

From Susie Orbach, Bodies

Why can't pain, once understood and engaged with, allow for a speedy rewrite of a physical or mental template and thus bring quick relief? It is frustrating. Our brains seem to work so fast to grasp things and yet so slowly to change. 

A way to think about this is to remind ourselves that the human animal has a long gestation period outside the womb, during which the baby absorbs and personalizes that which will make it human. If we use language as a model and recognise that it takes two to four years for language to become personal and a part of oneself, then the idea that therapy is akin to absorbing a new language, only more so, begins to make sense. (68-9)