Therapists and counsellors use hypnosis as a healing tool for their patients or clients. Sometimes, the hypnosis session will take the form of regression therapy or past life regression to facilitate remembrance of the client’s past traumas to help with healing in the present life.
Regression Therapy, Reincarnation, and Past Lives
It’s believed that regression therapy can allow patients to revisit moments in their current or past lives, primarily through hypnosis. The act of accessing hidden memories enables the individual to delve into and heal emotional blocks. Past life regression is considered to be a form of forensic hypnosis, and, while that is not admissible in court, it does allow therapists and counsellors a way to help clients address and resolve issues when other methods have failed.
Edgar Cayce, who was known as “The Sleeping Prophet,” came to believe in reincarnation and the healing value of exploring past lives, and discusses this in his memoirs, My Life as a Seer: The Lost Memoirs.
Cayce states that he had always considered the concept of reincarnation as foreign until the readings he did for clients made him rethink the entire idea. He talks about the soul and says that “… it has been generally considered that if a man live again, it is his soul that lives.”
Past Life Regression Helps People to Heal
There are different styles and techniques for implementing regression therapy, such as Dr. Samuel Sagan’s Inner Space Interactive Sourcing (ISIS) method, but the goals for all techniques involve helping clients to attain freedom from existing emotional or physical conditions that prevent them from living full, productive lives. Many people gain a variety of positive results from participating in regression therapy.
According to Sagan’s book Regression: Past Life Therapy for Here and Now Freedom, people have been able to “get rid of tranquilisers and sleeping tablets. They find it easier to relate to others, and their general level of neurosis decreases. A number of them even undergo a deep transformation and change of values.”
In his book, Through Time into Healing, Brian L. Weiss, M.D. says that past life regression therapy can be empowering, and that “Past life therapy is particularly effective in treating musculoskeletal pain, headaches that do not respond to medication, allergies, asthma, and stress-induced or immune-system-related conditions … ” He goes on to say that he has had patients who were able to stop taking medication and that past life therapy has been shown to resolve emotional issues or phobias that have a physical origin in a past life.
Finding a Past Life Regression Counselor or Therapist
Experts in the field of regression therapy, including Dr. Weiss and Peter Wolf, counsellor and consulting hypnotist, strongly recommend finding a practitioner who is not only trained and certified in hypnosis, but also has experience and training in counselling. Dr. Weiss specifically recommends seeking help from a licensed mental health professional.
It is important that one works with a counselor who knows how to handle any difficult situation that may come up as a result of delving into past traumatic events, as well as one who would know when to stop the experience if there are indications that the buried event is too traumatic for the client to deal with at that time.
Trained therapists will know how to slowly work through emotional blockages and minimize negative experiences. They guide the client through or around these intense moments and know when to let memories return on their own. Qualified and trained therapists will spend time talking to clients, taking a history, and evaluating the areas that need to be examined. They will not dive into a regression without solid justification for doing so.
While some people may scoff at a belief in reincarnation and doubt the legitimacy of past life regression, many professionals believe that it works, and also maintain that belief in reincarnation is actually unnecessary for it to have a positive impact. In Through Time into Healing, Dr. Brian L. Weiss quotes colleagues as saying that they are uncertain of their belief in past lives, but they do acknowledge that past life regression therapy provides benefits to their patients. He states that “As a therapist or patient, you don’t have to believe in past lives or reincarnation for past life therapy to work.”
Readers who are interested in hypnosis or regression therapy may also wish to read “Interview with Peter Wolf on Clinical and Stage Hypnosis,” “Interview with Peter Wolf on Hypnosis for Personal Development,” and “Interview with Peter Wolf on Stage and Forensic Hypnosis.”
References
Cayce, Edgar, My Life as a Seer: The Lost memoirs, compiled by A. Robert Smith, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997.
Sagan, Dr. Samuel, Regression: Past Life Therapy for Here and Now Freedom, Sydney: Clairvision School Foundation, 1996.
Weiss, Brian L., M.D., Through Time into Healing, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992.
Wolf, Peter, Counsellor and Consulting Hypnotist.
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