What is Hypnotic Regression Therapy?
Whenever we hear about “age regression”, “regression therapy” or “hypnotic regression”, hypnosis comes into mind immediately. All of these are vague terms for many people. They are often misunderstood or interchangeably used. Although all of the regression therapies can offer positive results for healing from emotional trauma, they can also offer general self-improvement benefits. Let’s look into hypnotic regression therapies a bit deeper.
There are two forms of regression therapies done with hypnosis: Age regression therapy and past life regression therapy.
What is Age Regression Therapy?
Age regression is a hypnotic technique that takes the person to an earlier time in life to uncover memories, emotions, and mostly to uncover repressed trauma. Although there have been positive results with the age regression technique, we now know that there are more risks than benefits.
An age regression hypnotherapy session starts just like any other session. First, the hypnotherapist conducts an interview with the person to identify goals or suppressed emotions. Later during hypnosis, the person is then taken into the memory in which the emotional events took place. The hypnotherapist facilitates the processing of the emotions while helping the person re-learn a new response.
So far sounds like a positive experience, right? But wait a second. How accurate can your mind be? Mostly within the mental health community age regression is considered to be unethical and possibly dangerous.
There are three reasons why:
Our minds can falsify memories therefore recollections during hypnosis are not reliable
During the hypnotic process, the hypnotherapist can be misleading with guiding questions
The memories may be repressed as a coping defense. Uncovering these memories may retraumatize the person or affect daily life negatively
Considering these risks, many professionals don’t see the value in age regression hypnosis and they focus on helping the person improve their life by relieving the symptoms rather than trying to uncover the past.
What is Past Life Regression Therapy?
On the other hand, past life regression therapy with hypnosis is a totally different story. For some people, it’s considered fantasy and for some other people, it’s as real as life gets. Past life regression therapy is another hypnotic approach to facilitate the discovery of previous lives.
Just like age regression therapy, past life regression therapy is also very controversial within the mental health community. Some professionals find it potentially helpful but they believe that recollections of past lives under hypnosis don’t portray real memories.
Some of these views even suggest that there is no proof that these memories reflect reality let alone bring a therapeutic benefit. In some cases, even if these memories are real, they may not actually solve the issue. For example, take someone experiencing fear of water. If they uncover that they were drowned tragically in their past life, that memory potentially may not bring a resolution.
Interestingly enough, pioneers in the past life regression field are actually from the psychiatry community. You may have heard of Dr. Brian Weiss -his best selling book “Many Lives, Many Masters”- or Dr. Ian Stevenson -his work on children who remember their past lives-. These two widely-known psychiatrists researched the past life regression subject extensively. Although it’s almost impossible to scientifically prove the past-life theory, they found that past-life regression therapy brought psychological relief and improvement to some of their patients.
Past life regression therapy relies on reincarnation and aims to find out about the person’s previous identities in an attempt to bring relief to experiences in this life. Sometimes even traumatic events are uncovered, and discoveries like these can resolve some unexplained problems in this lifetime. As one understands different perspectives of their soul, they can understand the hardships they encounter better as well.
A past life regression session starts with determining therapeutic goals and the intention of the experiencer. Later, a deep state of hypnosis is induced by the hypnotherapist. The hypnotherapist’s role is to facilitate the past life journey without guiding the memory. As the person communicates the memory and emotions, the hypnotherapist helps the person make sense out of this experience.
There have been many cases past life regression didn’t bring a positive result to the person’s development. There also have been lots of cases in which people healed significant fears or traumas from their past lives. Even if it’s just for exploring the subconscious inhibitions, the experience of past life will be worth the trial!
Source: Staircase to heaven
Is it safe to do past life regression therapy or age regression therapy on your own?
You may come across Youtube videos or self-hypnosis techniques to guide you into age regression or past life regression. Although it’s not impossible, it’s usually hard to accomplish helpful results on your own.
The first reason is that it’s difficult to achieve the desired hypnotic depth on your own. In a deep state of hypnosis, suppressed memories and emotions can surface easily. It may be hard to reach that depth without proper guidance. Secondly, the guidance and the facilitation during these types of therapies are just as important as the journey itself. Actually, without guidance, these types of therapeutic tools can even become dangerous. The results can be retraumatizing, confusing, and more disturbing than beneficial.
What other holistic tools are available for trauma release
Unfortunately, trauma happens every day to one of us. What matters is how we respond to it. Some of us will take it as something that determines the course of life. Some will become a warrior as they learn to live with the results.
Age regression and past life regression therapy with hypnosis can be options. However, there are other holistic therapeutic tools that can be just as powerful:
Massage therapy:
Often trauma gets stuck in the physical parts of the body. Sometimes we even encounter chronic pain after the onset. An experienced trauma massage therapist can help! Identifying the stuck parts and moving them out of the body can bring significant results! You can read more about the benefits of massage therapy on trauma healing and suppressed emotions here.
Hypnotherapy:
The hypnotherapy itself can be very helpful to change subconscious patterns. Most likely, as a result of trauma, you made subconscious decisions to protect yourself in the future. Those are usually unhelpful decisions that were made unconsciously. An example can be unconsciously keeping yourself overweight to not become a victim of sexual assault again. During hypnosis, working with these beliefs, patterns, or emotions without remembering the event can still bring significant healing. You can read more about how hypnotherapy works here.
Breathwork:
Breathing is part of all holistic approaches. Look at meditation, hypnosis, massage, or even yoga! Breathing moves emotions, changes physical state, and creates space for mental openness. A breathwork practitioner can help you release physical and emotional trauma. You can read more about how breathwork can help heal from trauma here.
Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT):
EFT is a form of tapping that uses similar principles with acupressure. As we go through events in life, our energy points get clogged. If we don’t clear our energetic path, we may encounter mental and physical problems in life. An EFT practitioner will help you clear the blockages that were caused by the traumatic events in the past. You can read more about EFT and how it works here.