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Psychotherapeutic basis of Past life Regression

All psycho-therapeutic problems present as symptoms of core issues. Many consciously held symptoms by the patient are often related to deeper primary issues in metaphorical ways. Each core issue has its own basic belief structure and pattern. The pattern of symptoms often found to have their origin in a series of past-life traumas and are a manifestation of the individual's unconscious attempt to resolve the underlying issues. If the patient experiences suffering it is because it has come from the friction that arises because of the discrepancy between the individual's true, prescribed path and the direction that he happens to be following at the time.

The great majority of symptoms have their origins in earlier life. The goal of past-life therapy is to bring traumatic recollections of previous experiences into conscious knowledge. Remembering anger and other emotions and releasing them has a therapeutic effect but the more important release is at the level of understanding the symbolic nature of the complex. The past life is used to guide the patient into its opposite pole, the present. As long as the past is suppressed and continues to work on an unconscious level, the patient will not succeed in living consciously in the here and now. He will continually be re-stimulated and re-tortured by past events because he has confused past with present.

In working with past-lives, the patient re-lives them as if they were real. At this level there is real pain and catharsis may ensue. For example a real execution or beheading in a past life is experienced as pain in the neck. At a second level, the symbolic or metaphorical content is explored. The pains in the neck experienced as beheading at the first level may indicate a feeling of being cut off from life. Feeling crippled and being starved for love may now be seen to be metaphors for one's current life problems.

The alleviation of symptoms is not the final goal. True healing depends on confronting the polarity behind the symptoms. By exploring the chain of symptoms the patient is continually confronted with similar situations in different lives until finally he discovers teh originating source of guilt. When the patient has identified with the opposite personalities in past lives, much is achieved therapeutically. A shadow figure becomes integrated, a split is healed and a lost part of the soul is redeemed through love and acceptance.

(Source: Winafred Blake Lucas, "Regression Therapy - a handbook for professionals).

Seeing Patterns in Regression

The main advantage of regression therapy is help the patient to see "patterns" in his/her lives, both past and present. With a knowledge of patterns, the relief of symptoms is facilitated. Patients can then see how past mistakes are still interfering with their physical and emotional functioning and make new choices to improve their performance.

All of us live somewhat in our past and never completely in the present. Whenever our past obtrudes upon the present and distorts it, a return to the orginal event that that has "sensitised" us to the distortion can often provide the necessary enlightenment to free ourselves from the torture of the distorted present. For instance, a whole range of psychological symptoms and emotional dysfunctions are the outcome of past injustice, e.g. fear, stress, irrational behaviour, rage, etc. For patients who have lost all their sense of self-worth or experiencing personality clashes in their relationships, the use of regression therapy to work out their patterns has been noted to be of immense value in healing. A past life regression helps to ferret out and resolve patterns in the current life that are rooted in the past and that which cannot be dealt with by conventional methods of healing.

Almost any symptom can be an entry point for regression therapy. Even incidents such as illnesses, accidents or death can be important targets for recall. However, the use of regression therapy is not confined to the alleviation of symptoms. Simply pinpointing the origin of a symptom to a past life may not be adequate to bring about transformation. It is more important to re-live the experience, and examine the dynamics and attitudes that support the symptoms. This has often got to be explored at the physical, emotional and mental levels.

Patients who experience problems which cannot be formulated in terms of anything known about their current life may find the origin in a past life and use it to search for a pattern to deepen their understanding of themselves at a subconscious level. Very often healing, or a resolution of the problem occurs along the way and he/she may become aware that the discovery process is part of an embedded spiritual journey.

Hypnotic Approaches to Pain Relief

Hypnosis as a healing technique can be used for pain relief in a number of ways in clinical practice:

(a) Firstly, remember that all pain states have a muscle-tension component because the natural reaction of the physical body to pain is to splint or hold the painful parts of the body still. This brings about muscle tension and contributes to the discomfort. Yypnosis or an altered state of consciousness is associated with relaxation. As part of the hypnotic process, the muscles in the body will let go of their tension. Relaxing tight muscles removes the discomfort and brings about relief of that part of the pain contributed by muscle tension.

(b) Secondly, pain relief can be obtained through a dissociative approach. Hypnosis helps the patient to be creative in distancing themselves mentally from the pain. Some patients for instance, takes the pain and put it on a shelf somewhere. Other patients may devise a barrier between themselves and the pain, almost as if they are looking at the pain from outside.

(c) Thirdly, the sensation of pain can be substituted by other sensations while the patient is under hypnosis. The patient can be facilitated to substitute his pain for a more pleasant kind of feeling, such as numbness, warmth or pressure.

(d) A fourth approach is to give the pain an image with a shape, size and colour. By helping the patient to voluntarily change the size or colour of the image under hypnosis, the patient may be able to achieve pain relief.

(e) A fifth group of technique involves the use of "pain switches" or "pain rheostats" that can be created under trance. Once created, the pain can be switched off or reduced by a sliding switch at will.

(Source: Marlene Hunter, "Creative Scripts for Hypnotherapy", 1994)

History of Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy

Hypnotism has been employed in one form or another for centuries and in many parts of the world. According to William Edmonston, trance states and the beginnings of hypnosis began with the ancient Hindus. In the 5th century BC, ancient Greeks used sleep temples to cure people of their ailments. The Romans also were noted for their use of words to create spells.

Modern hypnotism starts with Franz Mesmer 1765 who used magnets in treating and curing patients by putting magnets on afflicted parts of their bodies. He postulated that a fluid circulating in the body was influenced by magnetic forces originating from the astral bodies. The theory sounded scientific at that time as it coincided with the discovery of electricity and advances in astronomy. In 1784 Louis XVI set up a commission to investigate Mesmer who was later discredited. However interest in Mesmerism was revived by Dr. Elliotson, the physician who introduced the stethoscope to England.

In 1841, James Braid, another physician became interested in Mesmerism and he believed that it was not animal magnetism but suggestion that was the basis for the effect. He developed the eye-fixation method of inducing relaxation and called it "hypnosis", a Greek word for sleep.

In 1845, James Esdaile, a surgeon working in India performed hundreds of minor surgical procedures under Mesmeric anaesthesia. In his book, Mesmerism in India he accurately described many of the phenomena of hypnosis as we know it today.

Concurrently in Nancy, France, Dr. Ambroise-Auguste Liebault and Dr. Hippolyte Bernheim, a neurologist worked together and treated thousands of patients with hypnosis. Bernheim wrote the first scientific treatise on hypnosis in 1886: Suggestive Therapeutics. Sigmund Freud heard of their work and in 1890 came to Nancy. However, he personally found the cures too superficial and abandoned the method. This unfortunately set back the development of hypnosis for fifty years.

World War I came along and tremendous incidence of shell shock was noted. Ernst Simmel, a German psychoanalyst used hypnosis for the treatment of war neurosis. The treatment allowed soldiers to return to the trench almost immediately. The merger of hypnosis with psychoanalysis was an important developmental milestone. During World War II, hypnosis played a prominent part in the treatment of combat fatigue.

After World War II, Milton Erickson had a major impact on the understanding of hypnosis and the mind. He theorized that hypnosis is a state of the mind that we all enter into spontaneously and frequently. This has enormous implications for therapists to influence people through their words. On the heels of his work, hypnosis soon evolved into a well respected practice used by doctors, psychologists and even people in sales and marketing today.

Gradually medical and dental professionals became more accepting in embracing hypnosis in their clinical practice. In 1955 the British Medical Association issued a report stating that hypnosis was a valuable medical tool. In 1958 the American Medical Association recognized hypnosis as a viable scientific modality. In 1962 the American Psychiatric Association recognised hypnosis as a viable and valuable modality to treat certain psychological disorders.

Conditions treatable with Past-Life Regression Therapy

Woolger gave a list of conditions which responded to past life therapy in his practice. It is to be noted that one individual may have several themes and related past-life stories that will need to be worked through in a regression process.

(1) Insecurity and fear of abandonment - this is often related to past life abandoment as a child, separation during a war, being orphaned, sold to slavery, left to die in a famine, etc.
(2) Depression - Past life memories of loss of a loved, unfinished grieving, suicide, despair, massacre, etc.
(3) Phobias - Traumas in past life: death by fire, drowning, suffocation, animals, insects, natural disasters, etc.
(4) Sadomasochistic behaviour - Past life memory of torture, often with loss of consciousness, usually with sexual overtones; associated with pain, rage, hatred and a desire to revenge oneself in some way.
(5) Guilt and martyr complexes - Past life memory of having killed loved ones or directly responsible for the death of others.
(6) Material insecurity and eating disorders - Past life memory of starvation, poverty
(7) Accidents, violence, physical brutality - Repetition of old battlefield memories; unfulfilled quests for power
(8) Family struggles - Past life scores to settle with parents, children, siblings: e.g. betrayal, abuse of power
(9) Sexual difficulties - Past life memories of rape, abuse, torture.
(10) Marital difficulties - Past life experience with the same mate in a different power, class or sexual constellation, e.g. mistress, slave, prostitute, where sex roles were reversed.
(11) Chronic physical ailments - Headaches may be related to past life intolerable mental choices, ulcers to memories of terror, neckaches to hanging or strangling.

Of course, this list is far from being exhaustive.

(Source: Roger Wolger: "Other Lives, Other Selves." 1988.)

Uses of Hypnosis in Healing

Hypnosis works in many clinical conditions and effective in many people. The key to success in hypnotherapy is really the therapist-client relationship.

Below is a list of legitimate uses of hypnotherapy, as defined by the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis:

• Allergies
• Anxiety and stress management
• Asthma
• Bedwetting
• Bowel Syndrome
• Colitis, Crohn's disease
  
• Concentration
• Depression
  
• Dermatological disorders (eczema, herpes, neurodermatitis, pruritus, psoriasis, warts)
• Hypertension
• Learning disorders
• Obesity and Weight control
• Pain (back pain, cancer pain, dental anaesthesia, headaches, migraines, arthritis, rheumatism)
  
• Sleep disorders
  
• Sports, athletic performance
• Smoking cessation
• Raynaud's disease
• Test anxiety

(Source: Richard K Nongard, "Clinical Hypnosis - a Primer)