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.

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.)