Age Regression: Is It for Real?
Applications in Hypnotism & Psychotherapy
IRRATIONAL REACTIONS
A woman entered the office of a hypnotist to discuss a development which she did not understand. She had always, as far as she remembered, been affected with sadness when a visitor left her home, but in recent years the feelings had increased. Not only had the emotional disturbance become greater, it also now resulted in tears and severe crying spells which approached the levels of hysteria.
This was increasingly embarrassing, for the emotional upsets came when anyone went out the door. It was not limited to loved family members and fears for their safety. It occurred regardless of who departed ? the plumber, carpenter, even the pest control serviceman. She felt the situation demanded attention and a friend had suggested hypnosis.
While using the approaches of traditional psychoanalysis, the case might have required many months or perhaps even years of therapy. However, the hypnotist felt that just a few sessions should prove adequate. The initial session would involve information gathering in the fully conscious state, educating the client around the nature of hypnosis, and certain tests of hypnotizability to provide the practitioner with information important in determining methods and procedures appropriate to the client's personality and belief systems.
A CASE FOR REGRESSION
In one of the subsequent sessions, it was planned to utilize techniques of hypnotic regression, the purpose being to seek out the cause or event involved in the initial development of the problem. The hypnotist felt that something, probably early in life, had occurred which created a psychological imprint that subsequently had been forgotten or had been unrecognized for the effect it could produce. It might have involved parents, teachers, relatives, or siblings. Regression could pull back the covers of the past to reveal the causal factors.
The regression proceeded normally. Since the hypnotist had no knowledge of either the age or circumstances involved, the client was simply instructed to go back in time to the year and place where the problem originated. Programmed to view the event as if it were a television show and to be able to speak about it, the client was asked what was going on.
She explained that she was sitting on the stairs in her home, halfway down the staircase, looking down into the living room. She was three years old. Her father had died and was lying in the living room. She was called down and instructed to kiss her father goodbye, which she did without reaction.
Well-meaning family members then sought to avoid a situation where, not understanding death, the child would not be constantly expecting her father to return. They explained to her that when her father was taken out through "that door," he would be gone forever and would never return. That, she was told, is what death is. You go out a door and never return.
The explanation and the concept of doors was locked subconsciously into the three-year-old mind. There was no understanding, simply an authoritative statement that going out a door led to something terrible. Parents, teachers and others often have no idea that an explanation, however understandable and well-intended to adults, can prove devastating to a child's mind.
THE PROBLEM VANISHED
Having uncovered the casual factor and surrounding circumstances, the hypnotist felt it would be fairly simple, through hypnosis, to guide the client into releasing the past to the past where it would have no further effect on the present or the future. However, as is frequently the case, it was not necessary. Simple understanding of the cause emerging from hypnosis with heretofore buried knowledge - was in itself sufficient to resolve the problem. From that moment of understanding the problem vanished instantly. In three years, it has not returned.
Age regression has proved invaluable in hypnotism. Its use in psychotherapy, following the work of the late internationally recognized psychiatrist, Milton Erickson, has been expanding steadily.
Regression, as in the case cited, has proved a superb vehicle for rooting out causes. In many cases of stress or anxiety, the causing factors are unknown to the conscious mind. But the unconscious, vastly larger and more powerful, is the seat of all memory and can bring forth from memory information and events related or pertinent to the problems at hand.
Fears and worries often have hidden, repressed or suppressed causes which can be ferreted out through hypnotic age regression. Perhaps the most important factor in successful regression is the rapport between client and therapist. Hypnotic trips into the past can encounter very sensitive and personal revelations, and solid trust and comfort between participants is essential to the achievement of goals.
SAFETY AND PRECAUTIONS
Considerable attention has been given in recent years to the phenomenon of ?past life regression.? Unfortunately, it has become common that individuals who are not professionally trained specifically in hypnotism (or even in psychology, psychiatry or related fields) have been presenting private and group sessions for what they term ?past life therapy.?
Although hypnosis is generally safe, there are a number of important considerations involved in order to properly guide a regression experience, as well as knowing how to appropriately and skillfully assist someone who is having a strong emotional reaction to a past recollection. The professional hypnotist who is properly trained in regression methods can resolve many problems using this type of procedure ? and they usually do not claim that memories recalled during a regression experience are necessarily real or accurate. How our minds record and store memories of any event ? past ones as well as the new ones ? is highly subjective, influenced by many factors such as one?s age, physical health, location/perspective, prior experiences and knowledge, as well as our emotional state in that moment. Not only that, but the regression process also has the capability of recalling past imaginings, fantasies, and even dreams.
The consensus seems to be, however, that it is really not all that important to be certain whether the recalled ?past experience? is real or imagined, just so long as it solves the problem ? which often is the case, fortunately. And experiencing a regression (whether focused on current or past lives) presents no particular risks as long as it is facilitated by a competent and well-trained professional hypnotist. Usually contraindicated in cases of major psychological mood disorders, it does offer many advantages when seeking to reveal the motivating factors underlying many common issues, even in cases of habit control.
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