Regression Therapy is based on the principle that ill health follows when emotional stresses have overwhelmed and weakened the body’s defences. As a protective mechanism against hurtful unexpressed emotions, the mind learns to anesthetize their intensity and block them off from conscious awareness, leaving behind a scar of unprocessed emotional tension. This may spill over in emotional outbursts or manifest as a headache, insomnia, peptic ulcer, irritable bowel syndrome, chronic fatigue syndrome or some other psychosomatic illness. There is a physiological imperative for our human system to release stress to restore inner balance, and Regression Therapy provides the setting needed for this to take place.
Emotions are often expressed by sobbing and crying, known as abreaction or catharsis. When patients understand why they are ill, the emotions have been released and transformed, enabling healing to take place.
Use of Past Life Stories
Stories are the fundamental part of human experience. In particular, those that appear to relate to a past life have a deeper meaning for the client, working as a metaphor that enables the Regression Therapist to get to the heart of the illness. Changes are made possible by reframing or by Gestalt-like dialogue to obtain integration of the regressed experience. In hypnosis, time is transcended and there is no distinction between real and imagined, enabling empowerment and healing to take place. What is important in Regression Therapy is allowing the event to be experienced in a personalized way.
Age Regression
With the technique of age regression, the hypnotherapist goes to the suppressed emotion of a life event that is thought to be causing a patient’s problem, often involving early childhood memories. This enables the person to release suppressed emotions in a safe environment, a powerful healing mechanism used in Regression Therapy.
Inner Child Therapy
Psychologist John Bowlby established that early childhood memories can cause dysfunctional behaviors in later life. John Bradshaw introduced the use of concept of ‘inner child’ for unresolved childhood experiences, and psychiatrist Soumya Rao has described how this can be successfully incorporated into the Regression Therapy process.
Body Therapy
Bessel van der Kolk, director of the Trauma Centre at Boston University, says. ‘When the physical sensations of trauma produce intense emotions the therapy needs to consist of helping people stay in their bodies and understand the body sensations. The body always carries the memory of past events and can provide an important bridge in regression therapy. More recently, psychiatrist Moacir Oliveira has shown how body therapy in combination with regression therapy can be used to resolve traumatic memories.
Uses of Regression Therapy
A wide range of emotional problems have been resolved with regression therapy. Psychologists and medical doctors have resolved anxiety, anger, depression, self-harming, post-traumatic stress, phobias, and low self-esteem. Research has shown it reduces ticks in Tourette Syndrome, while psychiatrists and medical doctors have found it resolves blackouts, insomnia, migraine and unexplainable pain, asthma, and autoimmune disorder.
Hazel Denning analyzed the results of eight therapists with over a thousand patients between 1985 and 1992. Many of them sought Regression Therapy having tried other therapies without success. After five years, 24% reported that their symptoms were completely gone, 23% reported significant improvement, 17% reported noticeable improvement and 36% reported no improvement.
Ronald van der Maesen conducted several research programs in 1994 that investigated the results of Regression Therapy in the cases of 401 patients treated by 32 therapists. Six months after the end of therapy, 50% reported that their problems had been completely solved, 30% showed some improvement and 20 percent experienced no benefit. These results were obtained with an average 15 hours of therapy over six sessions.