The popular view: the past in hypnosis and its use in age and past life regression
In people’s mouth, and in the head of many therapists, regression is just as linked to hypnosis as the numbers are to math. But would hypnosis really be by the rule of thumb a regressionist therapy? Would that approach be the most recommended option in every hypnotherapic treatment?
The association of regression to hypnosis and its reasons
Because of the strong influence of the Freudian psychoanalyst school in the beginning of the 20 century, many professionals consider regression, reliving the past, or its recognizing it, the most effective hypnotic therapeutic method.
And besides all the historic respect, the knowledge and the popular recognition favoring regression, also influenced by the expansion of spiritism and the spiritualist concepts, have created numerous followers of the therapeutic notion that regression is the prioritary way in the psychoterapeutic treatment, becoming the favorite for many, it is important to notice the advancements obtained in the development of the infinite number of hypnotic techniques spread in the last 200 years, many of them completely distant from the regressionist notions and others impossibly comparable in terms of flexibility and therapeutic-transformational power.
The notions of past, present and future in the therapeutic hypnotic realm and its own uses always existed. Nevertheless, in Brazil, specially, the conversation almost always ends up in the exploration of the past of the hypnotizee, favoring regression. What is not always the best therapeutic approach, specially for individuals who don’t sympathize with regression as a therapeutic modality, be it age or past life.
WARNING: Regression in 200 meters
In the last decades, tons of researchers and professionals recorded different opinions reasoning why the use of the regressionist technique, with or without hypnosis, is not mandatory and, that it may be, even harmful in some cases.
The maturing and the creation of new hypnotic processes, the emergence, recognition and the maturing of NLP, the popularization of the hypnotic philosophy of Milton H. Erickson, the growth of the cognitive, behavioral and cognitive-behavioral schools, the recognition of the richness of popular wisdom turned to the importance of social living as basic needs, the identification of humor as a therapeutic tool, the ability of focus in the human mind, and, even more, by the proofs of the illusory nature of time, that only the now exists, leaves us much more than a just a trace of ideas than the “The best thing about the past is that it is over.” (Richard Bandler).
The insistence in using regression is sometimes due to the proved efficacy, sometimes due to the nostalgic fascination experienced, sometimes due to the logic of finding the cause of t he problem where it was created and lived for the first time, sometimes due as a remedy that searches for the truth as it is, sometimes is due to the weight that it might carry the revival of a memory, and, sometimes is due as the only way out to solve a problem never solved before. All these alternatives can makes us understand that regression is the best and maybe the only way available to the discovery of the cause of the problem to be treated.
But this whole logic is put to the test when we understand that every change we make in our lives that had any success, we do without thinking about the past, or at least without paying too much attention to it. Many changes in our lives happen in spontaneous ways.
The non-identification of causes that follows drastic changes, daily, are more common than they’re used to be pondered by the regressionist philosophy. The “cause”, in habit creation and on the difficulty faced in an attempt to change, when revealed, many times awakes only an understanding of the motivational factors behind a behavior or habit: each ones beliefs, what is already important.
There are more people in the world changing their lives healthily and spontaneously all the time than people with difficulties trying to change their lives through therapy. Changes happen without us following up. Often, we don’t notice, or we are informed by third parties about them. Besides, it is extremely comprehensible to make the past accountable in a moment of disorientation and emotional struggle.
Past? Where is that?
It doesn’t matter where you go, the solution and the problem are being experienced right now. This is one of the affirmations of the non-regressionist schools.
Something else also important is that in the hypnotic state, is easy to imagine situations and to create new realities. This make possible the fact that the recovered memory recovered by the regression are created or imagined by the hypnotizee. The regressionist school has Freudian and psychoanalytic roots. Such fact reverberates with the fact that in its own career, Freud abandoned hypnosis, deciding it didn’t serve for his desired purposes, dedicating himself then to the development of psychoanalysis. When he did it, he clarified how necessary it was the discovery of the cause of the problem of his own patients to solve the problems and neuroses being faced.
But, what many seem not to know or to ignore, is that Freud, maybe a great genius of mental health, was not and is not a hipnotherapeutic authority. Therefore, his hypno-therapeutic heritage, should be appreciated with a caveat.
Hypnotic research, totally deviated from trending psychoanalitical and mainstream notions, remained strong until the 70s and the 80s.
With incredible efficient results, with the revealing o north-americans Dave Elman, Milton Erickson, John G. Kappas, with the surge of NLP e with the honorous expansion of hypnosis to the United Kingdom in the 90s.
Almost all studies since the 50s to the 70s, one of the most promising for hypnosis internationally, showed proofs of good results and why study more hypnosis in the scientific realm, why formalize its therapeutic us, why take it seriously.
Many of these studies had as no base the regressionist technique as therapeutic method.
So, Henrique, why isn’t hypnosis as respected and known as psychoanalysis or as an approach focused on the past? I answer that this is already changing and that we will inevitably observe the positive consequences of these changes over the years.
Not even Freud explains
The Freudian signature on the development of hypnotherapy in the early 20th century influenced the use of hypnosis by several practitioners. One of the most prominent hypnotherapists to preach the regressionist school was the aforementioned Dave Elman. Elman, like Freud, believed that it was necessary to uncover the cause of the problem, supposedly in the past, in order to find solutions to current problems. Elman treated countless individuals and trained several American doctors during his career. While the hypnotic regressionist school and its precursors were asserting themselves, other non-regressionist hypnotherapists, not exclusively regressionists or who did not favor the use of regression as a hypnotherapeutic modality, also became known for their work, among them are the also aforementioned Milton H. Erickson and John G. Kappas, both highly influential professionals in the history of hypnosis. NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) was also emerging at the time, created by Richard Bandler and John Grinder, who studied how excellent results were obtained by excellent professionals and therapists. In the same way, several academics studied hypnosis as a therapeutic tool. Some of these academics concluded that it was not necessary to use regression in order to obtain good results with the use of hypnosis, an idea also reinforced by Kappas, Erickson, by Bandler and Grinder’s NLP and by several other therapeutic schools, such as cognitive, behavioral and cognitive-behavioral. Many academics also reinforce that the use of regression can be negative due to the experience of a possible traumatic revival, by the triggering of traumas not associated with the difficulty put in context, and by the creation of false memories, which can be common during the hypnotic trance. The scientific literature is vast in relation to the last item.
Hypnosis and therapeutic inflexibility
In hypnotherapy, the relationship between hypnotherapist and hypnotized person can be short, very short. The personal beliefs of the hypnotherapist directly influence the results obtained in the treatment. In hypnosis, with just a few sessions, one can often experience a complete change or enviable progress, when compared to other psychotherapeutic modalities. In order for the hypnotized person’s experience to be rich and rewarding, it is recommended that the hypnotherapist remain open to the hypnotized person’s beliefs, while at the same time playing the professional role of guide, mentor, facilitator and therapist. It can be said that hypnotherapy and the ideal hypnotherapist are those who know how to adapt to the hypnotized person’s reality without giving up their professionalism and hypnotic expertise.
It is not hypnosis
It is common to see regression promoted as a non-hypnotic technique. And, given the nature of the hypnotic trance, this is entirely possible. This is a practice that generates comfort for both the therapist and the hypnotized person, since all the fear and insecurity caused by hypnosis is immediately discarded when it is understood that this scary, dangerous stage procedure that takes control of people will not be used. But what would be better? To promote information about what hypnosis is and educate each hypnotized person, or to enjoy the therapeutic and suggestible benefits of hypnosis without even addressing this subject?
A professional decision: the role of the hypnotherapist
Everyone should be educated about hypnosis, how it works and how it occurs daily without us even being able to follow it, especially when we do not understand what it is. Not everyone shares the above belief. In fact, most professionals who choose to work with the regressionist modality without associating it with hypnosis do so because:
- Afraid of touching on a subject considered sensitive with their clients;
- To convey greater confidence to clients, avoiding triggering the insecurities currently caused by hypnosis;
- To avoid the need to dispel and clarify myths about hypnosis;
- Unfamiliarity with the nature of the hypnotic trance and its daily variations;
- Having been taught to act in this way, doing so deliberately, or;
- Simple personal preference;
Since the nature of the hypnotic trance is the use of attention to lead the hypnotized person to a final result, resulting in the achievement of this result, there is no regression without hypnosis. However, since the hypnotic trance is something so natural, there is no ritualistic need to reach the regression stage, since it occurs daily without us noticing.
Regression: before and after
The hypnotic regression procedure aims to obtain good therapeutic results. It is taken for granted that after a regression procedure, nothing bad can happen, if the cause of the problem is found and it is solved. However, at the time of regression, there is always the possibility of the client reliving other ideas associated with the time even after the therapeutic procedure, regardless of a strong emotional catharsis or not. The possibility of spontaneously regressing days after the regression procedure can be compared to the fact that spontaneous regressions normally occur occasionally, when we meet a long-time friend, when we miss and remember a loved one who has passed away, when we relive childhood and other naturally nostalgic moments. After regression, such memories may occur more frequently and for longer; whether or not this event has beneficial therapeutic functions. It is also important to mention that, given the nature of the human mind in using selective memory, any and all therapeutic procedures enable the triggering of memories associated with similar situations and sensations. Known emotional states will bring more known emotional states. However, often in the regression procedure we deal with traumatic or uncomfortable moments, and it is precisely this type of mnemonic selection that we would like to avoid in the post-regression stage. In these cases, an uncomfortable post-regression memory may tend to remain for days, weeks or months. This understanding reduces, but does not limit, the understanding of regression as the simple remembrance and revival of past experiences, which may occur in the office, being therapeutic, or outside of it, being truly spontaneous. The nature of these memories can be good or bad, given the understanding of selective memory that operates independently in the human mind and taking into account the deliberate use of such memories for daily individual innovation and renewal.
The non-existent cause:: when the cause is not found
Another item that can call into question the use of regression as a therapeutic tool are the episodes in which some therapists, armed with the belief that regression is the only solution to all problems, use it repeatedly, continuously and indiscriminately, regardless of the results obtained, hypnosis session after hypnosis session. In these cases, the chances of a therapeutic resolution are reduced to the simple use of regression to find the correct cause of the problem, and in this case, therapeutic regression is the only technique employed by the professional. Several sessions are carried out until fatigue overcomes the regressionist approach. I classify these events as cases of “non-existent cause”.
The approach in the present: hypnosis in the here and now
When we understand that every problem occurs now, only the present exists: what is felt, what is lived and what is spoken in the present moment. All interpretation will be altered according to what is felt. Beliefs are the most important items to be worked on in therapy. They are defined by, but not limited to: the subjectivity of human experience, life in general, daily life, the before, during and after each moment, the cycles of change, transformation and maintenance of the personality, its perceptions, cognitive processes, behaviors and habits. The study of new treatment strategies, the constant evaluation of the results obtained in each session and therapeutic monitoring are crucial for the hypnotherapy process to be organic. It is worth emphasizing that the therapist who prefers to work in the present moment does not discard the importance of the past, but uses it as an additional, integrative resource, as something that has the capacity to corroborate the potential of his/her therapeutic approach. In hypnosis, the non-regressionist hypnotherapy practice gives greater space to the creativity of the hypnotherapist and the hypnotized person; it creates roots for valuable, stable and constant learning. The focus here is to maintain a level of independence and self-knowledge that can be reused whenever necessary, without limiting the scope of the solution, much less enslaving the hypnotized person to the therapeutic process, which sometimes tends to achieve results extremely quickly and more flexibly than in the regressionist approach. To be successful in the present approach, it is crucial that the correct variables are raised, questioned and that the hypnotherapist is able to identify what is relevant to the particular case, discarding many of the conventional procedures established even by old and more traditional hypnotherapy schools, based on the hypnotic-regressionist approach in question, or on traditional psychotherapy, inherited from psychoanalysis.
The path of the hypnotherapist
It is important that the hypnotherapist explores different therapeutic procedures and different techniques to obtain the results desired by those who seek him/her. Each individual is unique; each head is a world. It is up to the professional who uses regression as a therapeutic tool to seek, understand, monitor and observe its results, the benefits of its application compared to other hypnotic-therapeutic techniques and decide which is the best path to take.
How I work
I always opt for the creation of individual strategies appropriate to each case. The use of different concepts and the enrichment of the application of hypnotic techniques occur at the moment in which the hypnotized person is discovered and investigated in my office. Without a doubt, the experience and similarity of some cases complement each other, however, pre-definitions are constantly being questioned. The path is always open and is always subject to change, since the only constant here is the search for well-being and the desired result for each individual. Naturally, there is an agreement between the parties so that the understanding of the work to be carried out is clarified and benefits both the strategic structure offered by the hypnotherapist and the hypnotized person. Ultimately, the attentive hypnotherapist will always use the best hypnosis available: the one that the hypnotized person brings us. 
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