Just the mention of the word hypnosis will bring up one of two mental images for most people: stage hypnosis or regression hypnosis.
Done well, stage hypnosis can be a springboard for therapeutic hypnosis; as in “If you can make me forget my name, maybe you can help me stop smoking!”
Regression hypnosis, however, seems more mysterious.
It is typically not done on stage or in public venues so we tend to imagine movies and television shows that portray regression, some more accurately than others. If you have wondered how regression hypnosis works or if it is even real, read on.
To regress in hypnosis means to use our imaginations to go back in time, and re-experience past events.
For some approaches, it’s important that you experience those old events as though your old self who originally had that experience is having it again. Other times we create new perspectives around those old events by having you experience them while being who you are now.
Some regression is Age Regression, which means re-visiting an earlier age in this lifetime. For those who believe in reincarnation, there is also Past Life Regression which explores previous lives and their events and how those may be influencing events or behaviors in this life.
More recent movements in the field of regression hypnosis include Lives between Lives, which is rooted in the belief that we receive wisdom when our soul has passed on from one life but not yet entered another, and then the field of Progression, which says that time is non-linear so we can just as easily explore future lives as we do past lives.
So why would someone use regression hypnosis?
A simple reason would be to find a lost item…an important document, a piece of jewelry, money that has been put “someplace safe” and turned out too safe to be remembered.
Using regression, we can retrace steps more clearly and remember details that might have been overlooked in the panic of searching.
There are emotional reasons, as well. A person who wants to increase confidence after having lost a job might be unaware that the loss of confidence relates to feelings of rejection in childhood.
When the childhood pain is resolved, a new understanding of self may carry forward to reveal a new self-confidence which will help in finding a new job. It is not necessary to relive the pain of the past in order to create a better future. However, it can be healing to view the past through a wiser, more mature perspective.
Are memories that emerge from regression literally true?
That’s hard to say.
Memories are malleable, perspectives change, perhaps we tried to remember so hard that we’re not even sure what happened, or we didn’t have complete understanding at the time of the event.
The truth it, every time we access our memory we change it a litte. Our brains are faulty like that.
Most states do not allow hypnotically recovered memories into trial testimonies for this reason with the exception of a few that permit a specially trained Forensic Hypnotist to participate. Most of the time, literal truth is less important than gathering the learnings from the perceived past and putting them to use in the present.
Is regression hypnosis safe?
Regression is a safe and enlightening way of solving today’s problems using past experience when services are proved by a properly trained and certified hypnotherapist. You cannot get stuck in the past, or in hypnosis for that matter.
Should strong emotions emerge (it’s rare, but it can happen) your hypnotherapist has the skill to bring you back to comfort quickly and easily, and you’ll have new insight and understanding to enhance your present and future life.
Letting go of a past event can be hard. We have prepaired a tool for that - as hypnosis is a great tool to help you let go, you can get a hypnosis session that will help you free yourself from your past - here.