The goal in Clinical Hypnotherapy is not to go back and try “to fix” what happened in the past, but instead, to deal in the present with the consequences and baggage of what happened in the past. Traumatic experiences leave negative, harmful energies in their wake, and though we may not remember them consciously, they are firmly and permanently embedded in our subconscious mind and affect all aspects of our lives. Depending on the nature and severity of those experiences the energies they leave behind can manifest later as phobias, false perceptions of ourselves and others, psychic breakdowns, and physical illness and disease. In situations where a client does not know the reasons for their presenting issues, Regression Therapy can lead to discovery and successful resolution.
In general, clients contact a hypnotherapist because something negative is going on in their lives that they want to change; i.e. they wish to lose weight, quit smoking, overcome self-defeating behaviors, change negative self-images, eliminate irrational fears, etc. However, it is usually the case that those primary, presenting factors are really secondary responses to other underlying, and often nested issues. For example, a condition of overweight may actually be an unconscious means of warding off potential relationships, the fear of which, in turn, may itself be a reaction to some remembered or unremembered trauma or abuse. Regression Therapy is a very effective, hypnotic technique for uncovering and resolving the real reasons behind “the reason” the client seeks therapy, and of which he or she may not even be aware.
In Regression Therapy the client is induced (led into trance) and then asked to remember the feeling or emotion that caused him to contact the therapist in the first place and “feel it” throughout all his body. He then instructs the client’s subconscious mind to go to that specific moment when he first experienced that feeling – the “Initial Sensitizing Event.” Upon reaching that place in time, the client describes what he sees and hears and almost without exception, discovers the cause of his current problem. After that realization is made and related to the therapist, the therapist delivers a number of “Post Hypnotic Suggestions” specific to the information gleaned during the regression and intended to help the client’s subconscious mind process and accept the new understanding he has of himself and his situation. In many cases, when the client hypnotically sees through his adult eyes (his adult consciousness) and understands what he experienced as a child, change can be virtually instantaneous.
A good example of classic Regression Therapy is the case of a 38 year old man whose father died of cancer when he was four. He explained to the therapist that even though he knew intellectually that his father had died of cancer… that there was absolutely no question that he died of cancer, he could still not get over the feeling that somehow he had killed him. The therapist induced the man and then regressed him to when he was four years old. The dialogue went like this: (T) “Where are you now?” (C)“I’m at my Grandma’s house. I’m really happy because my daddy’s been sick, but he’s coming home today!” What the boy had not been told was that the doctors had done all they could and were sending him home to die.
(T) “Where are you now?” (C) “I’m in my house and I can see my daddy in bed. I’m going to give him a big hug!” The boy ran into his parent’s room, jumped up on his daddy’s chest and his father cried out, “Oh Bobby, stop! You’re killing me!” He died the next day.
For 34 sad years this man lived with the feeling that somehow he had killed his father. He had never before remembered hearing his father say those words, “Oh Bobby, stop! You’re killing me!” and the look of instantaneous, astonished understanding on his face as heard himself say them, was amazing in itself. He began to cry and the therapist progressed him to the present. He then asked him to use his adult, rational mind and see if he could now understand how the little boy got that terrible, tragic misunderstanding that had haunted him all his life. He did, and that was that. One session, one regression, one flash of understanding – ON THE SUBCONSCIOUS LEVEL – and a new, permanent healing. That’s the power of clinical hypnosis and I see it happen everyday.
This case also shows how vitally important it is to only speak positively to children. The subconscious mind is absolutely literal. It has no way of weighing arguments and deciding what is true and what is not. And until a child is about six all he has is his subconscious mind. What we call the adult “critical faculty” of mind or the “conscious mind,” the ability humans have to reason and analyze, begins to develop at around six and is pretty well complete by 11 or 12. That’s why kids in that age range begin to doubt Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. But prior to that time children accept as fact whatever they hear, especially when it is told to them by someone they depend on and trust… like a parent. And once a belief is embedded in the subconscious mind it will trump every attempt by the conscious mind to displace it. That’s why “Positive Affirmations” and Positive Mental Attitude” mantras don’t work. That’s why the 38 year old man could not accept as fact what he logically knew to be true. And that’s why negative self images developed in childhood are so very hard to change. “You’re fat. You’re ugly. You’re stupid. You never do anything right. Why do you have to be so clumsy? No one will ever like you!” The only way to remove those terribly damaging, deeply imprinted beliefs is by dealing with them in the subconscious mind. And the only way to get around the adult conscious mind and into the subconscious is by hypnosis.
