Regression to solve issues

When one thinks of regression, one normally associates it with hypnosis. However, most people assume hypnosis is only used to regress a person back to a former life, hoping to find out that they were a princess, a ruler or someone else of equal importance that will perhaps give them an indication as to why their behaviours and traits are what they are. It is often seen as a specialised stand-alone therapy session which few people partake in.

The fact is, most therapy sessions involve regressing the client to some degree. Take for example therapy for confidence. The hypnotherapist may ask the client to think back to a time in the past when she felt confident before. The client has to search through her memory, through her book of time to come up with an example. Often the client will say she cannot think of a specific time but that is okay. The conscious mind may not be able to come up with an instance but the unconscious mind (which the therapist is addressing anyway) will be able to come up with times she felt confident in the past or at least be able to relate to the feeling.

You see our minds are fascinating and it is difficult to comprehend its workings. How is it possible to remember an insignificant task like buying a bar of chocolate in a shop when you were four years old but you have no recollection of what you bought four weeks ago or even if you locked the car door, five seconds ago? Our minds store all our information, some of which we can recall easily, some with some prompting and some we don’t appear to remember at all – and yet it is all in there somewhere.

Take dreaming for example – you wake up and know you were just dreaming yet cannot remember what it was about, there is a faint trace, a shadow of remembrance in the back of your mind somewhere but you just cannot bring it to the fore. Or think of times you have watched a quiz show. (I’m regressing you here.....). The quiz master presents a question to the contestant who immediately answers stating that he really doesn’t know how he knows but for some reason he was able to 'pull it out from the back of his  mind’. The chances are he will be right though still none the wiser as to how he could know the answer. He consciously does not know yet his unconscious was able to fetch this memory and bring it to conscious awareness.

It would be impossible to remember every waking moment of our day. Our minds protect us from overload only presenting what is important as required. This is one of the reasons people on the autism spectrum find it difficult to socialise and communicate effectively as their minds find it difficult to filter out what is necessary and what is not. This results in sensory overload or dominating a conversation as they are unable to distinguish what is important and what is not.

Often when a person is hypnotised they tell the therapist they cannot remember a time they felt confident, happy or good about themselves and yet are confused when the therapist tells them that this is okay. This is because the unconscious mind will continue to search and will present those times to the person either consciously (they will suddenly remember a time later) or unconsciously – either in dream form or it will just present to the periphery of the mind, just out of reach of conscious articulation. It doesn’t matter as change will still happen. The unconscious mind does distinguish between what is real and what is not so the regression is effective.

Hypnosis is also useful when dealing with the lasting effects of trauma. Often the person does not need to remember and relive that traumatic time which they may have consciously deleted from their memory. Hypnosis will guide the unconscious mind to repair the effects without disturbing the conscious mind and it can be achieved without necessarily making the client relive the trauma. It is important you find a good therapist who can utilise hypnosis to guide you through regression of any kind. Ask for testimonials and check out their experience.