Age regression:
Hypnosis brings out ‘Inner Child’
Bethany Widman
Go back in your mind as far
as you can reach. Think of the time you
received your first bike, your first birthday cake, even your first bottle of
formula. Having a hard time
remembering? Through age regression
hypnosis, psychologists are able to take a person back through the years to
retrieve the reasons for phobias, habits and emotional distress.
As with any science, there
is usually a special process that one must go through to obtain the status of
being hypnotized. First the patients
must go down to an almost sleep-like level mentally and physically, much like
the state one is in before they go to sleep or right before they wake up. Then the psychiatrist will take the patient
back in their mind to a younger age sometimes going as far back as
infancy. Here is where the root of many
problems lie. The past.
For example, if a person is addicted to nicotine, the
reasons may vary but in most cases, cigarette addiction is caused from moments
of love in a person’s life. Diane
Yankelevitz, an age regression hypnotherapist from California, had a client
who wanted to stop smoking. She underwent
hypnosis and it was found that cigarettes often meant love to the person. When the client was little her father died
and to keep her quiet at the funeral, her mother held her close and let her
play with a box of cigarettes. Later,
at age 10, her brother asked her to join him and his friends for a smoke behind
a building. These moments all represented
moments of acceptance and love that subconsciously triggered her cravings
for cigarettes.
Through age regression
hypnosis, a person is able to discover the roots of her problems or reasons for
doing things, which creates a lot of reassurance and help for the patient.
Not only are psychiatrists
able to take a person back to infancy, but in some cases even further back
to a past life they may have had.
Probably the most famous
case of past life hypnosis is the case of Bridey Murphy, a young woman in
Colorado who underwent hypnosis one night.
The psychiatrist took Murphy back to her infancy and then asked her to
reach further back. Murphy, after a
long pause, began speaking in a thick Scottish accent telling all about her
life as a child in Scotland in the 1800s.
“I have always believed that
reincarnation could be a possibility.
The case of Bridey Murphy is really weird but I think it is probably
true,” said junior Mary McGinty.
In some cases, people find the
reasons for their chronic neck pain to lie within a past life in which they
were hanged. In other cases people find
out that indeed their love is eternal and that they have married the same
person before hundreds of years ago.
Although interesting to learn
about, many religious groups do not believe in past life hypnosis because they
do not believe in reincarnation.
With the help of a
psychiatrist, perhaps you can reach to the very edges of your mind to find out
what is the cause of your stress or worries now. Many psychiatrists perform age regression hypnosis to get to the
root of the problem of their patient but past life hypnosis is less commonly
performed. The average cost of a
session is $180 for two-hours and $30 per additional 1/2 hour. To find out more information about
hypnosis, consult people you know or even check out your local yellow pages to
find out if hypnosis is necessary for you.