Home Columnists Andrew McDonald: Healing the past with your present – how it works

Andrew McDonald: Healing the past with your present – how it works

Regression therapy works by reassessing memories which get stored in your mind. As you know, both your conscious and subconscious minds are like sponges.

If this weren’t so, your behaviour would never change, you would never remember anything, you would never come to know something by heart.

In short, your life would be like Lucy Whitmore’s in 50 First Dates. Our mind’s sponge-like quality is a fundamental part of life because it is what enables us to learn. What do we do though when that quality means our lives get adversely affected?

Regression therapy works by giving you the opportunity to reassess past events and their effect on you. Your experience, your feelings and how both are holding you back and preventing you from progressing.

Through hypnosis, you get the opportunity to examine the unconscious mind. This enables you to find the conflicts, stresses, hidden pain, self-sabotage and hurdles which are connected to past events and are preventing you from fully enjoying the wonderful opportunities life and the future have in store for you.

You may never have given yourself opportunity to work through these past events which have a huge effect on your present. To reassure yourself that things will and have worked out ok and that you are a bigger, stronger person now. Regression therapy can be your opportunity to unlock your full potential by resolving what happened in the past.

In essence, regression therapy is your gift to yourself. Your opportunity to start enjoying your present knowing you are stronger for your past. Your opportunity to resolve your past and not let it hold you back. To reassess that past from the viewpoint of your bigger, stronger present self.

Your opportunity to prepare yourself now for the great adventures that lie ahead of you by working through past events to free yourself of their burden and live in your present moment without looking over your shoulder. In short, the key to your new and best life.

One important thing to note is the controversy surrounding regression therapy. Most of this is the result of irresponsible therapists and the way they used it in the past.

There are, like with all therapies and indeed the wider health field, issues which can be highly effectively treated using this technique and other situations where it should never be used.

An ethical and professional therapist will assess your suitability long before she or he agrees to work with you. Should you be a suitable candidate, great.

If not, such a therapist will inform you of this and why. Not only this but a therapist with respect for his or her profession, its ethics, and above all, for you the client will advise you of other options which are more suitable for your situation.

Something which a good therapist is equally attentive to is the experience of the client. At no stage should any client feel as though they are reliving the traumatic experience.

The purpose is not to re-experience what happened but to reassess what happened and its post-event effects with a view to being able to move on and enjoy life fully.

A skilled and most importantly professional and ethical therapist knows how to react to a client telling him or her words to the effect of “I feel as though it is happening all over again”.

As with all health treatments, you should ensure you trust your therapist before even agreeing to therapy. Again, a professional and ethical therapist will be open with you and only too willing to answer any questions and ensure you feel secure and comfortable long before you actually agree to therapy.

As I previously said, any therapist, not just a hypnotherapist, who is unwilling to do this is not a good therapist and is doing their field a gross disservice.

With a good, professional and ethical therapist, regression therapy can be your opportunity to start living the best version of you.

Particularly if you suffer with anxiety or depression because of past events, regression therapy can unlock your present and future in a way few other therapies can. Start living your life to the full!

SEE ALSO – You can check out all of Andrew’s columns here