by Dave Graham
“I don’t believe in trawling through the past, I can’t change it anyway. Whatever problems I have are happening now. They are in the present!” Such is the response that I received one day when talking about regression therapy. It seemed logical enough.
“What have past lives got to do with my life now?” is another response that I have heard many times before. Indeed I have said it myself before I ever got any kind of experience of regression.
As a name “regression therapy” indicates a focus on an obscure memory of the past which implies that it is well outside the here and now, so it is hardly surprising that there are misunderstandings. Yet there is so much more to our therapy that is not immediately obvious. While a client’s root experience may originate in the past, the effects are felt and the processing occurs in the present. When a client is immersed in that emotion and body sensation, it can only be in the present. The past is a reference point, while all the action happens in the here and now.
So with those contradictions I wonder, is “Regression Therapy” the right name for this work? Although a better question may be to ask ‘if not this name, then which one?’ and will it achieve greater clarity for the public anyway. Regression therapy is hard to define and there is much more to it than first meets the eye. There are a growing number of components to it than just regression alone, and this is likely to change and develop over the years to come as we discover new approaches and innovations. It occurs to me that this is just like you, me and humanity with our hidden qualities and developing characteristics. The many facets of regression therapy align with the many facets of mankind.
It reminds me of a time when I started to take a strong interest in crystals. I realised that I was drawn to the rough cut chunky stones rather than the finely cut and polished apparently pure crystals that tended to be displayed most prominently. It was the imperfections, random flares of colour and odd shapes that seemed to reflect the nature of humanity with all our hang ups, contradictions and beauty. I began to understand that these imperfections were absolutely necessary to create a resonance that enabled the stones to be effective in bringing about change for the hang ups, contradictions and beauty of a person.
At some level, maybe this is what it takes to make regression therapy work.
