If a person, for example, has a fear or phobia that is currently impeding their ability to live a normal life, it can be very helpful to use hypnosis to help that person re-access information that is stored in memory as to where and why that phobia or fear first came into play. Often times, traumatic events that take place often bring a form of amnesia with them about these events to protect the person from reliving the experience over and over again. Unfortunately, the effect, such as the fear or phobia will come through with no context to explain why it is there. Often, just recalling the origin is enough to enable the person to rightfully assign the reaction to that place, that time, and those circumstances, which then frees the individual to decide that the reaction is no longer useful in his or her current life and the phobia will disappear.

I am often asked about past life regression, and I notice the same effect with this technique as well. It is interesting that powerful changes in behavior can occur, even when the belief system in not in line with the idea of past lives. In these cases, perhaps the effect can be ascribed to metaphoric or archetypal patterns that have been playing out in the person’s life, and which can now be changed or healed once they are revealed.