What Is Regression Therapy?

Regression therapy can help you deal with things that exist in your subconscious mind. Learn more about regression therapy.

January 17, 2025 · 7 min · 1368 words · Alice Jones

Table of Contents

Table of ContentsView AllTable of ContentsWhat Is Regression Therapy?TypesTechniquesWhat Regression Therapy Can Help WithBenefitsThings to ConsiderEffectivenessHow To Get Started

Table of ContentsView All

View All

Table of Contents

What Is Regression Therapy?

Types

Techniques

What Regression Therapy Can Help With

Benefits

Things to Consider

Effectiveness

How To Get Started

Close

Regression therapy is a type of therapy based on hypnosis, used to determine how your subconscious impacts your day-to-day life. It can give people the satisfaction of remembering, whether correctly or incorrectly, events from the past that dictate how they currently think or behave.

Read on to learn more about what regression therapy is, how it works (or doesn’t work), and what it might be able to help with.

Regression therapy focuses very specifically onpast eventsand how they influence the way we behave in the present day. This is particularly relevant to those trying to overcomechildhood abuse, but it can also apply to people who were subject to anyabuse in relationshipsin the past.

This type of therapy involveshypnosis, which psychotherapists and hypnotherapists alike have researched. The need forhypnosistypically surrounds the fact that many practitioners believe that the subconscious mind can represstraumaif it was inflicted at an age before the mind could figure out how to process it.So, the practitioners are typically trying to drum up memories through hypnosis.

In “The Art of Hypnotic Regression Therapy: A Clinical Guide,” Roy Hunter, a certifiedhypnotherapist, notes that regression is simply moving back in time in your imagination.

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Types of Regression Therapy

These are some of the different approaches to regression therapy:

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Misconceptions about hypnosis are wide-ranging. Herbert Spiegel from the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University noted some of the most common misconceptions in a research paper:

Hypnosis as a Therapeutic Tool

Techniques of Regression Therapy

Hunter describes how his sessions work in his book.He says he focuses on client-centered hypnosis and therapist-led trance work. Hunter preps the client, uses regression techniques (hypnosis), and the patient experiences an emotional release, allowing him to help facilitate a subconscious relearning of the way the client experiences and reacts to issues from their past.

The subconscious relearning component involves letting go of negative emotions or preconceptions formed during certain past experiences.

While this may not be how every hypnotherapist conducts a session, it’s a pretty general outline that gives you an idea of how things will go down. If a therapist can successfully guide a patient through a healthy way to handle their newfound realizations, this could be helpful going forward.

The main thing to be cautious with regression therapy isfalse memories. If someone wants to remember something badly enough, they can create it in their mind. This could mean that they falsely create memories that aren’t real; for example, memories of a parent who died before they could actually form memories.

How to Recognize False Memories

One of the major touted benefits of regression therapy is that it provides patients access to their subconscious minds. That is the main thing that sets this form of therapy apart; however, it’s hard to determine if patients are truly accessing memories or creating false memories at the suggestion of a hypnotherapist.

That said, the feeling of having accessed the past can give lots of patients peace and a sense of control.

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Regression therapy is pretty hotly contested, and there are some pretty tangible reasons for this skepticism.

Some of those reasons include:

The Debate Over Repressed and Recovered Memories

In terms of regression therapy, effectiveness is mainly in the eye of the beholder. This is because of the risk of false memories and all of the other pitfalls behind the idea of hypnosis, such as suggestibility and leading questions or reactions from the hypnotherapist. That said, one could argue that whether or not something actually happened, what matters is what the person thinks happened and, therefore, how they handle it going forward.

If a person realized (or “realized”) something about their past while under hypnosis, working through it and learning to deal with it healthily with their licensed therapist can still be effective in terms of supporting and strengthening that person’s mental health and improving their day-to-day functioning.

If you are interested in this type of therapy, we recommend seeking out a hypnotherapist that is also a licensed mental health provider. Also, consider their other areas of expertise specific to mental health treatment.

While there isn’t just one hypnotherapy certification program, make sure you look for a therapist who has undergone some amount of clinical training. Many undergo 40 to 100 hours of hypnotherapy workshops and more than 20 hours of individual training under the supervision of a practicing hypnotherapist.

TheAmerican College of Hypnotherapyeven requires 220 hours of courses and clinical experience. You can search their site to see their certifications or ask them via email or phone call.

During your first appointment, expect a session similar to traditional therapy in terms of filling in the therapist on your background and reasons for seeking treatment.

As with all forms of therapy, feel free to ask as many questions as you want to get to know your therapist. You can come prepared with a list of questions and even ask if you can set up an introductory phone call ahead of your first appointment.

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5 SourcesVerywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Andrade G.Is past life regression therapy ethical?J Med Ethics Hist Med. 2017;10:11. PMID:29416831Hunter CR, Eimer BN.The Art of Hypnotic Regression Therapy: A Clinical Guide. Carmarthen, UK: Crown House Publishing; 2012.Spiegel, H. (1980),HYPNOSIS AND EVIDENCE: HELP OR HINDRANCE?.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 347: 73-85. doi:10.1111/j.1749-6632.1980.tb21256.xHunter CR, Eimer BN.The Art of Hypnotic Regression Therapy: A Clinical Guide. Carmarthen, UK: Crown House Publishing; 2012.Andrade G.Is past life regression therapy ethical?J Med Ethics Hist Med. 2017;10:11. PMID:29416831

5 Sources

Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Andrade G.Is past life regression therapy ethical?J Med Ethics Hist Med. 2017;10:11. PMID:29416831Hunter CR, Eimer BN.The Art of Hypnotic Regression Therapy: A Clinical Guide. Carmarthen, UK: Crown House Publishing; 2012.Spiegel, H. (1980),HYPNOSIS AND EVIDENCE: HELP OR HINDRANCE?.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 347: 73-85. doi:10.1111/j.1749-6632.1980.tb21256.xHunter CR, Eimer BN.The Art of Hypnotic Regression Therapy: A Clinical Guide. Carmarthen, UK: Crown House Publishing; 2012.Andrade G.Is past life regression therapy ethical?J Med Ethics Hist Med. 2017;10:11. PMID:29416831

Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.

Andrade G.Is past life regression therapy ethical?J Med Ethics Hist Med. 2017;10:11. PMID:29416831Hunter CR, Eimer BN.The Art of Hypnotic Regression Therapy: A Clinical Guide. Carmarthen, UK: Crown House Publishing; 2012.Spiegel, H. (1980),HYPNOSIS AND EVIDENCE: HELP OR HINDRANCE?.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 347: 73-85. doi:10.1111/j.1749-6632.1980.tb21256.xHunter CR, Eimer BN.The Art of Hypnotic Regression Therapy: A Clinical Guide. Carmarthen, UK: Crown House Publishing; 2012.Andrade G.Is past life regression therapy ethical?J Med Ethics Hist Med. 2017;10:11. PMID:29416831

Andrade G.Is past life regression therapy ethical?J Med Ethics Hist Med. 2017;10:11. PMID:29416831

Hunter CR, Eimer BN.The Art of Hypnotic Regression Therapy: A Clinical Guide. Carmarthen, UK: Crown House Publishing; 2012.

Spiegel, H. (1980),HYPNOSIS AND EVIDENCE: HELP OR HINDRANCE?.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 347: 73-85. doi:10.1111/j.1749-6632.1980.tb21256.x

Hannah Owens, LMSW

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