There are several advantages when past-life work is dealt with in the course of ongoing therapy. I will cite a few of those advantages.
1) Clients in psychotherapy often take months or even years to build up sufficient trust and courage to face some of their most difficult memories. I worked with one client for nearly two years of intense emotional work before a childhood incest came to the surface. Many people are fragile and heavily defended and are not ready to deal with traumatic past-life material without the careful building of a trusting relationship.
Jung spoke of the importance of creating a temenos, a safe and protected sacred space in which the therapy client can open his or her inmost self. It usually takes time to create a temenos, and the degree of safety for doing deep therapeutic work depends on the quality of the climate developed.
2) I believe in the wisdom of the psyche to present past-life material when the time is right and the person is ready to absorb and integrate the information. Working with a client over a period of time allows this timing to follow a natural flow. I have had clients tell me after months of therapy, “I think I’m ready to do a regression now.” Their inner clock lets them know the time is right, and it is my conviction that when we listen to that timing, the regression has a better chance of success. On occasion, their inner clock goes off when they are nowhere near a therapy session, and we have a spontaneous regression taking place.