JRT Topic: Rescripting

Rescripting in Past-Life Therapy: Its Use with Clients as Thinking Beings – Maggie van Staveren (Is.17)

Maggie van Staveren, L.C.S.W., C.Ht.

It is important that we take a second look at our work as past-life therapists. We have learned a lot over the past few years. We are more aware of who we are, who our clients are, and more aware of the nature of our work as past-life therapists. Perhaps there is more than one technique to use with our clients. Now that we know more, let’s take a look at rescripting.

We and our clients are spiritual thinking beings in human form. The very word “man” means “thinker” in its Sanskrit origins. We think and by our thinking we create. Our greatest power is to choose our thinking. There is that part of … Read the rest

Reframing or Rescripting – Hans TenDam (Is.17)

Hans TenDam

Rewriting history is a crime. Rewriting somebody’s personal history is a crime against the individual ‑ even on request. Rewriting is done by people who don’t understand what therapy is, probably because they don’t understand what life is about, what people are.

There are two types of rescripting, that done by the client himself, without awareness of the therapist, and that induced by the therapist as a conscious intervention. Why clients rescript, is simple: they resist facing the truth because of shame, guilt, humiliation, or sheer terror. The real memory is overwhelming, or ‑ as often ‑ resisted because it threatens a cherished self-image.

The worst kind of rescripting as an intervention I have come across was a … Read the rest

My Thoughts on Rescripting – Thomas G. Shafer (Is.17)

by Thomas G. Shafer, M.D.

Dr. Cunningham has given us an excellent clinical example illustrating the problems with rescripting and some excellent arguments.

I have ethical concerns here. There is a vast power differential between the therapist and the client as an innate part of the process. Allowing therapists to rewrite history and change the fabric of time itself raises their power to the point of being God-like. I think God has enough trouble being God without humans, even those with a Masters, a Ph.D., or a M.D. taking over some of the job.

Another objection is the complete removal of causality. If I can go back and change time because everything is truly simultaneous, the cause and effect … Read the rest

Refraining from Reframing in Past-Life Sessions – Holly Holmes-Meredith (Is.17)

Holly Holmes-Meredith, M.A., M.F.T.

I have been using regression therapy in some form in my private practice since 1981 and have been training hypnotherapists and past-life therapists through HCH, a state-licensed institute, since 1986. I have a strong background in NLP and use reframing and rescripting techniques primarily while working with habit control and current-life inner child work. I find reframing and rescripting profoundly transforming in these areas. In past-life work, however, I consider reframing and rescripting unnecessary and dishonoring of the soul journey and soul lessons; not only of the client, but of all other souls involved in the past-life events and soul experiences. The discussion that follows will explain my thoughts on these important clinical issues.

If … Read the rest

The First Law of Time Travel: Don’t Change History – Thelma B. Freedman (Is.17)

Thelma B. Freedman, Ph.D.

As all sci-fi savvy people can tell you, The Federation’s First Law of Time Travel is “Don’t Change History.” There is an intriguing short story by Isaac Asimov about this. An eminent professor of chemistry is giving a lecture to a packed auditorium; he is carrying out the first trial of his new “time machine,” which will carry one drop of water back in time several million years. As he speaks he fires up his apparatus (sparks and humming sounds) and carefully drops the fateful drop of water onto the waiting plate of glass. More sparks and louder humming sounds ensue. The professor continues to talk, describing what the machine is doing, and as he … Read the rest

Some Concerns About Rescripting – Janet Cunningham (Is.17)

Janet Cunningham, Ph.D.

The technique of rescripting is not one that I use, and I have never had a clear explanation of its benefits, although I have discussed it with colleagues who use the method. As I understand, rescripting grows out of quantum physics and current thinking that all time exists now; there is no past, present or future, there is only the eternal Now.

My concern for rescripting in past-life therapy comes from three primary positions:

  1. Even though all time may exist now, the fact is that in this physical dimension and in physical bodies we do exist in time; time is a truth of our lives in this reality.
  2. In my personal experience it simply didn’t work,
Read the rest

Reframing or Rescripting in Past-Life Work – Joseph Costa (Is.17)

Joseph Costa, Ph.D.

In any field of endeavor there are advocates of doing work in different ways from others that produces successes. In our field we have counselors and therapists who use the methods called reframing and rescripting. In my own practice I use both methods, choosing that which serves the client as the work unfolds.

What I present here is from a perspective of energies. For example: I interpret the dynamics of events, feelings and trauma as energy experiences. The events, feelings and trauma have more or less energy involved, based on the degree of the lesson experienced by the client.

When a client has an emotional experience that has an effect on his or her future behavior … Read the rest

Rescripting and Other Delusional Thinking – David P. Armentrout (Is.17)

David P. Armentrout, Ph.D.

Some years ago I saw a postcard with the caption, “I have abandoned the search for Truth and am now looking for an acceptable fantasy.” That seems to summarize the goals of rescripting. It also summarizes the dereific processes leading to psychosis. Rescripting means substitution of fantasied content for valid memory. The usual reason given for rescripting is that realty is too terrible to be handled.

Psychopathology

Mental disorders can be roughly broken down into those problems due to faulty wiring of the cranial computer and its peripherals, and those due to flawed software. In the first group we find various dementias, cyclothymias, autisms and the schizophrenias. There is a region of overlap in which subclinical … Read the rest

If You Can Imagine It, You Can Achieve It; If You Can Dream It, You Can Become It! – Linda Adler (Is.17)

Linda Adler, L.C.S.W.

There is wisdom in that title statement and most of us would endorse it, at least to some degree. However, if it were that simple, we would all be exactly who we want to be and do exactly what we want to do without limitation. Unfortunately, there are often underlying causes that prevent us from fully achieving our imaginings and becoming our dreams.

I suspect that most of us embrace the concept that we create our own reality, although we might not agree on the exact meaning of that idea. If we are both the Creator and the Creation, we can also be Creative and, in alignment with the Higher Self, re-create our reality.

As a … Read the rest

Healing The Past-Life Personality – George Schwimmer (Is.8)

by George Schwimmer, Ph.D.

Recollections of events, which shocked or traumatized an individual in a past life, very often re-traumatize the present personality during regression, this author finds. He advocates visualization healing and other techniques to relieve a client of such traumas, which are usually symbols of the client’s core issue.

The principal dictum—both spoken and unspoken—of many past-life therapists is, “To relive is to relieve.” In my own experience as a therapist in this field, reliving is just one part of the PLT process, and in some instances merely reliving a past life can be deleterious—it usually shocks the present personality’s emotional body, the nervous system, the glandular systems, and the electromagnetic systems, replaying the entire inner tape … Read the rest