A Phenomenological Phase Process in Life Between Lives Regression Therapy: Integrating Gestalt Therapy, Congruence, and Ho’oponopono
by Ildar Safarov (Russian Federation) 

Abstract

Background: Regression therapists frequently observe recurring therapeutic patterns during Life Between Lives (LBL) work that appear to extend beyond the recollection of autobiographical memories. Although these experiences have been widely described in clinical practice, the processes through which they facilitate psychological transformation remain insufficiently articulated.

Objective: This paper explores a recurring phase process observed during regression therapy and examines its relationship to Gestalt therapeutic principles, Carl Rogers’ concept of congruence, and the four-stage sequence of reconciliation described in the Ho’oponopono tradition.

Method: Three clinical case studies are presented in which clients entered Life Between Lives experiences during regression therapy. Particular attention is given to the clients’ reported shifts in perspective, the degree to which they identified with what they experienced as their deeper or soul-level identity, and the therapeutic consequences of these experiences. Gestalt therapy techniques, including dialogue and monodrama, were incorporated where clinically appropriate to facilitate perspective-taking and experiential integration.

Results: Across the cases, clients who reported a sustained identification with their deeper self, demonstrated a deeper awareness of the emotional and other consequences of their actions in the regression narratives, accompanied by spontaneous expressions of remorse, requests for forgiveness, gratitude, and love. These experiential phases closely resembled the sequence described in the Ho’oponopono tradition, although no historical or procedural connection was intentionally introduced during therapy. By contrast, clients who remained primarily identified with their historical personality showed less evidence of comparable therapeutic transformation.

Conclusions: The cases suggest the presence of a recurring phenomenological process in which shifts in identity and perspective may facilitate the resolution of longstanding relational conflicts within regression therapy. While the findings are exploratory and derive from a small number of clinical observations, they offer a preliminary theoretical framework for integrating Gestalt therapy, congruence theory, and Life Between Lives regression within a common model of therapeutic transformation.

Keywords: Gestalt therapy; regression therapy; Life Between Lives (LBL); phenomenology; congruence; Ho’oponopono; perspective shifting; therapeutic transformation; case study.

Introduction

Clinical work involving past-life regression and Life Between Lives (LBL) experiences frequently reveals recurring phenomenological patterns that extend beyond the recollection of autobiographical or symbolic memories. Although regression therapy has traditionally focused on the therapeutic significance of remembered experiences, considerably less attention has been devoted to the dynamic psychological processes through which these experiences lead to lasting transformation.

One of the central assumptions underlying experiential psychotherapies is that meaningful psychological change emerges not simply from insight, but from a reorganization of experience. Gestalt therapy has long emphasized the importance of awareness, dialogue, and experimentation—tools and processes through which unfinished emotional reactions, repressed needs, and interrupted actions are integrated. Similarly, Carl Rogers (1961) described congruence as the alignment of experience, awareness, and expression, while contemporary experiential approaches, such as Internal Family Systems (Schwartz, 1995), emphasize the transformative effects of identifying with deeper aspects of the self.

During regression sessions involving Life Between Lives experiences, the author repeatedly observed a comparable sequence of experiential changes. Across a number of clinical cases, clients appeared to move through a progressive series of shifts in perspective. Initially identifying with a historical personality, they gradually experienced the viewpoints of other individuals involved in the remembered events and, in some cases, what they described as their deeper or soul-level identity. These changes were frequently accompanied by increased awareness of relational incongruities, spontaneous expressions of remorse, requests for forgiveness, and experiences of reconciliation and psychological relief (Figure 1).

The present paper proposes that these observations may represent a recurring phenomenological process rather than isolated clinical events. Drawing upon three illustrative case studies, it explores how Gestalt-informed techniques—including perspective shifting via dialogue and monodrama—may facilitate this sequence during Life Between Lives regression therapy. Particular attention is given to the relationship between perspective shifting, identification with a deeper level of self, and the process of psychological integration.

Interestingly, the experiential sequence observed across these cases bears a close phenomenological resemblance to the four-stage reconciliation process described in the Ho’oponopono tradition as popularized by Hew Len (Vitale & Hew Len, 2009). Although no historical or procedural connection between Ho’oponopono and regression therapy is proposed, the similarities raise important theoretical questions regarding common mechanisms of psychological transformation across different healing traditions.

Rather than introducing a new therapeutic technique, this paper proposes a preliminary phase model describing a recurring sequence of experiential transformations observed during Life Between Lives regression therapy. While exploratory in nature, the model may offer a useful framework for understanding how shifts in perspective contribute to psychological integration within regression therapy and potentially across other experiential psychotherapies.

Phenomenological Framework

Before presenting the clinical material, it is useful to clarify the phenomenological process explored in this paper. The purpose of the following case studies is not to establish the objective reality of past-life or Life Between Lives experiences, but to examine recurring experiential patterns reported by clients during regression therapy.

The observations described in this article emerged inductively from clinical practice. Across multiple regression sessions, the author repeatedly observed that therapeutic transformation appeared to coincide with progressive shifts in experiential identification. Rather than remaining exclusively identified with the personality represented within the regression narrative, some clients gradually experienced the same events from increasingly inclusive perspectives. These shifts frequently involved identification with other participants in the remembered events, followed by identification with what clients described as their deeper or soul-level identity.

From a phenomenological perspective, these successive shifts of identification appeared to facilitate increasing awareness of incongruence, often giving rise to spontaneous experiences of remorse, forgiveness, compassion, gratitude, and psychological integration. The present paper proposes that this sequence may represent a recurring transformational process worthy of further investigation.

To facilitate comparison across the three cases, each clinical vignette is presented using the same structure:

• Presenting Problem
• Clinical Background
• Regression Experience
• Life Between Lives Experience
• Therapeutic Process
• Clinical Outcome
• Commentary

The Discussion subsequently examines the common phenomenological features emerging across these cases and proposes a preliminary Gestalt-informed phase model describing this transformational sequence.

Clinical Case Studies

Case 1

The Roman Legionnaire

Presenting Problem

Olga, a 41-year-old unmarried economist and educator with no children, sought regression therapy because of a persistent relational pattern in which male partners unexpectedly terminated otherwise stable relationships. Previous Cognitive Behavioural Therapy had produced little observable improvement. During the initial assessment, she presented as psychologically stable, cooperative, and highly motivated for treatment. Although intellectually reflective, she experienced difficulty recognising and expressing her emotional states, a pattern she associated with her traditional upbringing.

Clinical Background

The first therapeutic session focused on trance induction and establishing therapeutic rapport through the exploration of a psychologically neutral past-life experience. This initial intervention resulted in a noticeable reduction in anxiety and cognitive over-control, creating a favourable therapeutic alliance and preparing the client for deeper regression work.

Regression Experience

During the second session, Olga reported experiencing herself as a sixteen-year-old young man who had enthusiastically joined the Roman legions after becoming fascinated by military life. As his military career progressed, emotional responsiveness gradually diminished under the demands of discipline and warfare.

The pivotal event involved participation in a military campaign against a dark-skinned tribal community. When asked to describe his emotional experience while killing and raping civilians, the client responded in a detached and emotionally constricted manner:

“Nothing. Otherwise, I would not fulfil the order.”

The character died at the age of eighteen after being struck in the back by an unexpected arrow.

Life Between Lives Experience

Within the reported Life Between Lives experience, the former legionnaire initially evaluated his life in a similarly detached tone, remarking:

“My life was worthless. I didn’t even have a girlfriend.”

The therapeutic process changed markedly when the client was invited to engage with what she experienced as the souls of those who had suffered because of the legionnaire’s actions.

At this point, the emotional tone altered dramatically.

The previously detached personality became visibly distressed and exclaimed:

“God… what have I done?”

When asked what he wished to do, he replied:

“I want to get down on my knees and apologise.”

Case 2

The Princess and the Psychologist

Presenting Problem

Natalia, a 40-year-old psychologist and coach, sought regression therapy because of persistent difficulties related to interpersonal dominance within intimate relationships. Married for the second time and the mother of two children from different marriages, she described herself as assertive, proactive, and accustomed to assuming positions of leadership. Although these qualities had contributed to her professional success, she believed they were negatively affecting her marital relationship.

Prior to seeking regression therapy, Natalia had completed a six-month course of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). While she reported a modest increase in nurturing behaviour towards her husband, she continued to experience difficulty relinquishing control within close relationships. Her principal therapeutic objective was to explore the deeper origins of this recurring pattern.

Clinical Background

During the initial assessment, Natalia presented as psychologically stable, articulate, and highly motivated to understand the origins of her interpersonal style. Throughout the early stages of the regression process, she demonstrated excellent hypnotic responsiveness and vivid imagery.

Regression Experience

During regression, Natalia reported experiencing herself as a sixteen-year-old princess living within a royal household during a period of political unrest. Following the disappearance of her father, the king, during a peasant uprising, she sought military assistance from a neighbouring ruler. When this request was refused, she organised her own military campaign, successfully suppressed the rebellion, and ordered the public execution of seven of its leaders.

The remainder of this lifetime was characterised by repeated personal losses, including the death of her infant son, the death of her husband in battle, and many years of political responsibility as queen.

The client subsequently reported another lifetime in which she occupied a markedly different social position. Rather than serving as the ruling queen, she experienced herself as the queen’s elder sister, assuming many responsibilities while remaining politically subordinate. Eventually, fearing that her sister intended to seize power, the queen ordered her imprisonment. She remained incarcerated for approximately twenty-five years before dying in captivity.

Life Between Lives Experience

Within the reported Life Between Lives experience, the therapist invited the client to revisit the relationships established during the previous incarnations.

Unlike the clients described in Cases 1 and 3, Natalia remained consistently identified with the perspective of the ruling queen. When invited to engage with those she had ordered to be executed, she responded firmly:

“You understand that I couldn’t have acted differently.”

Although attention was repeatedly directed toward her own experiences of profound personal suffering—including the deaths of her husband and child, together with her prolonged imprisonment during the subsequent lifetime—these experiences did not appear to alter her appraisal of the earlier events or increase her capacity to experience the situation from the perspective of those who had suffered as a consequence of her actions.

Therapeutic Process

From a phenomenological perspective, the therapeutic process differed substantially from the pattern observed in the other two cases.

Throughout the session, the client’s experiential identification remained primarily anchored within the historical personality represented in the regression narrative. Although she demonstrated considerable cognitive understanding of the events, she did not report the broader shift in experiential identification that characterised the transformational process observed in Cases 1 and 3.

Consequently, the sequence of spontaneous remorse, requests for forgiveness, gratitude, and reconciliation described elsewhere in this paper did not emerge during the session.

Rather than moving toward an increasingly inclusive perspective, the client continued to interpret events predominantly through the framework of authority.

Clinical Outcome

During the post-session discussion, Natalia continued to justify the decisions taken by the queen, maintaining that the executions had been necessary to preserve order.

Although the session provided valuable material for therapeutic reflection, the client’s original goal of reducing interpersonal dominance within her current relationship was not achieved during the course of this intervention.

Case 3

Fred and the Warlord

Presenting Problem

Kristina, a 36-year-old married nurse and the mother of two children, sought regression therapy because of persistent emotional distress accompanied by recurring financial, legal, and family difficulties. At the time of treatment, the family was living with her mother, and the client described considerable stress arising from chronic interpersonal conflict within the household. She also expressed longstanding dissatisfaction with her body weight and episodes of emotional dysregulation.

The therapeutic objectives were twofold: first, to explore the origins of the family’s ongoing financial and legal problems, and second, to better understand the emotional difficulties affecting both her eldest child and her husband.

Clinical Background

Prior to regression therapy, Kristina had participated in four sessions of Gestalt therapy followed by several sessions of Kosmoenergy treatment (Ki, 2006). During the eighth energy session, she experienced an unusually intense sensation of internal heat. Rather than interpreting this experience diagnostically, the therapist employed it as a somatic affect bridge, facilitating an immediate transition into a deep hypnotic state.

Regression Experience I

Fred

The client initially reported experiencing herself as a ten-year-old Roma boy dying from hunger and thirst.

From a therapeutic perspective, the intensity of this experience suggested the possibility that it represented the experiential consequence of unresolved actions occurring within an earlier regression narrative. The therapist therefore invited the client to explore the origin of this pattern.

The client subsequently reported another lifetime in which she experienced herself as a forty-year-old man named Fred.

Fred was described as physically obese, emotionally unpleasant, and profoundly self-centred. Beginning in childhood, he repeatedly deprived his family of essential resources. At the age of ten he intentionally consumed all available food so that none would remain for his father. Later in life he confiscated his mother’s money and possessions, ultimately leaving her to die of starvation. Fred survived her by several years before dying from chronic illness associated with excessive eating.

Life Between Lives Experience

Within the reported Life Between Lives experience, Fred evaluated the incarnation as, “Awful… disgusting… worthless.”

When invited to engage with what he experienced as his mother’s soul, he expressed profound shame.

Interestingly, although his mother responded with unconditional love and forgiveness, Fred appeared unable to receive or internalise that forgiveness. His remorse remained accompanied by persistent self-condemnation.

Commentary

This first regression illustrates an important feature of the proposed phenomenological model. The client clearly experienced remorse and accepted personal responsibility for previous actions. However, despite the emergence of forgiveness from another, genuine psychological integration appeared incomplete because forgiveness of the self, had not yet occurred.

Regression Experience II

The Warlord

In a later regression session, Kristina reported experiencing herself as a young village leader who reluctantly became a military commander after being persuaded by fellow villagers. Although his wife strongly opposed this decision, he accepted the position and subsequently led numerous military campaigns.

Throughout these conflicts he consistently underestimated the vulnerability of those under his command. Many soldiers died in battle, including his own son, whom he had compelled to join the army against his wishes.

After this devastating loss, the commander gradually realized that his personal courage and sense of invulnerability had blinded him to the vulnerability and suffering of other warriors. This led to irreparable tactical errors in battle.

Life Between Lives Experience

During the reported Life Between Lives experience, the therapist invited the client to engage with those who had been affected by the warlord’s actions.

Initially, the souls of the fallen warriors responded with understanding, reassuring him: “It is not your fault.”

However, the emotional atmosphere changed dramatically when the client encountered the silent presence of his deceased son. Unlike the other figures, the son offered neither reassurance nor forgiveness. Recognising the emotional significance of this moment, the therapist introduced Gestalt techniques, including perspective shifting via monodrama.

Therapeutic Process

The client was invited to experience the situation from the perspective of the son. During this shift of experiential identification, he exclaimed: “Father, I hate you! You forced me to go to war, and I didn’t want to go!”

Immediately afterwards, the client returned to the perspective of the warlord and began crying intensely.

This moment represented a decisive turning point within the therapeutic process.

Rather than remaining exclusively identified with the historical personality, the client had now directly experienced the emotional reality of another participant in the narrative. Following this shift, the warlord spontaneously recognised the discrepancy between his previous self-understanding and the suffering experienced by others.

Only afterwards did the client report identifying with what he experienced as his deeper or soul-level perspective. From this broader standpoint, he recognised that becoming a warlord had fundamentally contradicted both his wife’s guidance and what he now perceived to be the intentions of his soul.

Without prompting, he began asking forgiveness from his son and from the remaining victims.

As reconciliation unfolded, spontaneous expressions of gratitude, love, and acceptance emerged. Eventually, the son and the remaining figures departed, leaving the client with a profound sense of peace, emotional release, and physical fatigue.

Clinical Outcome

Following the session, the client reported an overwhelming sense of relief, inner stillness, and emotional completion.

Although the long-term clinical outcomes extend beyond the scope of this report, the session represented the clearest example among the three cases of the complete transformational sequence proposed in this paper.

Commentary

Case 3 most clearly illustrates the phenomenological framework proposed in this article.

Unlike the previous cases, the client’s experience unfolded through a progressive series of experiential identifications. Initially identified with the historical personality, she subsequently experienced the perspective of another participant, recognised the emotional consequences of her previous actions, and finally reported identification with a deeper or soul-level identity.

From the perspective of the present model, this sequence appears to constitute the principal mechanism through which psychological transformation occurred. Importantly, remorse did not emerge immediately following recollection of autobiographical material. Rather, it appeared only after the client’s experiential frame of reference expanded to include the perspective of another person. Identification with the soul perspective further broadened this awareness, facilitating reconciliation, forgiveness, gratitude, and eventual psychological integration.

Consequently, Case 3 provides the strongest clinical illustration of the preliminary phase model proposed in this paper.

Table 1.

Discussion

The three clinical cases presented in this paper suggest a recurring phenomenological sequence that appears to accompany successful therapeutic transformation during certain Life Between Lives (LBL) regression sessions. Although each client presented with different therapeutic concerns and reported markedly different regression narratives, the cases shared common experiential processes that extended beyond the specific content of the remembered events.

The purpose of this discussion is not to establish the ontological status of past-life or Life Between Lives experiences. Rather, it is to examine the phenomenological structure of the transformational process reported by the clients and to explore how this process may be understood within existing psychotherapeutic frameworks.

Perspective Shifting as the Central Therapeutic Process

The observations presented in this paper suggest that therapeutic transformation may depend less upon the recollection of regression material itself than upon the progressive expansion of the client’s experiential frame of reference.

Across the successful cases, clients did not simply remember emotionally significant events. Rather, they repeatedly experienced those events from increasingly inclusive perspectives. Initially identified with the historical personality represented within the regression narrative, they subsequently experienced the perspectives of other participants and, finally, what they described as their deeper or soul-level identity.

From a phenomenological standpoint, these alternation of identities appeared to facilitate the recognition of incongruence that had previously remained out of awareness. Rather than representing isolated emotional reactions, remorse, compassion, forgiveness, gratitude, and reconciliation emerged only after these successive shifts of identification had occurred.

Consequently, the findings suggest that perspective shifting may represent one of the principal mechanisms through which transformational experiences unfold during regression therapy.

Congruence and the Expansion of Identity

The process described above shares important conceptual similarities with Carl Rogers’ (1961) notion of congruence. Rogers proposed that psychological growth occurs as experience, awareness, and self-expression become increasingly aligned. Within the present cases, however, congruence appears to operate at an additional level.

Rather than involving only greater consistency within the ordinary personality, clients reported moments in which their perspective expanded beyond the personality itself toward what they experienced as a deeper level of identity. From this broader standpoint, previously justified behaviours frequently became incompatible with their emerging awareness of the suffering experienced by others.

From the perspective of the present model, congruence therefore appears to involve not merely increased self-awareness but progressive alignment between the personality and what clients experience as their deeper organising centre.

Gestalt Therapy and Progressive Shifts of Identification

Gestalt therapy is rooted in present moment awareness and relies on experimentation and dialogue – the processes that trigger psychological change. Techniques such as empty-chair dialogue, monodrama, and role reversal encourage clients to experience situations from multiple perspectives, thereby expanding awareness beyond habitual patterns of perception.

Arnold Beisser’s Paradoxical Theory of Change represents a dynamic law that states: “Change occurs when one becomes what he is, not when he tries to become what he is not.”

Carl Rogers’s congruence theory and Arnold Beisser’s paradoxical theory of change are two fundamental pillars of humanistic psychotherapy. They describe the same healing mechanism, but approach it from different angles: Rogers focuses on inner honesty, while Beisser emphasizes the dynamics of change towards authentic identity through its experimental progressive shifts.

The therapeutic procedures employed during the present regression sessions appear to operate through a remarkably similar mechanism. Inner Plane Communication (McHugh, 2017), dialogue with significant figures, and monodrama repeatedly invited clients to shift experiential identification between different participants within the regression narrative. Rather than functioning merely as dramatic techniques, these interventions facilitated direct experiential access to identities and perspectives that had previously remained psychologically inaccessible.

This observation suggests that Gestalt techniques may contribute to regression therapy not simply as methods of emotional expression, but as structured procedures for facilitating progressive shifts of identification.

Internal Family Systems and the Deeper Organising Self

A comparable process may also be recognised within Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy (Schwartz, 1995). IFS distinguishes between protective personality parts and the Self, which functions as the central organising principle characterised by compassion, curiosity, calmness, and connectedness.

Although the metaphysical assumptions underlying regression therapy differ substantially from those of IFS, both approaches appear to describe a movement from identification with limited aspects of personality toward a broader organising centre.

Within the present cases, clients frequently reported that compassion, forgiveness, and acceptance emerged only after identifying with what they experienced as their soul or deeper self. Whether interpreted metaphysically or psychologically, this transition appears phenomenologically analogous to the Self-led state described within Internal Family Systems.

Consequently, the present observations may offer an additional bridge between regression therapy and contemporary experiential psychotherapy.

The Role of Soul Identification

The concept of soul identification occupies a central position within Life Between Lives therapy. However, the present observations suggest that identification with the soul should perhaps be understood less as an isolated event than as the culmination of a broader process of expanding experiential identification.

In all three cases, the critical distinction did not appear to lie in whether clients reported a soul experience, but in whether they progressively expanded their frame of reference beyond the historical personality. Case 2 is particularly informative in this regard. Despite vivid regression experiences, the client remained primarily identified with the historical personality, and the broader sequence of remorse, reconciliation, and integration did not emerge.

This contrast suggests that soul identification may represent the final stage of a progressive phenomenological process rather than its starting point.

Relationship to Ho’oponopono

One of the most intriguing observations emerging from these cases is the close phenomenological resemblance between the reported transformational sequence and the four-stage reconciliation process described in the Ho’oponopono tradition.

Importantly, no formal relationship between Ho’oponopono and regression therapy is proposed. The similarities observed in the present cases emerged spontaneously during therapeutic work and were recognised only retrospectively during analysis.

From this perspective, Ho’oponopono may represent one cultural expression of a broader transformational process that can also emerge spontaneously during regression therapy when clients progressively expand their identification beyond the ordinary personality.

Limitations and Future Directions

The present paper is based on three illustrative clinical case studies and therefore cannot establish the generality of the proposed model. The observations should be regarded as exploratory and hypothesis-generating rather than confirmatory.

Future studies could examine whether comparable sequences emerge across larger numbers of regression cases and whether similar processes can be identified within other experiential psychotherapies, including Gestalt therapy, Internal Family Systems, psychodrama, and transpersonal psychotherapy. Comparative qualitative research may help determine whether progressive shifts of experiential identification represent a broader mechanism of therapeutic transformation extending beyond regression therapy alone.

Ethics

All client names have been changed, and their professional backgrounds have been altered to closely related but unidentifiable equivalents to ensure confidentiality.

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Biography – Ildar Safarov, PhD (Doctor of Philosophy in Education), is a practicing psychologist and consultant in the Gestalt approach, and a supervisor. He has been a member of the Association of Specialists and Researchers in the Field of Deep Memory and Regression (ASIOGPR) since its founding (2015) and Vice-President of this Association (since 2025). He defended his PhD dissertation at the A. I. Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia (2001) on the synergetics of creativity in Gestalt therapy, and his doctoral dissertation (PhD) at the University of Oulu (Finland, 2009) on the modelling of relationships in learning. He worked as a senior lecturer and then as an associate professor of psychology at the Karelian State Pedagogical University (now the Institute of Pedagogy and Psychology of Petr SU). He specializes in applied models of deliberate interaction and also studies the philosophy and methodology of psychotherapy. Completed professional training in psychology (Master’s degree at Moscow State University (1992-1994)) and psychotherapy with leading Russian and world masters: Gestalt therapy – at the St. Petersburg Gestalt Institute (Paris Gestalt School of S. Ginger), cognitive therapy – director of CBT training at Oxford University S. Grey (Rakovshchik) and at the CBT Association Ya. Kochetkov (Moscow), qualitative research methods in social work (Umea University, Sweden, 1998-2002), clinical and Ericksonian hypnosis (with Moscow State University prof. M.R. Ginzburg, B.E. Erickson, at the Research Institute of Clinical Hypnosis of the Russian Psychological Association, with prof. J. Becchio (Paris), etc.), as well as regression therapy and deep memory research (with D. Cannon (2011), R. Hodgson (2013, 2015), P. S. Gyngazov (2016), A. Komianos, G. McHugh (certificate 2023), E. Ratnichkina and A. Kinyakina. Author of a fundamental scientific monograph on modelling human relationships (University of Oulu, 2009). Participant of the EARTh-2019 Convention. Editor of the translation of the books by G. McHugh New Regression Therapy; and A. Komianos Rapid Entity Attachment Release (REAR).