Evaluating the Efficacy of Regression Therapy for Physical Pain:

A Mixed-Methods Study of Client Case Reports

Andy Tomlinson, Sam Jones, Jessie Stringer, Heather Walkley.

Abstract— This study evaluates the therapeutic effects of regression therapy on clients experiencing physical pain, using data from 865 cases recorded by trainees of the Past Life Regression Academy over a ten-year period. Quantitative analysis of Subjective Units of Distress (SUDs) scores before and after therapy sessions demonstrated statistically significant reductions in reported pain across seven categories. Qualitative data, including a detailed case study, illustrate the emotional and symbolic depth of client experiences. While limitations exist due to the nature of self-reported data and non-randomised sampling, the findings indicate regression therapy’s potential for rapid and profound healing effects.

Keywords: past life regression, hypnotherapy, psychodrama, traumatic memories, chronic pain, body healing

Introduction

The term ‘regression’ refers to a process of going back to an earlier event, and for regression therapy this means going to the source of a psychological problem. Whilst most therapies have some level of regression, with regression therapy it employs a range of hypnotherapeutic and psychotherapeutic techniques thought to be the most helpful. It also has a special focus on working with transpersonal experiences to transform them.

When past life stories appear, the therapy has been referred to as past life regression. However, regression therapy does not try and prove the truth of these stories; rather, it uses the client’s interpretation as a metaphor, a means of providing a powerful transpersonal experience for healing. When traumatic memories are the source of the problem, regression therapy includes body memory transformation. Among psychotherapists, regression is regarded as a valuable psychiatric technique by many reputable practitioners (Mack, 2014).

 History

The foundations of regression therapy could be traced as far back as Franz Anton Mesmer, F.W.H. Myers and of course the psychoanalytic tradition of Sigmund Freud, who advocated bringing the unconscious to awareness for healing (Lucas, 1992). Carl Jung’s use of active imagination has also influenced the development of guided imagery techniques used in regression therapy (Lee & Mack, 2015).

In the 1950s, British psychiatrist Alexander Cannon regressed over 1400 patients with symptoms that were not curable by conventional means, observing significant improvement in their well-being (Casimiri, 2013). By the late 1960s and 1970s, the use of hypnotic age regression had become generally accepted by the medical profession (Barber, 1962). The ‘affect bridge’ technique enables a person to connect quickly with a relevant past memory by means of an emotion, and this gave momentum to the initial development of regression therapy (Thomlinson, 2006).

Denys Kelsey, a British psychiatrist who worked with regression, concluded in the 1960s that the origin of some psychiatric problems may reside in past lives (Grant & Kelsey, 1997). In the following decade four books on past life regression were published (Mack, 2014, p. 241): Reliving Past Lives by clinical psychologist Helen Wambach (1978); You Have Been Here Before by psychologist Edith Fiore (1979); Past Lives Therapy by Morris Netherton (1978); and Deep Healing by psychologist Hans TenDam (1989). These books had in common a therapeutic use of past life stories.

In the 1980s, Roger Woolger taught the value of working with the body, pioneering the regression technique of combining body psychotherapy with psychodrama to release the traumatic memories embedded in particular body memories (Woolger, 1988). This was taken further by Andy Tomlinson with his use of body therapy in his book Healing the Eternal Soul (2006).

In the early 2010s, Dr Peter Mack, a regression therapist and practising surgeon from Singapore, wrote two books about his patients’ healing stories: Healing Deep Hurt Within (2011) and Life Changing Moments in Inner Healing (2012). There followed in 2013 an international meeting of psychiatrists, medical doctors and clinical psychologists using regression therapy, from which was formed the Society for Medical Advance and Research in Regression Therapy. The Society published its first book, Inner Healing Journey – A Medical Perspective, in which six medical doctors, including two psychiatrists, shared eleven client healing stories using regression therapy (Mack, 2014).

Theoretical Background

Regression therapy is based on the principle that ill health follows when emotional stresses have overwhelmed and weakened the body’s defences. As a protective mechanism against hurtful unexpressed emotions, the mind learns to anesthetize their intensity and block them off from conscious awareness, leaving behind a scar of ‘unprocessed emotional tension’ (Mack, 2014, p. 236). This may spill over in emotional outbursts or manifest as a headache, insomnia, peptic ulcer, irritable bowel syndrome, chronic fatigue syndrome or some other psychosomatic illness (Woolger, 1992). There is a physiological imperative for our human system to release stress to restore inner balance, and regression therapy provides the setting needed for this to take place. Emotions are often expressed by sobbing and crying, known as ‘abreaction’ or ‘catharsis’ (Mack, 2012, p. 191-192). When patients understand why they are ill, the emotions have been released and transformed, enabling healing to take place.

Use of Past Life Stories

Stories are the fundamental part of human experience. In particular, those that appear to relate to a past life have a deeper meaning for the client, working as a metaphor that enables the regression therapist to get to the heart of the illness (Mack, 2012). Changes are made possible by reframing (Costa, 1999) or by Gestalt-like dialogue to obtain integration of the regressed experience (Mack, 2014). In hypnosis, time is transcended and there is no distinction between real and imagined, enabling empowerment and healing to take place (Adler, 1999). What is important in regression therapy is allowing the event to be experienced in a personalized way (Simões, 2002).

Age Regression

With the technique of age regression, the hypnotherapist goes to the suppressed emotion of a life event that is thought to be causing a patient’s problem, often involving early childhood memories. This enables the person to release suppressed emotions in a safe environment, a powerful healing mechanism used in regression therapy (Mack, 2014, Durbin, P. 2009).

Inner Child Therapy

Psychologist John Bowlby (1951) established that early childhood memories can cause dysfunctional behaviours in later life. John Bradshaw (1990) adopted from Carl Jung the concept of ‘inner child’ for unresolved childhood experiences, and psychiatrist Soumya Rao has described how this can be successfully incorporated into the regression therapy process (as cited in Mack, 2014, p. 83-84).

Body Therapy

Bessel van der Kolk (1994), director of the Trauma Centre at Boston University states, ‘When the physical sensations of trauma produce intense emotions the therapy needs to consist of helping people stay in their bodies and understand the body sensations’ (p. 253). The body always carries the memory of past events and can provide an important ‘bridge’ in regression therapy (Tomlinson, 2005, p. 49). More recently, psychiatrist Moacir Oliveira (as cited in Mack, 2014) has shown how body therapy in combination with regression therapy can be used to resolve traumatic memories.

Case Study – The Orphanage Children (James, 2015)

 

Sonia was a twenty-seven-year mother of two girls, who Andy Tomlinson first met as a student on one of his training workshops. She had a lot of unexplainable pain in her arms and hands and had volunteered to be a demonstration subject. Andy led Sonia through the induction and into a story that appeared to be a past life in an orphanage.

Andy:  Tell me what you are wearing.

Sonia: I’m naked. (laughing)

‘What colour is your skin?’

‘Just naked and free (more laughing) … mixed brown, not suntan!’

‘Do you have the body of a man or a woman?’

‘Of a woman… really happy being naked.’

‘Do you get a sense of how old are you?’

‘14… 15.’

‘On the count of three go to the next significant event, 1… 2… 3… now what’s happening?’

‘Fire, no, fire…  darkness and screaming and dirtiness… Buildings in flames… getting buckets of water.  People in aprons can’t get out… It’s too late… children… I want to get the little boy… I can’t get him.  Women in aprons are screaming.  My hands are burning… trying to get Jacob out… he’s stuck.  I’m pulling him.’

‘What else is happening?’

‘Can’t leave…  I can’t get him out… someone pulling me… hands are on fire.’

‘What happens next?’

‘I’m staying with Jacob.’

‘Go to the point where your heart stops beating for the last time. Tell me what happens.’

Sonia begins sobbing.

‘It’s finished, that life is finished… Just check your heart has stopped beating… Do you stay with the body or leave it?’

‘My hands are stopping me from leaving… my hands aren’t letting me go.’

‘We are going to help you pull out Jacob. Go to the point of trying to pull out Jacob on the count of three… 1… 2… 3…’

Sonia grasped one of therapist’s hands while he offered resistance.

‘Pull him out.’

After a few moments the resistance was released, and Sonia could recreate the experience of pulling Jacob out of the fire.

A sigh of relief.

‘I’d like you to meet the spirit of Jacob. What is it you wanted to say to that you couldn’t say in that life?’

‘Sorry, I wasn’t quick enough.’

‘What does Jacob say back to you?’

‘God bless you.’

‘Ask Jacob if he knew he would die early.’

‘He knew… I knew, too.’

‘Bring down your spirit guide and ask what the purpose of that life was. What does your guide say to you?’

‘It’s all about guilt.’ (Sobbing.)

‘Would you like to be united with Jacob?’

Sonia nodding.

‘Bring him closer. I wonder if it would help by holding him?’

A cushion was offered for Sonia to hug. A smile came on Sonia’s face as her arms went tightly round the cushion.

‘Just become aware of your hands. All the pain is finished now. Let that loving energy flow into your hands and into each of your fingers, washing away all the guilt.’

This is an extract of a longer session. In her current life Sonia had recently separated from her husband who was trying to take her children. The reframing used physical psychodrama, a form of body therapy that is a powerful way of transforming traumatic shutdowns. Sonia’s unexplainable pain in her arms disappeared when she was able to deal with her current life issue.

Research Introduction

The subjects volunteered as practice subjects for students of the Past Life Regression Academy (https://www.regressionacademy.com). Students are required to conduct five case studies for assessment following their training, which include all the sessions needed for completion. Students document the case study fully, and among other things the changes in symptoms experienced by their clients using the ‘Subjective Units of Distress / Disturbance Scale’ (SUDs). This is a scale of 0 to 10 for measuring the subjective intensity of disturbance or distress currently experienced by an individual. The findings from the analysis of ‘before’ and ‘after’ SUDs scores for clients experiencing ‘inexplicable pain’ is reported.

 Method

The case studies were led over a ten-year period of 2007-2017. After each session a very detailed template was filled by a therapist, so an independent supervisor was able to review all the details and the change in SUDs with each session. They also had the phone number of the client, so the supervisor could contact the client if they wished to verify any aspect of the session reports.

Of 865 clients 636 had symptoms of physical pain. These pain conditions were grouped into seven general categories and the before and after SUDs scores were analysed for statistical differences. The Wilcoxon test was used, which enables two-paired samples (in this case results from a particular person) of ordinal data (in this case SUDs scores before and after the regression sessions) to be tested for significant difference (i.e. to be 95% confident that any differences found did not occur by chance, and have an underlying cause, which can in this case be assumed to be the regression sessions).

In addition, the Mann-Whitney test was used to compare the differences in scores across all groups to see whether there were significant differences in before and after scores based on the number of sessions that clients had.

Results

The most common pains were headaches and migraines (162 case studies) and stomach problems (125 cases). The other groupings were neck, back and shoulder pain (90 cases); IBS and bowel problems (84 cases); heart related problems (74); chest, lung and breathing problems (54) and ‘other’ (47).

The average score across all categories on the SUDs scale (with 10 being the highest intensity) was 7.9. After the session(s) a dramatic improvement in the average score was experienced. The average ‘after score’ was 0.9 (i.e. an average improvement of 7 points). Clients on average had only 1.6 sessions in total.

There is surprisingly little variation in the improvements across the seven different categories of pain. Table 1 shows the seven pain categories and the percentages of people in each pain category against the average number of score points of improvement they experienced before and after their sessions. It also shows the average number of score points of improvement. Stomach related pains fared the best at an average improvement of 7.2, while chest, lung and breathing problems and headaches and migraines were lower at 6.9 improvement points.

With such dramatic improvements in score, it is unlikely that these findings would have occurred by chance. Indeed, all the Wilcoxon tests (Table 2) revealed a significant improvement (i.e. all p values are less than 0.05).

Finally, the Mann-Whitney test was used to see how the number of sessions that clients had affected their level of improvement (averaged for all pain symptoms). Table 3 shows that most people (312) had only one session. Only 6 people had more than three sessions. The Mann-Whitney test revealed a significant difference in the improvement score between having 1 and 2 sessions (p value of less than 0.05), but not between having 2 and 3 sessions or 3 and 4 sessions. This suggests that after two sessions, most people are unlikely to see any further improvement in their pain condition.

Conclusion

This study provides compelling preliminary evidence that regression therapy can significantly reduce physical pain symptoms, often after only one or two sessions. While more rigorous, controlled studies are needed, these findings highlight the value of regression therapy as a complementary approach to psychotherapeutic and medical treatment.

 

 Tables

 

Table 1

 

Score improvements for each condition

	Improvement in number of score points (%)
Condition	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Ave
1	0	1	0	0	6	7	20	21	31	8	6	7.1
2	0	0	1	0	2	5	29	20	22	14	6	7.1
3	0	0	0	6	2	3	26	17	41	6	0	6.9
4	0	0	1	0	5	12	21	18	28	13	0	6.9
5	0	0	0	1	3	18	18	15	27	12	5	7.0
6	0	0	1	0	2	5	22	24	32	11	3	7.2
7	0	0	0	4	0	17	15	28	11	23	2	7.0

 

 

Condition:

1 – Neck, back and shoulder

2 – IBS and bowel problems

3 – Chest, lung and breathing problems

4 – Headaches and migraines

5 – Heart related problems

6 – Stomach problems

7 – Other

 

Table 2

Findings from the Wilcoxon tests to show the statistical significance of the before and after scores

Condition number	Z score	P value
1	-3.125	0.002
2	-8.002	0.000
3	-6.408	0.000
4	-11.095	0.000
5	-7.508	0.000
6	-9.777	0.000
7	-6.000	0.000

 

Table 3

 

Numbers of sessions had by clients across all pain categories

Number of sessions	Number of clients	% of clients
1	312	49.1
2	245	38.5
3	70	11
4	3	0.5
5	2	0.3
6	1	0.2

 

Table 4

 

Mann-Whitney tests showing the level of significance of improvement in score between the number of sessions

Difference between	Z score	P value
1 and 2 sessions	-3.567	0.000
2 and 3 sessions	-0.325	0.745
3 and 4 sessions	-0.429	0.668

 

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author, Andy Thomlinson, through the dropbox link. The data are not publicly available due to their containing information that could compromise the privacy of case study participants.

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