by Bibiana Bistrich

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to establish a correlation between psoriasis and unresolved past life situations. This study uses Past Life Therapy as an innovative and effective approach with a dual purpose: the solution of an unresolved, traumatic past life event—whose effects remain active in the present life, and the identification of unconscious, unperceived connections between that particular event from the past and the disease suffered in this current life. The process of solving the past life conflict helps shed light on connections between psoriasis and disturbing, shocking events of the patient’s past life. By establishing those unknown connections, the patient is able to heal.
Past Life Therapy sessions consisted of three stages:

1. The recollection of the circumstances that triggered unconscious memories of past life conflicts, leading to the onset of the disease in this current life, and the identification of the feelings associated with those circumstances.
2. A regression session aimed at evoking the birth and the traumatic event in the past life. The patient then relives those past experiences and recovers the energy trapped in those past distressing situations. The patient is then able to wrap up the past conflict.
3. This leads to understanding the meaning and influence of this past conflict in this current life, achieving a comprehensive and deeper grasp of the purpose of certain bonds.

Patient Presentation

The patient, who I will call Bea, was diagnosed with Psoriasis Vulgaris in large plaques at the age of fourteen. The reason for consultation was the lesions on her skin, which became a serious impairment for her to lead a normal life. Tired of the conventional treatments, she was looking for options.

The patient had presented lesions almost without interruptions since she was a teenager. The lesions were clearly noticeable, affecting 30% of the total body surface area, mainly affecting the thorax, abdomen, back and extremities. This situation forced her to dress in a way to ensure her entire body would be unexposed; every morning she checked her clothes to make sure that no skin would remain uncovered. For that reason, she was not able, during all those years, to enjoy a normal life, as she felt embarrassed to expose her skin in social settings. She was also not able to participate in outdoor activities, in order to avoid the sun, following medical recommendations. Her condition prevented her leading the typical life of a teenager. Only for brief periods the lesions decreased in size but never disappeared completely, which led to difficulties interacting with others. Shyness led her to isolate herself.

Introduction

Argentine Society of Dermatology (SAD for its abbreviation in Spanish) (2018) defines psoriasis as a “chronic, inflammatory, systemic, gene-based, immune-mediated disease. It might be triggered or worsened by a variety of factors.”(p.5) Since this is a pro-inflammatory cytokines mediated process, this skin condition is characterized by “erythematous scaly lesions produced by the hyper-proliferation of keratinocytes.” (p.5) Psoriasis may affect mucosa, semi-mucosa, skin, hair, nails and often joints, affecting both men and women at any age, in equal proportion. It is estimated that 3% of the population have psoriasis, a condition that affects quality of life and survival of patients.

According to Fernandez Bussy, R., Gatti, C.T., Porta Guardia, C., (2011) these are the clinical forms of the disease:

• Psoriasis Vulgaris

1. 1. Small plaques
   2. Large plaques
   3. dot-like shaped lesions

• Erythrodermic Psoriasis
• Pustular Psoriasis

1. 1. Localized
   2. Generalized

• Psoriatic arthritis

As stated by Bouron (2014, p. 573 & 574), the Biological Decoding provides an interpretation of psoriasis as follows:

• Simultaneous presence of two active separation conflicts […]
• Conflict of separation from identity + conflict of obliged contact
• Double separation […]
• Generalized psoriasis: Conflict of two total separations (of the whole body). Often, the resolution of one conflict represents the activation of the other.

Case Presentation

When I first met Bea, she was a 24-year old single architecture student, very self-demanding. She lived with her mother. Their relationship was quite dysfunctional, full of discussions, arguments and demands. She visited my office after a long and tortuous road of medical treatments conducted by different dermatologists. During that time, dosages and medications had been modified and combined following the clinical practice guidelines detailed in Enfermedades de la Piel: Diagnóstico y Tratamiento (Skin Diseases: Diagnosis and Treatment) (Habif, T., et al, 2019, pp. 125-127), listed as follows:

• Topical treatment:

1. 1. Corticosteroids
   2. Retinoids
   3. Vitamin D analogues
   4. Triamcinolone

• Systemic treatment:

1. 1. Methotrexate
   2. Cyclosporine
   3. Acitretin

• Phototherapy with NBUVB (311 to 313 nm)

During our first encounter, Bea pointed out that the lesions on her skin inhibited her to interaction with boys, preventing her from getting involved in a relationship. “I feel I’m a monster,” she said, “I do not want anybody to see me, let alone be touched.” She was taking a series of medications prescribed by her dermatologist, with poor results but several adverse reactions. Her daily medication consisted of a topical corticosteroids cream twice a day, and another ointment prepared with tar, (which emitted an unpleasant odor, highly detrimental for her psycho-affective state), oral retinoids and methotrexate, once a week. By that time, she started to suffer gastric discomfort and her liver function test was abnormal.

In this first meeting, amazingly, Bea was able to recall the circumstances of the moment when she had the first flare-up of the disease. She had never linked those circumstances with the onset of the psoriasis. When I asked her when the first lesions had appeared, she answered she was fourteen. I asked, then, what had happened at that time, and she answered her parents separated, after the last and most terrible argument they had, which occurred the day before the onset of the disease. Bea recalled that her mother could not take her to see the doctor that day because of the drama she was living with her father. Therefore, Bea’s grandmother took her to the Emergency Room a couple of days after this episode with her parents. Bea remembered she had experienced an intense resentment as she felt her mother had neglected her.

During our second interview, Bea worked on a regression exercise. Initially, I made her become aware of the emotions that the lesions provoked in her, given that it was her main concern for consultation. Anger, rage, grudge and embarrassment were the feelings the lesions aroused in her.

We worked on three significant moments during the one hour and a half regression session:

1. Initially, I guided her to relive what she experienced the day her parents split up. Her parents are arguing violently in the living room; she sees herself hiding under the living room’s table. She is taking care of her little brother, Guille, eight years younger than her. She embraces him, covering his eyes and ears to prevent him from witnessing the situation. At this point of the session, Bea realizes that part of her soul was still there, hidden under that table, feeling scared and angry. She feels a deep desire to yell at them to stop arguing, but she cannot.

Therapeutic work consisted of talking to her parents’ souls, telling them everything she had not been able to tell them that day. She demanded from them the energy they unconsciously took from her when they exposed her to witness such a situation. Finally, she talked to that part of her soul that remained still hidden under the table, taking care of her brother. Bea asked that part of her soul to come back to her. After crying and lamenting for a few moments, she felt something was coming back to her, finally; she told me: “I feel I recovered a part of me.”

2. After that experience, I guided her to go back to her mother’s womb in order to experience her birth. She feels revulsion at the contact with the amniotic fluid. She touches her body as if she were vigorously rubbing it to clean up any trace of liquid. After experiencing her way through the birth canal, I asked Bea why her soul needed the experience to have this mother and Bea answered it was to learn to love her mother unconditionally. Then I asked if she had ever contacted this soul her mother was. She answered yes, that it was something karmic, as she defined it. So I guided her to the beginning of the relationship with her mother.

3. She sees herself as a woman in the Middle Ages, in a community somewhere in Europe. She is a healer, devoted to heal people using herbs. Bea describes an event in particular, in which a lady from the high society of the community asks the healer to prepare a poison to kill this lady’s husband, because she is in love with another man. This healer refuses to provide such a service alleging that her wisdom should be used for life, not for death.  The lady who requests that potion, holding a grudge, resented and thus slanders the healer, spreading falsehood all over the town. The healer (Bea, in this life) is then taken to a public tribunal. Insulted by the people, she is dragged on the ground, while soldiers are yelling at her; she is in pain and anger because the contact to the ground causes lesions and excoriations on her skin. Injured, she is taken to the public square and she dies by burning. At that point of the session I asked her to deeply experience what she was feeling on her skin when she was being burned.

In this case, the therapeutic work was aimed at making her aware about all the feelings and sensations she had been unable to experience when she died in that past life. She passed away suffocated to dead and her soul remained trapped there. Once she realized this, I asked her to look at this lady to the face and tell her everything she could not say at that time. Bea started to yell at her, insulting the woman and telling her that what happened was wrong. Bea claimed for her energy and recognized her mother’s look on the eyes of that woman, the lady who had requested that potion. The soul of the woman then returned back the energy she had taken away from Bea when the slandering episode led to Bea’s death by burning. I walked her through to finally carry her soul to the light. Once she got there, she expressed she was experiencing a deep feeling of peace. Then I guided her with a harmonization to become aware of her here-and-now time, returning to her physical awareness.

One week after this regression, Bea called me. She sounded very happy; the lesions had miraculously disappeared. Her skin was completely cleared. She had a follow up appointment with the dermatologist. I asked her to call me back after that appointment to let me know what the doctor had told her.

A couple of weeks after our appointment she called me. She was happy, the doctor was amazed by the results, indicating a reduction on the dose of the medications, but still expecting a possible flare-up of the lesions. She confessed to me she had told the doctor, “I’m already cured”.

It’s been five years now since that regression. Bea does not show any lesions, she is not on any medication, leading a normal life: she is now in a relationship and has a one-year old baby girl. Her relationship with her mother flows without arguments; they feel closer to each other. Bea feels not only her skin is healed, but also her soul.

Case Analysis

During the interview I tried to figure out what was the main emotion behind Bea’s lesions. It became pretty clear to me that anger, outrage and resentment were the prevailing emotions, which concealed also fear and impotence.

I focused on trying to find the meaning of her condition from her point of view; distinctly, it was the conflict represented by the separation of her parents, and the fact she was obliged to be in contact with her mother, against whom she felt a deep resentment.

The argument between her parents, which led to the breakdown of the marriage, was the triggering of the unconscious memory of the conflict with the woman that had caused Bea’s death in other life. In this current life, Bea had the tough challenge of loving her unconditionally; for that reason, her soul is led to this family in particular. It is apparent, then, how the divine plan guides and helps us restore the universal harmony. It depends on us to know what to do with those opportunities. It is also clearly evident how our body responds activating the illness that expresses the conflicts of our soul. Whenever soul and mind do not work in harmony, illness develops in our body as a solution. As Carl Jung said in his Collected Works, “A man is ill, but the illness is nature’s attempt to heal him.” (CW 10, p. 170 para. 361)

As it is explained by Lipton (2014), the field of modern Biology may provide a hint on how the mechanism of generation of the disease works. The limitations of our subconscious systems of beliefs and thoughts create a favorable environment for the development of certain diseases.  “. . . these limitations not only influence our behavior; they can also play a major role in determining our physiology and health. As we’ve seen earlier, the mind plays a powerful role in controlling the biological systems that keep us alive.” (p.231).

In the prologue of his book Tratado de Biodescodificación (Biodecoding Treatise) Enric Corbera (2013) explains that our emotional brain (the limbic system) acts like a brain inside the brain, helping our brain interpret emotions. This emotional brain has a different structure, a distinctive cellular organization and even different biochemical properties than the rest of the neocortex.  This emotional brain works independently from the neocortex and controls our psychological well-being and also an important portion of the physiology of our body. Emotional disorders are a consequence of the abnormal functioning of this emotional brain. Such disorders are originated in painful experiences from the past, unrelated to the present, but indelibly imprinted in our emotional brain. (p. 9)

As Dr. Cabouli describes in his book Atrapamiento y recuperación del alma (Entrapment and recovery of the soul) (2014), traumatic experiences that were not satisfactorily resolved at the time they occurred create an entrapment of the consciousness, and this is valid not only for past lives but also for the present life. As time does not exist and the conflict remains unsolved, the soul is held stuck in an unfinished experience. The experience of the death is the paradigm of the soul entrapment. If death results from that traumatic experience, we will lose our body; physical, emotional and mental reactions cannot be processed without our body. Therefore, we are unable to complete that experience completely. Death interrupts the therapeutic, natural process of the soul, and, as time does not exist, the consciousness gets trapped in an event that continues occurring in spite of the death of the body. The release process of that entrapment starts with the therapeutic work of Past Life Therapy. When the experience the soul was trapped in is finally closed, the symptoms from that experience disappear, and, at the same time, the process of recovering the energy starts. On the other hand, after the release of each entrapment, the patient begins to be more himself or herself, because fragments of the patient’s essence, which were detached from his or her entirety, are restored back. (pp. 20, 23, & 51.)

In reference to past life experiences and the relief of symptoms, Dr. Stanislav Grof (2009) says,

. . . another interesting feature of past life experiences is that they are often intimately connected with important issues and circumstances in our present life . . . this includes a wide variety of emotional, psychosomatic, and interpersonal problems for which conventional forms of psychotherapy failed to provide explanation. (p. 201)

And he also points out that “This process can also often result in alleviation or complete disappearance of various difficult symptoms, such as various phobias, psychosomatic pains, or asthma.” (p. 201)

Knowing all this, the therapeutic strategy was clear to me. Initially, I had to help her make conscious what she had experienced unconsciously the day her parents got separated; then, she should go back to her mother’s womb in order to answer the question about why her soul needed this mother in particular and, finally, Bea needed to work on a previous experience to find out the true origin of the separation conflict. That was finally what happened during the Past Life regression session, which helped her make conscious what still remained unconscious.

During the first part of the regression session she was able to realize that part of her soul and her energy were still trapped under that table; she was still feeling anger, impotence and fear. Bea also understood she had to tell her parents what she had not been able to tell them at that time. Recovering that part of her soul, expressing what she hadn’t said before, and demanding from her parents what she could not claim that day brought Bea relief.

By experiencing her birth, she went through, again, the sensation of the amniotic fluid in contact with her skin, which caused her a feeling of revulsion and a burning sensation. She said she needed to clean that so she rubbed herself vigorously. Then she understood this life was a new chance to get involved with the soul that her mother was at this present time, but the reason was still unclear.

Finally, by reliving the episode in her past life, she was able to comprehend more in detail the whole sense that her condition and the poor relationship with her mother and men had for her. Everything started to fit in, as in a puzzle; the truth of her soul came to light in a more comprehensive way. By means of retrieving that part of her soul that was kept there at the bonfire, experiencing anger, impotence, fear and pain on her skin, her soul was brought back to the light, where she felt relief and much peace.

Conclusion

The inner workings of the healing process remain unknown to me. However, it is clear that the identification of the origin of the conflict and the chance to do what she has not been able to do previously made it possible for Bea to align her being, recovering her energy and parts of her soul that had been stuck on that traumatic event so far. After the retrieval of those parts, the existence of the condition was pointless: only at that point the remission of the disease was complete.

Undoubtedly, a comprehensive approach to the individual is a more human way to address mankind’s issues and illness. Working with a regression therapy is beneficial in many ways; we lose the fear of the dying process and find the origin of the conflicts we have with others, leading us to grasp the meaning of our existence.

 

References

Bouron, E. (2014) Libro azul de la decodificación biológica. [Blue book of biological decoding] Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires : Editorial Kier 1ª. edición.

Cabouli, J.L. MD. (2014).  Atrapamiento y recuperación del alma [Entrapment and recovery of the soul]  Buenos Aires: Ediciones Continente. (1ra. edición)

Corbera E. & Marañón R. (2013) Tratado de biodescodificación [Biodecoding Treatise].  Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires : Editorial Kier 1ª edición.

Fernandez Bussy, R. Gatti, C.T., Porta Guardia, C. (2011) Fundamentos en dermatología clínica. [Fundamentals of clinical dermatology] Buenos Aires: Ediciones Journal 1ª. edición.

Grof, S. (2008). The cosmic game (Traducción castellana: El juego cósmico, Barcelona: Kairós, 4ª Edición)

Habif, T., Campbell, J., Chapman, M.S., Dinulos, J.G.H., Zug,K.A., (2019) Enfermedades de la piel: Diagnóstico y tratamiento [Skin Diseases: Diagnosis and Treatment] Buenos Aires: Ediciones Journal, 1ª. edición

Jung, C., Read H., Fordham, M., Adler, G. (1970) The collected works of C.G. Jung   Princeton: Princeton University Press

Lipton, B. (2005) The biology of belief (Traducción castellana: La biología de la creencia. Argentina: Ediciones Gaia 1º reimpresión, 2014)

SAD (2018) Consenso nacional de Psoriasis-Guía de Tratamiento 2018 [National Consensus on Psoriasis-Treatment Guidelines 2018] CABA: sad.org.ar  http://site.sad.org.ar/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Consenso-Psoriasis-2018-FINAL-14122018.pdf retrieved on 5/22/20