There are several distinct ways in which past events can give rise to present problems. The memory of past traumatic events may be very conscious, and frequently or constantly reoccurring, leading to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Sometimes a memory of a fearful situation, which a person may not consciously remember at all, leads to an unreasoning fear response to a seemingly innocuous object or situation - a Phobia.

These responses are examples of the fight/flight response.

A third mechanism happens when a person, usually during the first seven to ten years of life, comes to a belief about him/herself and the world as a result of an experience. The belief may be entirely unacknowledged, but still rule a person's life. An example would be the belief many people have gained as a result of angry or exasperated teachers who have told them "You'll never succeed at anything". The child believed it. The adult has known it to be true ever since - even though he/she has forgotten when this 'truth' was 'realised'. Often, Low Self-Confidence is a profoundly distressing result.

Modern research is making it increasingly clear that when a person has psychological problems, attempts to treat this primarily by going back to past painful events and simply talking about them, or re-living them, are very frequently unsuccessful, and can often make the problem worse. This is because, quite simply, the problem is not the solution.

It is often appropriate to do some regression work in the course of therapy. This is because the learning the person did then is likely to need reviewing or revising. Experience is that it is also important to enable the client to gain control in the present, and to provide direction to the work by creating, at first in imagination, the person they will be in the future, after becoming free of the problem.

Using regression techniques in the context of a clear direction determined by the client is commonly very successful, and opportunities to check with clients years later have shown that the problem has not returned.

What is hypnosis? - For further information, please click here

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