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regression therapy

waterwater

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Apr 17, 2005
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what happens in regression therapy.

If people are not descrbing there past life what are they describing
 
Books they've read, TV programmes they've watched, fantasies they've made up. That kind of thing

If it's not a past life.
 
Most folks have a remarkable ability to spin the most involved tales when given a little opportunity. One researcher found that when asked to give details of a past life (under hypnosis), most subjects quickly obliged.
However, when pressed for the source of the information (as "therapists" never do), all were equally able to cite books, stories, etc.
 
Do you happen to recall the name of the researcher? I'm really curious to read more about this.
 
Hehe- you'd have to work your way through archives of the Skeptical Inquirer.

They had a spate of articles on "hypnotic regression therapy" some years ago.

I couldn't even give you a name or a university.
 
Do a search for cryptomnesia. This explains the majority of so-called past life rememberances (together with imagination, fantasy and confabulation).
 
We had one of those regression therapist guys come to a Psych110 class back when I was in college. I just had to volunteer for him, being a historical re-enactor & no-one but a couple of my buddies in class knew...needless to say we had lots of fun with this kook. He was not at all pleased afterwards when he asked me what I thought of it & in front of the class, destroyed his little demonstration. LOTS of sputtering, excuses & dodging. Pretty satisfying for a young skeptic at the time. Heck, 20 years later & we still laugh about it...
 
Cuddles: I grew up with a mother & sisters who were able to change the facts with straight faces...I always thought that the term was "pathological liar"?
Confabulator does sound more polite.
 
My mom had my brother in regression therapy to discover a reason for his (she says Asperger Syndrome, I say Autism). He said that he was strangled by the umbilical cord at birth. Except our mom had been saying for a long time that she felt he had been caught by the cord at birth. He was only repeating what he thought my mom wanted to hear. Now they both have comfortable lie to believe in. :mad:

I should add that my mom never mentioned my brother needing medical intervention at birth. So the cord story is just a story.
 
I've read quite a bit and have recently heard so many negative comments on Regression Therapy in various media, that I thought I'd google to see a few reminders. Just kind of trawling for something new to add to this thread.

I was surprised, to put it mildly, to go through more than 150 links with nothing disputing the field. This was with a search for the two specific words. If you google "Regression Theory" and "Debunk", you at least see some contrary views. I have a personal axe to grind with Regression Therapists, so I won't drag that in here, other than to say that the field should be referred to more correctly as False Memory Syndrome, as it's been too often proven to be.

On the lighter side (not really, but amusing before you want to strangle her), here's an informative bit of work, on how Regression Therapy can help victims of alien abduction. I kid you not! I've linked to the article below, but here's a slice of it, first....

Some aliens appear quite human-like, including the "hybrid" type. These seem to be a combination of human and extra-terrestrial. They often seem human at a distance, but appear alien upon closer contact. Their eyes seem more human than alien, but their expression and demeanor are non-responsive. Allegedly, some hybrids who look human enough sometimes intermingle on earth with humans.
Click to expand...

That's not a quote from one of her patients! That's in her own commentary, warming up to tell other therapists how to discern the symptoms and tell that the person coming to them for help might be an abduction victim!

See the whole amazing thing, here:
http://www.chrononhotonthologos.com/lamb/regressioninfo.htm
 
trvlr2 said:
Cuddles: I grew up with a mother & sisters who were able to change the facts with straight faces...I always thought that the term was "pathological liar"?
Confabulator does sound more polite.
Click to expand...

There is a difference - a confabulator genuinely believes what they are saying and it is often a result of mental problems or brain damage, although recent research suggests that everyone does it to a certain degree. Liars know they are lying, whatever the reason for them doing so.
 
Even though regression or recovered memory therapy has been thoroughly debunked, it is alas, still with us. The L.A. Times last Sunday published an article by a feminist scholar accusing her late father on the basis of nothing more than this. I cannot yet post a link here, but you can read it by following the link, as well as read the letter I submited to the editor, on my blog at orangecoyote (dot) blogspot (dot) com, first item.

Cuddles said:
There is a difference - a confabulator genuinely believes what they are saying and it is often a result of mental problems or brain damage, although recent research suggests that everyone does it to a certain degree. Liars know they are lying, whatever the reason for them doing so.
Click to expand...

Many of these people, including those who believe they were abducted by aliens, are otherwise quite normal, and function in life quite well. That is, they don't appear to have other mental problems, even though these memories seem quite real to them.
 
Orange Coyote said:
Many of these people, including those who believe they were abducted by aliens, are otherwise quite normal, and function in life quite well. That is, they don't appear to have other mental problems, even though these memories seem quite real to them.
Click to expand...

What has always astonished me is that people that have been have vague feelings of being mistreated by shadowy figures seek help from UFO abduction counselors and people with repressed memories of being mistreated by shadowy figures go to repressed memory counselors. How come they never get mixed up and go to the wrong one?
 
Foolmewunz said:
I've read quite a bit and have recently heard so many negative comments on Regression Therapy in various media, that I thought I'd google to see a few reminders. Just kind of trawling for something new to add to this thread.

I was surprised, to put it mildly, to go through more than 150 links with nothing disputing the field. This was with a search for the two specific words. If you google "Regression Theory" and "Debunk", you at least see some contrary views. I have a personal axe to grind with Regression Therapists, so I won't drag that in here, other than to say that the field should be referred to more correctly as False Memory Syndrome, as it's been too often proven to be.

On the lighter side (not really, but amusing before you want to strangle her), here's an informative bit of work, on how Regression Therapy can help victims of alien abduction. I kid you not! I've linked to the article below, but here's a slice of it, first....
Click to expand...

Actualy the Foolproof methods turn up all kinds of things, Alien Abductions, Satanic cults mass murdering our children, cases of parental sexual abuse . You would think that if the technique worked that the thearapists focusing in one type would occasionaly turn up say someone who's problems where not really past life related but from the satanic cults or alien abductions.
 
Cuddles said:
There is a difference - a confabulator genuinely believes what they are saying and it is often a result of mental problems or brain damage, although recent research suggests that everyone does it to a certain degree. Liars know they are lying, whatever the reason for them doing so.
Click to expand...

People really believe and remember their parents molesting them for years, it just happens to be untrue. That is an important point to remember, they are not lying in any real sense, just mistaken.

How ethicaly different is it from rapeing someone to makeing then absolutely convinced that they where raped?
 
undersecter said:
what happens in regression therapy.
Click to expand...

I'll address the first part of the question; I think the second part has been covered well enough by now.

We first need to differentiate between 'past-life regression' and therapeutic regression. We can safely bracket off past-life regression as claptrap, so I will discuss that other pandora's box: hypno-analysis (present life regression; not necessarily woo, but it can be extremely dangerous, as I will explain).

A person is guided back through memories in order to uncover something from their past. There are several ways to do this, with hypnosis currently being the most popular. Due to the massive popular misconception of hypnosis as some kind of magical state of altered consciousness, gullible members of the public can believe that 'repressed' memories can be brought back into conscious awareness. This idea is loosely based on the Freudian notion that catharsis of repressed memories will lead to psychological relief. In other words, hypnotherapy is being used in this context as a form of exorcism.

Whilst there is some evidence to suggest that 'gaps' can appear in autobiographical recall as a result of post-traumatic stress disorder, there is none at all to support the idea that 'repression' is the cause of these omissions (Haque and Conway, 2001). Furthermore, intrusive thoughts of trauatic incidents are a major feature of PTSD; in other words, the most traumatic parts of the incident are likely to be re-played constantly and involuntarily (e.g. Brewin and Holmes, 2003). Let's just re-cap this with a hypothetical example which will debunk the 'catharsis/exorcism' myth:

Let's just say that I was in a road accident that I found to be sufficiently distressing. I could later find myself 're-living' the accident while watching TV, reading a book or going for a walk; I could dream about it, I might even avoid roads, cars etc because I get re-traumatised. If the re-living of a past event had a therapeutic effect, then why would I not get any relief during these flashbacks?

OK, getting back from emotional 'release' to 'repressed memories': As we have just seen, distressing toughts can be powerful enough to intrude upon my everyday life; our minds have limited capacity, so my attention can only be focused on a limited number of things at any one time. My attention can be continually drawn towards the worst bits of a trauma at any time. During recall, where attention is being deliberately drawn towards the worst parts of the trauma, which part of the past event would be most likely to dominate? However, Conway and Pleydell-Pearce (2000) suggest that our 'goal' system can be shocked into disbelief, therefore causing us to 'disown' the memory (this is rather different from repression). We cannot integrate the experience into our life, so we distance ourself from it until we can make sense of it. This is where some regression techniques might be useful, if they are accompanied by suitable therapeutic techniques, such as re-framing (cognitive-behavioural therapy can be useful here).

However, Elizabeth Loftus outlines numerous cases where hypnotic regression was used to 'prove' past events such as satanic rituals, alien abduction and sexual abuse. She specifically describes the Paul Ingram debacle. Memories were planted in the minds of gullible clients, and the social impact of this was devastating: families were ripped apart, people got sent to jail, and worse of all, the client who underwent therapy would often end up feeling worse. This meant that the unscrupulous therapist could then keep his or her power over their clients by telling them they needed to do more therapeutic work in order to get 'healed'. This is probably the most insidious form of client/patient of abuse (client seduction is number one, in my opinion).

In conclusion, I would argue that regression can be useful in some cases with a suitably trained therapist; there is some evidence to suggest that speech can have a therapeutic effect. Hypnotherapy is not necessarily the best or most effective way to do this; merely 'getting something off our chest' in a safe environment can be soothing in itself. However, the re-living of a trauma can do more harm than good, and in any case does not in itself provide any relief; a properly trained therapist can provide the right conditions, and this might just help. However, regression techniques have been abused by counsellors and hypnotherapists with devastating consequences. I would say that more regulation needs to be brought in to prevent further social catastrophes.
 
Gord_in_Toronto said:
What has always astonished me is that people that have been have vague feelings of being mistreated by shadowy figures seek help from UFO abduction counselors and people with repressed memories of being mistreated by shadowy figures go to repressed memory counselors. How come they never get mixed up and go to the wrong one?
Click to expand...

These kind of 'shadow man' experiences are a feature of hypnogogic dreams, and can be explained in very earthly terms: they are nightmares experienced as waking experiences. Because the average person has no idea just how common hypnogogic dreams are (especially during times of stress), he or she is likely to either think they are going mad or that something mysterious is happening to them. In either case, they become fertile breeding grounds for suggestive therapists to plant memories.
 
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