How I use Integral Regression Therapy

How I use Integral Regression Therapy
with Deep Memory Process
by Punita Miranda.

I usually start the session with an interview, with the goal of finding out what the recurring problems are and to explain that the regression technique is used as part of a therapeutic process and not for mere curiosity.

Next, I ask clients to tell their personal history, starting at birth, observing the incidents of diseases and emotional disturbances, so that I can focus on relevant events.
Then I have them lie down, close their eyes and, after a simple relaxation exercise, encourage them to say anything that comes to mind while trying to stay open whatever may appear in consciousness. As soon as images, words, feelings and sensations start to become more intense, I suggest that they follow them so that a story - from this or form another life - may present itself. In this kind of exercise belief in reincarnation or religious faith do not matter. I tell the client just to allow the story to manifest itself as if
it were real, for the duration of that session.

It is possible that clients will see themselves in a body and with a personality very different than their own, or their present one. Following the principle of psychodrama, clients are encouraged to relive, in their fullness, the most important and decisive moments of that other life whatever they may be, even if they seem confusing and incoherent. I then bring their story to its climax, so that this memory is relived fully consciously. At this point a number of physical sensations may arise such as numbness, heat, cold, paralysis, tingling or trembling. These are all part of the deep somatic process of the spontaneous release of blocked energy associated with an old trauma. It is the same principle that has been successfully used with war victims of shell-shock where the sufferer can only be freed from the trauma by reliving it.

It is important to go through the memory of a story until the moment of the death of that specific personality, because this is the only way to attain a feeling of completion and detachment. The death transition provides an opportunity to free this personality fragment of limiting thoughts, feelings and pains. It is during the after death period - a Bardo as defined by Tibetan Buddhists - that our clients have the valuable opportunity to contemplate and reflect on the themes of that past life and its unresolved problems, and integrate their insights into present consciousness.

At times there are painful and sometimes even shameful aspects of the self, which will have to be confronted. Roger Woolger calls this the encounter with the Shadow. From the Jungian perspective this means that clients have to face these negative and unpleasant characteristics without further repressing them.

My sessions usually take about two hours, the whole process consisting of three stages: 1, interview, 2. Intensive work and 3. Reflection and integration. Subsequently these experiences will need to be incorporated into that clients on going therapeutic process as a whole, integrating the new data and bringing a deeper understanding of the themes that have emerged.

This method is quite different from others which work only at an intellectual and interpretive level, because it works directly with vividly re-lived experiences. I frimly believe that the mental, emotional and somatic releases are indispensable if there is to be complete healing.