I have had many people come to me and ask if I can use hypnotherapy to help them recall “lost” memories. This is often a more complex question than they probably realize. Many

look at memory and imagine that it is something similar to a computer’s filing system. That recalling a memory is as simple as going to the trash file and dragging the memory out of the trash and back into accessibility. This is not how it works.

Before we go any further, we first need to understand the answer to the question: “What is a memory?” Some would say that a memory is a record of a past experience. That is only partially true. Memory is a combination of actual fact, personal perception and understanding, and imagination. In the time after a memory occurs, while processing the memory, we have the tendency to expand upon our comprehension of what actually happened using our imagination. This can be inaccurate, especially with emotionally charged memories. This is why when a disaster occurs, eye witness accounts often differ wildly and the truth is only found through the comparison of several accounts and finding the common strands.

How does this apply to hypnotherapy? Since the common acceptance of memory recall as a function of hypnosis, as used by many hypnotherapists since the 60’s and as seen in many popular crime TV shows, it has been found in numerous scientific studies that this is, in fact, a pseudoscience. Come to find out, that in an effort to bring old and forgotten memories to light, many hypnotists inadvertently “created” fictitious memories through the process of suggestion. Asking leading questions and offering up suggestions of what “might have” happened, they end up creating new memories that are contrary to actual fact. This has resulted in a range of harmless to quite damaging results. From perceived memories of a forgotten childhood to allegations of supposed abuse that never actually happened. There is a reason that hypnotically recovered memories are not admissible as evidence in court.

The idea of “past life regression” where a hypnotist is able to help a client “remember” who they were in a past life, a seeming confirmation of the idea of reincarnation, is another result of the false practice of hypnotic memory recall. In reality, the desire for the client to find out who they may have been, in combination with the hypnotist's repeated suggestions of finding some past life experiences, an entirely new false life is created through imagination for this person to identify with. The imagination is truly a powerful thing and can be used for good or ill.

Until recent years, it was widely believed that hypnotic memory recall was reliable. I do not believe that any of the hypnotherapists employing this practice were ever knowingly implanting false memories. Simply that they did not realize that this is what they were doing. They were inadvertently suggesting possible memories to their clients. Both hypnotist and client together were constructing a series of false memories. But now that this process has been proven as false, hypnotherapists and potential clients need to understand that not all memories found during a session of hypnosis are entirely accurate. Especially memories that need to be dug up with heavy hypnotic assistance.

So how do I use memory in hypnotherapy? While memory is not always accurate to reality, it is accurate to how a person feels and currently experiences life. What does this mean? It means that the “way” you remember something can shape your emotions, your behaviors, and the way you move through life. It doesn’t matter if “how” you remember things is accurate or not. It still affects you.

A man once went to a hypnotherapist for help getting over a phobia to horses. During the course of the appointment, they discovered that the man, at 6 years old, was sitting on the fence to a horse pen. He fell in and suddenly found himself in the pen with the horse. The horse charged him and he narrowly escaped being trampled. This was why he was so afraid of horses. Then, as he finished recounting the experience to the hypnotherapist, the man paused. As he examined the memory he felt that something wasn’t right. Suddenly he announced to the hypnotherapist that none of that ever really happened. He remembers sitting on the fence. Then he remembers thinking about how scary it would be “if” he fell into the horse pen and the horse charged him. He realized at that moment that this foundational memory that had created his years-long phobia of horses was based on a lie, a fabrication of the imagination that, over time, became more and more real to him. He started laughing. Fear became funny. From that moment on, he was no longer afraid of horses.

I have found that in my practice, memories, while sometimes inaccurate, still form the foundation of many of our beliefs and behaviors. Memories create emotions. We don’t do anything unless we feel strongly about it in one way or the other. So with hypnotherapy, we look at memories in an effort to find the root of behavioral problems with the understanding that not everything we find in the memories is accurate to history. This accuracy, I find, is irrelevant. What is important is the emotions being created by these memories. Once we find a memory that forms the foundation for an emotion that motivates a negative

behavioral pattern, we use a process called a Gestalt (A german word to describe putting parts together to form a whole that is greater, or to build a whole understanding by organizing all the pieces of information). I use a technique called a “Triangle Gestalt”, where we use the imagination to take the younger version of the self from the memory and set them at the right knee. We take the antagonist (or cause of the emotion) from the memory and set them at the left knee. Then we have a 3-way conversation between the younger self, the antagonist, and the older wiser (current) self, often acting as the mediator. This conversation takes place in the imagination and continues until closure or catharsis is reached, and the emotion attached to the memory is resolved. The effect is amazing. In short, we change the “way” the client is looking back at that memory. We cannot change the past, but we can change the way we look at it. Now, instead of looking back at a memory with fear, anger, or sadness, we look at it with feelings of forgiveness, closure, and peace. This changes the emotional pattern, removing the foundation on which an entire behavior or belief was built. We then use the imagination to look forward, practicing new, more desirable behaviors in hypothetical situations to replace the old behavior with a new, more positive one.

So the answer to the question of whether or not I do “memory recall” or “past life regression” in my practice is “No”. The reason for this is that memories “recalled” through hypnosis are often inaccurate, and a concerted effort to hypnotically dig up old memories simply results in the fabrication of false memories. I do, however, use age regression in my practice to find the emotional roots to behaviors, and engage in gestalts to change the way we perceive the past so we can better move forward into the future.