Healing Series: Interview with Andy Tomlinson on Past Life Regression Therapy
Andy is a psychotherapist, lecturer, author, and has been referred to as one of Britain’s leading practitioners in hypnotic past life regression. He was educated at the Open University in psychology and began his practice with psychotherapy, but discovered the therapeutic power of regression and working with past lives. Since then he has worked with many of the international pioneers in regression therapy and dedicated his practice in this area over the last decade. His book Healing the Eternal Soul, is recognized as an extremely valuable contribution and advancement to the field of Regression Therapy. His second book Exploring the Eternal Soul takes this further and is seen as an important contribution to the new field of life between lives regression. He lectures and writes widely and is also a co-founder of the European Association of Regression Therapy. He runs training programs internationally and is introducing regression therapy training into Singapore in February 2008.
Andy Tomlinson with his students and assistant trainers during a life between life regression training event at Gaunts House in the UK.
As a leading European regression expert, is there any special insight that you have gained regarding Past Life Regression Therapy?
Spiritual insights really opened up for me after I started working with what is called life between lives regression. This goes further than past life regression and uses very deep trance to take clients into their soul memories between lives following a past life death. Clients describe leaving their body in a similar way as near death experiences. If the past life death has been traumatic such as from a battle, execution or accident, many of these harsh memories are still present so healing and rest is available.
At some point a review of the past life takes place, often with a spirit guide. This is an evolved soul that has been overseeing the past life. At some point the narrative moves to meeting a soul group. These are souls that work together and often jointly reincarnate on some meaningful work. The highlight during this regression is to meet the ‘elders’ who are souls who have attained a level of experience and wisdom that not does require them to physically reincarnate. They review the progress of the soul before them and can discuss aspects of their past lives until an understanding is reached about what is expected for the next life. Achieved with love, compassion and the participation of the soul, it leads to the next physical incarnation having a purpose.
I found this information of such a special importance that I have written a book on the subject called Exploring the Eternal Soul that is available from Amazon.
Can you share with us the most interesting session you have had with a client?
All past life sessions are different and interesting in some way. One case is worth mentioning because it demonstrates how going to the source of a problem from a past life can quickly resolve a current life chronic issue. A client I’ll call Helen was a 35-year-old intelligent and confident single woman. She worked in industry as an accountant and was responsible for managing the business accounts of her company. All through her life she found certain men very difficult to deal with. She had re-occurring thoughts of, ‘They are taking away my children’, which was strange because she had never had children herself. She would get extremely angry, and often tears would roll down her cheeks. Some days she was unable to go to work and this had been going on for about 15 years.
Helen was regressed into a past life of a middle-aged mother with no husband, living in a cottage with two children in the woods. She healed people from the nearby village with herbs in return for food. One day a group of men looking like ‘Quakers’ burst into her house and accused her of being a witch. She was taken to a river and forced to lie face down on a plank by the bank, with her hands tied under it. At the death point Helen found it difficult to breathe and so was quickly taken through it. She found it peaceful as she left her body and was able to look down at her body still tied to the plank floating on the water with the Quaker men standing watching The healer woman had died a traumatic death by drowning tied to the plank and her dying thoughts were, ‘I’m so sorry for the children. They have taken my children from me’.
She was asked to connect again with the spirits of her children, and was able to say how sorry she was to have left them. She released the tension by hugging the children with the help of a cushion as a prop. She was asked to connect with the spirits of the Quakers. Through a further past life regression she recognized some of the Quakers in another past life in which she had been a perpetrator. Through this wider understanding she was able to come to a point of forgiveness.
Helen recognized patterns between the past life story and her current one. She had identified the source of the recurring thoughts and nightmares. Also she recognized a pattern between the water from the drowning and a phobia of water from her current life. When she was a child, Helen would scream when her mother tried to bath her or wash her hair in a basin of water. Another pattern was a difficulty standing up to men in authority like the Quakers.
After the therapy session Helen reported that the reoccurring thoughts of having her children taken away had completely stopped. Also she was no longer scared of water. A male figure in authority had accused Helen of bumping her car into another car while parking. She said, ‘Previously my legs would have turned to jelly but I was able to hold my ground and tell him it was just as much his fault’. A year later she was still a changed woman.
Many people who have undergone regressions are not quite sure if their experiences are just imaginations. What are your views on this?
Modern psychology has little to say about imagination, intuition or past lives. The most comprehensive research into the reality of past lives was with children who recalled spontaneous past life stories. This took place over a twenty years period and was led by Professor Ian Stevenson from the University of Virginia. Ian and his team investigated and documented thousands of cases in which the children’s reports of past lives were subsequently verified. Often the information was so obscure it could not be explained away except through reincarnation. For example, one five-year old child reported 49 specific details of a past-life experience that was later verified by at least two independent witnesses who knew the past-life person. The circumstances were investigated several years later without any signs of deliberate deception.
In regression many past life experiences are as ordinary people in the cultural conditions that have prevailed throughout human history. The stories that emerge are often a complete surprise for the client. In some cases the past lives are nasty, brutal and short. Importantly all the past lives are significant to the person experiencing it. Often they report a full range of emotions including fear, anger and sadness as the past-life is reported. This strongly contradicts any suggestion that these are mere fantasies.
Much energy and ingenuity can be spent trying to prove or disprove the validity of a past-life memory. Just as it is not necessary for a therapist who works with dreams to prove the scientific theory of dreams before they use it, the fact that a client seems to have a memory of a past life does not require it to be proved before working with them. As in the case of Helen discussed previously the most important thing is the powerful healing that can come from working with past life stories.
When do you regress your subjects to access their past life soul memories and when to do you regress into their between lives memories? Do you actually distinguish between the two?
Normally when I work with past life regression its part of regression therapy and this involves working with a client’s problem. This could be an obsessive thought, phobia, nightmare, sexual problem, anxiety, panic attack, anger, depression, lack of meaningfulness in life, and difficult life transitions like divorce and death. Many unexplainable physical problems such as loss on energy, tension, back pain, headaches, stomach pains and frozen joints have their roots in earlier memories.
For live between lives regression I think I’ll refer to feedback from one of my clients; “Although I feel that my words cannot do it justice, this was for me an extremely profound experience. It put a lot of ‘issues’ in my life into context, and enabled me to look at the bigger picture in terms of the journey of my energetic soul. I can only say thank you to the universe for making this opportunity available, for giving me this glimpse of my soul, my life between lives. It was a magical, wonderful and humbling experience. It has touched me, changed my view on life, and opened up my eyes, my heart and my soul to a greater calm. I have understanding, love and respect for life, for others on their journeys, for the universe, and for myself.”
How do the regression practices and client expectations/responses in Europe differ from those in other parts of the world?
The first difference is that past life regression in the United States is commonly restricted to working with hypnosis. This is related to the restrictive therapist licensing system in many states. In Europe past life regression often is done as part of regression therapy and includes current life regression as well as cathartic techniques to resolve deep trauma. The second difference is that past life regression is very new in some European counties while in others countries clients specifically seek out regression therapy. In Holland it has been used for 20 years and is recognized by their state health system. In some countries regression therapy requires the use of energy techniques. In Brazil, the Caribbean and Turkey voodoo and curses are commonly treated. The one thing that is common in all countries is that professionally trained and certified therapists will carefully work with client expectations and understand the wide area that this therapy is helpful and the boundaries where it cannot be used.
What do you feel are the key differences between a past life regression therapist and a clinical hypnotist?
This is a question that I can answer in a balanced way given that I have been extensively trained in both areas. Clinical hypnotherapy is a well established and highly regarded therapy that requires the therapist to do all the work. This includes the techniques that will be used such as suggestions, visualization and metaphors. In regression therapy the therapist acts as a facilitator of the process and the solution to the problem comes from the client. This is so much more liberating for a client because they understand the cause of the problem and discover different ways of handling the situation that can be taken into the future.
Another major difference is that clinical hypnosis ignores the body where deep-seated trauma is located. Dr Bessel Van der Kolk and his Harvard psychiatric researchers emphasize the involvement of older parts of the brain structure, particularly the reptilian or limbic system. This part of the brain responds to life-or-death issues of survival and is responsible for storing traumatic emotional and body memories. To access this effectively body therapy is needed which is included in regression therapy. The last difference is that clinical hypnosis ignores the spiritual aspect of the client so it misses on the rich variety of healing that can come from these dimensions.
Some people find that they can use meditation or self regression CDs to access their past lives. What do you think are the pros and cons of such methods? Are therapists still relevant?
If someone wants to glimpse a past life a CD or meditation may be useful. This is the easy part. The difficult part is using the past life information to resolve problems and issues that effect our health and peace of mind. Certified regression therapists are trained not only with past life regression but in current life regression and energy work over a one to two year period. This training includes skill checks and being supervised while working with clients. The analogy is that if we needed brain surgery we could expect the brain surgeon to be suitably trained and qualified. We certainly would not operate on ourselves. Our spiritual and emotional well-being is just as important as our physical health.
Have any of your subjects ever gone into deep trance during regressions? What are your experiences over this?
I use deep trance for life between lives regression. Occasionally a client may spontaneously go into deep trance in the regression process. Clients find that deep trance relaxes muscles tension and active minds became less so. Occasionally clients are reluctant to come back to the here and now because they have been enjoying the comfort and relaxation that it brings.
We understand that you are a founding member of the European Academy of Regression Therapy. What are the purpose and objective of forming such an organisation?
I’ve been a founder member of a regression association in Norway and one across Europe. Some countries have unique problems from their local laws and a country-based organization is best. A European association can foster the quality and reputation of the profession in a wider way by having a common professional standard of regression therapy that applies to all schools choosing to be certified. It can also organize professional ongoing development at a yearly summer school drawing on a wider range of members. With the European association regression therapists from outside Europe are still welcome to join.
What led you to conduct a workshop to train past life regression therapists in Singapore?
The training that I offer has spread from the UK to a number of European countries over the last few years. I get requests from around the world to do training but only consider it when at least one local regression therapist trained by me is available to be an assistant trainer and supervisor. I think this is very important that students know they will get immediate help locally when doing practice sessions between workshops to develop there skills or when working with clients. I’ve been very fortunate in Singapore be able to work with Antoinette Biehlmeier who is a regression therapist and has lived in Singapore for a number of years.
In conclusion, where do you see regression heading towards in the future?
In the western world the focus is on the material and physical form and the spiritual side gets neglected. This is also true with western complimentary and psychotherapies. Regression therapy is changing this by bringing western psychotherapies such as life psychodrama, gestalt, body therapy and hypnosis into the regression process together with the profound spiritual experience of past lives, between lives and spirit guide encounters. Most therapists who are drawn to do this training follow their intuition and are amazed at the quick and powerful healing of their clients. A growing number of clinical professionals are also drawn to do this training but sometimes find that their medical and psychotherapy culture interferes with them doing ‘spiritual’ work. However, medical professionals are being trained in regression therapy in a growing number of countries including Turkey, Japan and Portugal. The future will be the growing realisation in the medical world that the cause of a client’s problem need to be addressed as well as treating the physical symptoms. Our spiritual ill health is linked to our emotional and physical ill health.
For further information on the Past Life Regression Training 2008 in Singapore or registration, please visit www.plracademy-singapore.com or call Antoinette at +65-9012 1933
About the Interviewee
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Andy Tomlinson is a psychotherapist, hypnotherapist and an internationally certified regression therapist. More about the soul memories between lives can be found in his book Exploring the Eternal Soul and the techniques for this kind of regression are covered in another of his book Healing the Eternal Soul. Alternatively visit Andy’s website: www.regressionacademy.com |