The
system of Past Life Therapy (PLT) or Past Life Regression (PLR)
necessarily entails a belief in the theory of reincarnation.
The therapy works on the premise that the cause of a patient's
physical and/or psychological ailments might result from a trauma
that a patient had experienced in an earlier existence, or at
any rate, by some sort of personal ordeal buried deep within
the subconscious.
Practitioners of PLT use methods ranging from hypnosis to acupuncture
for inducing patients to regress to their past lives and identify
the root of their present problems. This is the first phase (the
'realistic-cathartic' stage according to Jungian psychotherapist,
Roger J. Woolger). The next step ('symbolic-archetypal') is for
the patient to project the present self onto a past personality.
The third step is to come to terms with what has been relived through
regression in this 'integral-mystical' stage. The therapy proves
to be beneficial only when the patient is able to accept the past
trauma and is ready to progress beyond that.
