A brochure on reincarnation therapy

Author: Rob Bontenbal, Amsterdam Bewerkt voor Internet door Tom Kooning
© Stichting Voorlichting Reïncarnatietherapie
(SVR, Dutch Foundation for Information on Reincarnation Therapy)

Contents:
· Foreword
· Introduction
· Reincarnation therapy: What exactly is involved?
· What are the main similarities and differences between hypnotherapy, regression therapy and reincarnationtherapy?
· How is it possible to recall long forgotten experiences in this life as well as past lives?
· Do you need to believe in reincarnation to benefit from the therapy?
· Just how exactly do you go back to experiences in the past?
· You hear the strangest stories about hypnosis and trance. Isn't going into trance dangerous?
· Clients History Methods of Induction
· The Direct Method the Bridge Method Mental Entries
· The Emotional Entry Anchoring First Impressions
· Unresolved Experiences Tracing the Moment when the Unresolved Past-life Experience Actualized in this Life
· At the End of the Session Therapeutic Interventions
· Unanswered Questions Boundaries
· Length and Costs of Therapy
· Recommended Reading List
· About the author

Foreword
This booklet is a publication of the Stichting Voorlichting Reïncarnatietherapie (SVR), the Dutch Foundation for Information on Reincarnation Therapy. In 1987 members of the former Dutch Study Group for Reincarnation Therapy (Nederlandse Werkgroep voor Reïncarnatietherapeuten (NWRT) created the Stichting Reïncarnatietherapie Nederland (SRN), the Dutch Foundation for Development of Reincarnation Therapy. Upon founding the SRN the following goals were established:

- Administer a practical training program in reincarnation therapy.
- Produce publications on reincarnation therapy.
- Support a number of activities of the NWRT.

The NWRT became an association of professionals in 1989, at which time its name was changed to the Nederlandse Vereniging van Reïncarnatietherapeuten (NVRT), the Dutch Association of Reincarnation Therapists. In 1994 the NVRT had a membership of more than 300, including 150 professionals. After three years, the one year training program of the SRN was expanded to a two year curriculum. It attracts 50 to 60 new students annually.

One of the first publications by the NWRT was the brochure "Dat je verleden je zo in de weg kan zitten" ("Your past can sure get in your way!"), which sold more than 16,000 copies by the end of 1994.

In 1994 the SRN was divided into two separated foundations: the SRN, staying focused on training therapists, and the SVR. The SVR's main task is to publish brochures on the therapy and Cyclus, the Dutch Professional Journal for Reincarnation Therapy.

The booklet you are reading now is the first edition written in English. This translated brochure is the fully revised and updated version of the original Dutch text. Like the original brochure, its goal is to explain the methodologies used by the vast majority of NVRT's professional members. In so doing, we wish to give you a general impression of everything that you, as a client, will experience when you decide to undertake reincarnation therapy. At the same time, we wish to explain in a clear, down-to-earth way, the outlining principles, assumptions, methods, techniques, concepts and processes associated with reincarnation therapy. These more technical explanations are provided in smaller print and in indented paragraphs. In this way, you can choose to first familiarize yourself with a therapeutic session and process before immersing yourself in the background information.

Understandably, all the professional NVRT members use the various facets of reincarnation therapy described here in their own way. The vast majority, however, subscribe to the contents of this booklet. Many have contributed to earlier publications and concepts and provided critical commentary, which gives sufficient reason to use the term "we" in this completely revised publication.

Introduction
Let's assume you are a potential client. You have a problem that you have been wrestling with for some time and you would really like to resolve it. At some point, you read about reincarnation or regression therapy as a relatively quick-working type of therapy. Or perhaps you have a friend with a similar problem who went to a reincarnation therapist and, through therapy, successfully dealt with his/her problem. Maybe you have been seeing a number of professional therapists and are thinking: Reincarnation therapy. Why not? Let's give it a try.

You have thought about reincarnation, but it has either remained a form of wishful thinking, or you have not really come to any conclusions... You have, however, read or heard that you do not have to embrace the belief in reincarnation to benefit from the therapy.

Whatever your reason, you stir up your courage, start your research, and discover that there is an association of reincarnation therapists. You request and receive a list of professionals, and eventually call a reincarnation therapist in your area.

The reincarnation therapists of the Nederlandse Vereniging van Reïncarnatietherapeuten (NVRT), the Dutch Association of Reincarnation Therapists, are more than ready to answer all of your questions, but, preferably during the initial interview. You make an appointment for such an interview.

The initial interview
An initial interview is important for a number of reasons. First, you want to meet the therapist, get an impression, and decide if you can put your trust in him or her.

You probably also have a lot of questions about the therapy itself: what is involved, how long will the therapy take, how much does it cost, and do you need to believe in reincarnation? You want to know if it is dangerous to go into trance or under hypnosis, if you will not feel strange or uncomfortable after a session. Finally, if the therapist thinks your problem can be treated with reincarnation therapy.

The therapist will also have questions. Probably lots of them. He or she will want to get to know you and your problem inside and out, and to earn your trust to work with you. We will come back to the therapist's questions later. First, let's take a look at some of your questions in more detail. We will try to provide more background information than is usually possible to get during an initial interview.

Reincarnation therapy: What exactly is involved?

Principle
The basic starting point for reincarnation therapy is simple: problems, whether you experience them as mental, emotional, physical or spiritual, originate in experiences that are unresolved, which can be tracked down, exposed, and therapeutically re-lived.

Reincarnation
In the term reincarnation therapy, the word reincarnation implies that in this type of therapy the past is defined broadly, meaning your past experiences encompass more than your present life. Reincarnation literally means 'return to the flesh', or, somewhat less expressive, 'reembodiment'. Another commonly-used term is 're-birth'. Though this term is somewhat confusing because on incarnation seldom takes place during the physical birth. Reincarnation means that an integral part of yourself (your consciousness, soul, or spirit) survives each time the physical body dies, and, sooner or later, takes on a new body (the incarnation). Between two incarnations, your consciousness undergoes something called an interlife experience.

While there are a great many opinions on just how many lives an individual soul or spirit lives, our experience leads us to believe it is something in the order of hundreds of lives, not dozens or only a few.

Research also shows that our memories store all the experiences from our past. These are not just the things we experienced yesterday or ten years ago, as a teenager, toddler or baby, but also what it was like to be born, what we experienced in our mother's womb (the prenatal period), the moment of incarnation in this life, all our interlife experiences and all the previous lives we have lived. Reincarnation therapy makes use of this memory, which is often called your subconscious, or subconscious memory. Other therapists talk similarly about the total self, the higher self, or the total memory.

Therapy
In reincarnation therapy, the word therapy implies the re-living and, when necessary, resolving of previously unresolved experiences in the past. It finds the link between problems in the present and unresolved experiences in the past, and works through those experiences until the problems disappear or are transformed.

The idea that there is a relationship between unresolved events in the past and spiritual, mental, emotional and/or physical symptoms experienced now is by no means a new or 'alternative' line of thinking. Nor is it the exclusive jurisdiction of reincarnation therapists.

Many other types of psychotherapy - including psychoanalysis, Inner Child therapy, Gestalt therapy and hypno-regression therapy - try to heal by confronting events in the past under the assumption that the client is experiencing the aftereffects of these past situations in the here and now. Reincarnation therapy differs from these other therapies, firstly, because it gives serious consideration to experiences which appear to have taken place in a previous life. It uses these experiences in the therapeutic environment to eliminate or transform current problems.

A second difference is the manner in which reincarnation therapy makes use of the state of consciousness referred to as trance.

What are the main similarities and differences between hypnotherapy, regression therapy and reincarnationtherapy?
The most important similarity between these three types of therapy is that all three make use of trance. The differences are in the way trance is induced and the past is exposed (induction methods), as well as the means by which the desired results are achieved (processing and integration methods). With regard to the latter, reincarnation therapy emphasizes discovering the relationship between unresolved experiences and problems in the present - something which cannot always be said of hypnotherapy or even regression therapy.

Hypnotherapy
There are four primary approaches to hypnotherapy:
The 'trance as a healing experience' approach;
The suggestive approach;
The discovery approach;
The disruption-of-processes-oriented approach.

The 'trance as a healing experience' approach is geared to using the healing effect of trance through hypnotic induction. The client is put into trance - something which may be accomplished through self-hypnosis - to achieve a state of relaxation, with the goal of healing. There is no effort to use insight to solve problems.

The suggestive approach uses, as the name implies, suggestions. This is an approach commonly used for problems such as the inability to quit smoking. There are two different approaches:

In the aversive approach, the therapist suggests while the client is in trance that smoking is filthy, and that each time the client picks up a cigarette he/she will experience an escalating sense of repulsion.

In the positive empowerment approach, the therapist suggests that the client has less and less need to smoke, and that the need will diminish until it completely disappears.

Both of these suggestive approaches clearly do not call for the use of insight.

The third approach does try to discover the cause of the problem. In the smoking example, the therapist tries to find out what causes the client to smoke. The therapist thus searches for the original experience (the source) that underlies the tension and causes the client to want to smoke. However, many hypnotherapists look only in to the present life for the cause, and thus often gain only limited insight into the real background of the problem.

In the fourth approach, finding sources is not considered useful. Each source is considered a sort of pseudo-source. Trance is used to learn what process regularly proceeds the act of smoking. This is the approach we know from hypnotherapists such as Milton Erickson and the founders of NLP Richard Bandler and John Grinder.

The therapeutic goal of this last approach is to disrupt the process that forces the client to smoke, and to ensure that when that situation occurs again, a less damaging process replaces the harmful process. Instead of smoking, you might pop a piece of chewing gum in your mouth, give your partner a kiss, or perhaps do nothing at all - at least nothing oral. While followers of the process-oriented approach do not object to achieve insight, it is not the principle goal. The search for previous incarnations as a possible source of problems is rarely attempted. Disruption of the subconscious or unconscious processes is the chief aim.

Regression Therapy
Regression - going back in trance to the unresolved experiences - is one of the methods developed in hypnotherapy. A number of hypnotherapists became so fascinated with regression that they started applying the method more and more. Which, in terms of induction and counselling, shows a strong affinity with hypnotic (e.g. classical) methods and techniques.

A hypnotherapist slowly exploring the possibilities of regression begins with experiences in this life, working through the regression periods of adulthood, puberty, elementary school, pre-school, and early developmental years. Going one step further, the hypnotherapist looks at birth itself, and a considerable step further is to seriously consider or explore experiences in the womb - the prenatal period.

Even therapists who do not believe in reincarnation find that by going back in time, experiences surface which cannot be linked to anything concrete in this life. If they give such experiences serious consideration, then they are practising a form of reincarnation therapy. Many therapists who do work with material from previous lives prefer to call this 'regression therapy' because they feel the word 'reincarnation' could scare potential clients away and/or effect the credibility of the therapy in the client's eyes.

Reincarnation Therapy
In the past 10 years, reincarnation therapy has developed as an independent form of therapy with its own models, principles, methods, and techniques. Such developments may be credited to steadfast pioneers like Morris Netherton, Thorwald Dethlefsen, Roger Woolger, and in The Netherlands, Hans ten Dam. By both independent thought and collaborating ideas together, they have developed specific induction, counselling, integration, and transformation methods in which the responsibility of the client and the pursuit of insight are central. In the process moving the concept of reincarnation therapy continually away from hypnotherapy.

Building on the works of Ten Dam, Netherton, Woolger, and Dethlefsen, the SRN has, through its own training program, developed it's own therapeutic model: the Holographic Model of Reincarnation Therapy. We will return to this model later.

How is it possible to recall long forgotten experiences in this life as well as past lives?

The Past
Much of what happens to us in life, we simply forget. There are very few people who remember things from before they were three years old. Even in later life, a great many moments grow fuzzy and hard to remember.

Often the events just were not important enough to carry around with us in our conscious memories. Even if we think only of our current life, it would be inconceivable to constantly and vividly remember everything we have experienced.

It can also happen that an experience was so unpleasant that we force it completely out of our conscious mind. We may even block entire periods from our lives. For instance, some people can hardly remember a thing from before they were twelve.

Other times, we alter past situations in our memories, making them either better or worse than they actually were. We might remember something that happened and feel a sense of overwhelming fear or guilt, even though those around us find such a strong emotion completely unjustified.

Or, we might view a memory with rose-coloured glasses, letting ourselves forget the more unpleasant aspects of the event.

The methodologies behind reincarnation therapy help us not only to piece together and deal with the things we have forgotten or forced from our conscious minds, but also to enter into the part of our current life cycle that we probably cannot remember - our baby years, birth, and time in the womb. Many people are amazed to discover that we have a complete and unbroken memory of everything we have both consciously and unconsciously experienced, registered and filed.

Previous Lives
Reincarnation therapy has shown that our memories are not limited to things we have experienced in our current lives. When we ask the subconscious mind an open question such as: Return to the moment when you first experienced these thoughts and feelings, events sometimes surface which the client could not possibly have experienced in his/her current life. The strength of emotional, physical and mental impressions experienced are evidence of the concrete roots of such past experiences, and are entirely comparable to those of other experiences which have been similarly re-lived.

As we have already noted, many therapists using trance to find the source of problems witness similar experiences. The name the therapist gives to these experiences and the gravity with which he/she considers them depends on the ideological and/or religious framework of the therapist. From these different perspectives we receive a variety of explanations for such phenomena. We are told they are rich fantasies or psychodramas (whether or not in the form of projected ego states); they are part of Jung's collective subconscious, or are paranormal qualities such as telepathy projected from either client or therapist.

Whether he/she believes in reincarnation or not, every self-respecting therapist takes these client experiences seriously. As the well-known American psychiatrist and critic of reincarnation Gerald Edelstien remarked: whether you believe in it or not, it works!

We assume, then, that a number of experiences which arise during therapy are linked to previous lives. This is not only because this approach is therapeuticaly most effective - it is based on the sometimes staggeringly authentic experiences of our clients, and our own experiences as a client. That such experiences from a previous life have sometimes a more symbolic than authentic meaning, and/or are historically disputable, does not shake us of the conviction that reincarnation is a fact. We are, therefore, convinced that a therapist cannot effectively work with reincarnation therapy - and certainly not with the Holographic Model - without the steadfast conviction that reincarnation is a reality.

It is not the purpose of this booklet to explore the many perspectives which exist on the process of reincarnation, nor the continual re-location of consciousness that we experience. For readers who want to know more about this subject, many books and articles have been published on the subject in recent years.

Please see the recommended reading list in the back of this booklet.

One of these publications, Exploring Reincarnation, written by Hans ten Dam deserves special attention for a number of reasons. One being that the book is a near-encyclopedic volume which employs a sober and critical style to investigate not only reincarnation philosophies and their ideological foundations, but also the renewal of reincarnation therapy itself since the seventies. Ten Dam himself contributed considerably to this renewal, as the founders of NWRT and SRN witnessed when they studied under him. Now, ten years after the first publication in Dutch of Ten Dam's landmark work, the profession has developed into new directions. This booklet aims to give insight into those changes.

But do you need to believe in reincarnation to benefit from the therapy?

Objectives of the Therapy
It has been our experience that the client does not need to believe in reincarnation to benefit from the therapy. That said, we also wish to make an important note.

The results sought by the client can vary considerably. One client may want to just be rid of the problem as quickly as possible by knowing where the problem comes from. They are less interested in the pattern of reincarnation that the problem forms a part of. The other may want to know exactly when and where the circumstances of his/her reincarnation pattern gives rise to the problem. He/she does so with the conviction that by gaining insight the pattern will be transformed, causing the related problem to disappear.

Sometimes, a direct and simple line can be drawn from a problem to the unresolved experience in the past. For example, someone with fear of heights might re-experience a fatal fall in a previous life. The fear can then be dealt with directly and eliminated. Whether the client actually believes that he/she fell out of a tower or off a mountain in a previous life is not important. All that matters is that the unresolved is brought to the surface, re-experienced and resolved.

More often, however, the problems are only symptoms of a deeper and more complex underlying issue. This issue does not arise out of a single experience, but out of a series of linked experiences through several lives. The problems may be seen as a signal of unbalanced growth in the client's process of reincarnation; their reincarnation pattern. This unbalanced development began somewhere (a moment that must be tracked down) as a limiting conclusion, which led to a limiting conviction, and, together with the associated feelings, worked its way into the present life.

Catharsis
Both approaches are effective when they lead to re-living and working through of the experiences, and when the following successive things occur: acceptance (understanding), letting go (distancing oneself), and integration (solving). The result is a therapeutic moment called a catharsis, which is a cleansing and purifying event. A catharsis leads to the disappearance or transformation of the problem, either immediately or in the near future. It takes place only when:

a. Insight into the unresolved events in the past and their relationship with the problem in the present are recognized, such that the convictions about those past events no longer effect the present.

b. Unresolved emotions have been unleashed and resolved so that they can no longer be experienced as problems.

c. Unresolved physical feelings are released and ultimately disappear.

Because of gaining insight, true understanding and acceptance is generally a condition for solving the problem, we consider reincarnation therapy to be first and foremost an insight-oriented therapy.

The Holographic Model
The difference between the two approaches discussed earlier could also be referred to as the difference between the 'causal' and 'polar' models of reincarnation therapy. While we have nothing against the use of the causal model in specific situations, we have noticed that for many chronic problems it is not sufficient. For this reason, the polar model has received increasing attention in past years, ultimately leading to the development of what is known as the Holographic Model of Reincarnation Therapy.

This model borrows its name from a metaphor coined by American neurosurgeon Karl Pribram when, in the sixties, he remarked on similarities between the way in which the mind stores and reproduces information, and the facets of a hologram - which is a multi-dimensional photo produced using laser beams.

The most unique aspect of a hologram is that when you take just one part of an object and project it elsewhere, the whole object is still visible, albeit more vague. Considering, then, that the information we store about an experience consists of seven elements: words, images, sounds, emotions, somatics (physical sensations), scents and tastes, Pribram concluded that by focusing on just one of these elements the entire hologram of a trauma would surface for therapeutic resolution - even though some aspects of the trauma may initially be vague or blocked.

Working with the revelations of therapists such as Morris Netherton and Hans ten Dam, we found that the 'holographic bridge' is most effective when it is developed in two phases. Firstly, one of the seven elements is chosen. Beginning with this one element, a bridge is constructed of at least three associated elements: one Mental (words, images, sounds etc.), one Emotional (fear, sorrow, anger, etc.) and one Somatic (pain, exhaustion, restriction, disfunction, etc.) In many cases, this M+E+S bridge brings the whole hologram of a traumatic experience to light within a few minutes, even when the client is at first blocking the situation.

Morris Netherton expanded our understanding of the holographic principle of reincarnation (therapy) when he explained in a workshop that every chronic problem is thematic in character and that this theme can almost always be found in each of four periods of recall:

The trans-personal period (all previous existences);
The prenatal period (conception to birth);
The perinatal period (shortly before birth to shortly after);
The biographical period (current life since birth).

Experience has shown us that finding the theme behind the symptoms, and in particular the core conviction of self-perception which underlies the theme, provides entrance into all four periods. We are talking here about the large hologram of a problem, as distinct from the tracking down and working through of a specific unresolved experience, which we refer to as working with the small hologram.

The surfacing of the large hologram may be summarized as follows:

When, in a previous life, before, during or after your death, you evaluated the things you had done or failed to do and could not accept them, you set the law of polarity in motion. There may have been an obvious reason for what happened or for what you feel went wrong, but this causality does not surface in your consciousness.

By postulating "I don't ever again want to put myself in a position where I can make mistakes", you stay focused on what you think went wrong, while at the same time projecting your guilt on others. Then you bring this guilt into your next incarnation, but, through projection, in another and opposite role: that of victim.

Because of the loss of conscious contact with the moment of polarity and because you feel a victim of circumstance, it is entirely possible to keep on projecting. Projection creates new postulates, which can keep you in the victim role, for many lives, creating a chain of traumatic victim experiences.

With this pattern, you enter your current life, subconsciously - or sometimes even consciously - seeking new circumstances and experiences which will further entrench that pattern. You find - or rather actualize - these circumstances already in your prenatal and perinatal period. Without conscious recognition of this process, this programming can seriously limit your freedom of choice in your present life. But what we also see in this is another face of polarity: problems which arise as a consequence of the lack of freedom of choice can help you to ultimately confront and change your themes - your most intimate convictions (or character postulates).

By working through these associated traumas from the large hologram - with emphasis on the source of the character postulates and the most important moments of actualization - and by accepting the similar pattern which emerges, freedom of choice can be returned and the transformation can begin.

Just how exactly do you go back to experiences in the past?

There are a number of methods of going back in time, but before we delve into these, let's take a look at the many different ways of experiencing the past. Ten Dam distinguishes five different levels which can be used to investigate the past:
Memory;
Recollection;
Re-living;
Regression;
Identification.

Earlier, we talked about the presence of a complete and unbroken memory, but here when we talk about memory we mean a level of exploration in which we focus on the past, while our consciousness remains fully in the present. You might for example, recall that you detested going to school, especially when it rained because then the whole school reeked of wet clothing.

Using recollections we can go one step deeper into the past, bringing experiences into the present in the form of impressions. For some people these will be visual impressions, for others it may be sounds, an internal dialogue, feelings, smells or tastes.

When you are conducted to bring recollections into the present, the original impression can broaden to include other sensory perceptions. You may have started with, for example, images of your old school and its long, wide corridors. Now you can also smell the wet jackets hanging from their hooks, and hear the stinging voice of your teacher. The extent to which you can bring these other impressions with you has to do with the way in which you process information and bring it to your consciousness. This, in turn, is strongly influenced by the nature of your experiences in the past.

A recollection may be so complete that most of the impressions of that time - especially thoughts and feelings - surface strongly. We call this re-living. You experience walking through the corridor at your old school again, on your way to class. You feel a shiver of disgust run through you and think: if only I had the nerve to skip school.

The result is a rather remarkable split consciousness: you remain your current self, you know where you are and with whom, but at the same time you are experiencing yourself as a ten-year-old.

When we talk about regression, you are re-living such moments from your old school, but also simultaneously pushing everything that has happened since then into the background, and temporarily forgetting it. You hear yourself give answers of how you wanted to play truant, even though those thoughts are opposite of your present ideas of being a responsible person.

Regression can go one step further into identification. When this happens, you are completely in the past. You feel so much the child overcome by his hatred for the school, that you are hardly aware of the therapist in the room. It sometimes even happens that the client testily demands to know who's asking all the irritating questions.

Because the terms reincarnation therapy and regression therapy are occasionally used interchangeably, we want to stress that effective reincarnation therapy does not necessarily call for regression. From a therapeutic point of view, re-living is usually sufficient. In fact, we prefer the re-living level because it has one major advantage - a considerable portion of the consciousness remains in the present. We will return to this when we discuss induction methods (the ways in which re-living is initiated and trance is induced).

It is our experience that in sessions movement between the levels is possible. A trip into the past may begin with, for example, a strong recollection which deepens first into re-living, then into regression, back to re-living, and then stays there.

The level maintained through most of the session will depend on the depth of trance at any particular moment. The depth of trance is, in turn, determined by a number of factors.

You hear the strangest stories about hypnosis and trance. Isn't going into trance dangerous?

There are still a lot of misconceptions about trance. All too often, it is assumed that trance and hypnosis are synonyms. That is because hypnosis in everyday speech has two meanings: a certain state of consciousness and a collection of methods of inducing trance. There are, however, more of these sorts of methods, as will be shown below. Most people do not realize that trance is a very natural occurrence which many people experience daily. Anyone who becomes deeply absorbed in a book, film or a concert enters a light trance.

Myths
There are many myths about inducing trance, particularly about hypnotic methods. They include:
There is always a chance that you will not be able to return from a deep trance;
Trance can be harmful to your health;
When you are in trance you are open to suggestion. You are completely in the hands of your therapist.

For the first two myths there is simply no evidence whatsoever. Should someone not react to the therapist's suggestion to return to the present, the trance state moves automatically into a state of sleep, from which he/she will simply awake after a time. Further, there is clear evidence that being in trance, no matter what type of therapeutic intervention is involved, is usually beneficial to your health.

As for openness to suggestion, there is also no evidence that you will open yourself to suggestion unless you wish to do so - a trait played upon by stage hypnotists. Some people quite clearly have absolutely nothing against opening themselves up completely for manipulation in a room full of people.

The ease with which one enters trance has nothing to do with one's openness to suggestion. Rather, we believe it is related to your ability to throw yourself into something, or to concentrate intensely, and your ability to trust yourself and your therapist.

The Depth of Trance
We noted above that the ease with which one enters trance and the depth of trance have to do with a number of factors:
The quality of the counsellor/therapist;
The psychological pattern of the client;
The prehistory (of the therapy);
The nature of the experiences which arise in trance.

Below, we go deeper into the different methods used in reincarnation therapy to achieve at least the re-living trance level. We do wish to note, however, that with hypnotic and magnetic induction a somewhat deeper trance is often achieved than with some other methods.

It goes without saying that the quality of the therapist has much to do with the depth of trance. Just as a poorly written passage in an otherwise captivating book can make us suddenly aware of the world around us, a poorly-chosen word, alteration of the voice, or phrasing of a question by the therapist can negatively affect the achievement of trance or the depth of trance.

Self-confidence is in fact the key to successful reincarnation therapy. One expects the therapist to trust in the quality of his/her own work and in the cooperation with the client. But the client also has to have some confidence in his/herself and be able to trust the therapist. Because the client is experiencing a problem, that self-confidence is often the weakest link, and this can lead to blocks of various natures.

Experience also shows that highly intellectually-oriented people are initially less trance-sensitive than more emotionally-oriented people. With the use of different methods, however, trance can successfully be achieved with the first group as well.

With regard to prehistory, we know that once the client has a history of at least one successful session, he/she usually enters the next trance more easily. Further, after the first session, the trance need not to be as deep unless new material with important implications surfaces.

The latter indicates that the nature of the experiences the client re-lives during the session can influence the depth of trance. Re-living a traumatic experience, for example, may release extremely strong emotions which can draw the client deeper into trance, entering the regression or even the identification levels.

The therapist witnesses these changes and intervenes as necessary to modify the depth of trance.

The Therapist's Questions
It is our hope that many of your questions have been satisfactorily answered now. There will be room for more questions later. Now it's the therapist's turn to ask you some questions. He/she will start by asking you why you've come, and ask you to talk about your problem. With the help of the so-called 'specification questions' he/she will try to get a clear picture of your problem. Specifically, he/she will strive to identify the underlying issue - in the form of a subconscious conviction.

Let's suppose that you are terribly frightened of water. The therapist will then explore what happens to you when you come near water. Your answer might be:

I think: Dangerous! Water is very dangerous!

The therapist then seeks more specific details and it becomes clear that you fear losing control, even if you stand only knee-deep in water. You know this is an unreasonable fear (you've seen little children playing harmlessly in shallow water), but unconsciously you have the conviction that it is mortally dangerous.

The therapist then asks you how you feel emotionally and physically. He/she will want to know when you think this problem first appeared in your present life (you may have absolutely no idea) and how you think you will feel when that fear is completely gone.

Then the therapist will probably ask you a series of questions about your current life: what do you know about your parents' relationship in the time that you were conceived and throughout your mother's pregnancy? Do you know anything about your own birth? He/she will want to know about a variety of aspects of your current life: baby and preschool years, school years, your family, relationships (especially with your parents), work, hobby, illnesses, medications, experience with therapy and finally your opinions on reincarnation.

Goals of the Initial Interview
Almost every therapeutic relationship, and certainly those between reincarnation therapist and client, begins with an initial interview. This initial acquaintance has a number of goals, all of which are geared to achieving effective communication:

Determining whether reincarnation therapy is required in your particular situation, given the boundaries of therapist, client and the therapy itself;
Creating a basis for trust by focusing on client needs;
Determining how the client stores and reproduces information;
Specifying the problems, with emphasis on limiting convictions;
Setting out and clearly agreeing upon a starting point;
Requesting essential information about the present life;
Establishing the client's desired situation when the therapy is over.

At the end of the booklet, we will return to the issue of the boundaries of the therapist, client and the therapy and the extent to which they affect the practice of reincarnation therapy.

Specifying the Problems
People are often vague or careless in their speech, especially when talking about their problems. They delete, distort, and generalize information. It is important to use a series of structured questions to specify the problem as clearly as possible. In doing so, it often turns out that the problem is a symptom of an internal problem structure. A similar structure can be recognized in the limiting judgements or convictions that the client holds about him/herself and the world around him/her. Such judgements or convictions we call postulates.

Identifying these limiting postulates as quickly as possible is vital to the progress of the therapy at all stages, from the identification of sources through processing and integration of the end result.

Focusing on the Client
Careful attention to both the verbal and non-verbal signals of the client is essential to a thorough understanding of the client. One way of doing this is to subtly mirror these signals. It is easier to do when you realize that people do not always process or interpret information in the same way.

Processing and Reproducing Information
Communication specialists have found that every individual has a favourite system or strategy for processing and reproducing information. Some use visual means, and some auditory. Others use feelings, and still others use all three in a certain order. By listening carefully to speech patterns, and to some extent by watching non-verbal gestures, it is often possible to determine what someone's favourite system or order of systems is.

Recognizing these systems and how they are used not only helps to build trust between client and therapist, but also gives the therapist important information about the way the client will likely re-live the past - whether the re-living will be focused on images, sounds, or feelings, or if it will be experienced as a sort of internal dialogue or as combining systems in a certain order. This information can be very important for working with these anticipated experiences.

The Desired Situation
As we said in the introduction, reincarnation therapy holds that problems in the present can be traced back to their origins in unresolved experiences in the past. Plus, these experiences can be re-lived in a way that they can be successfully dealt with, such that the associated problems will vanish, either in the short or somewhat longer-term future.

We also established that there are two basic approaches used to resolve these experiences:

Problems can be singled out individually, and dealt with individually. This generally implies a short therapeutic process.

Problems can be viewed as symptoms - a superficial structure which hides deeper underlying problems in the process of reincarnation. In this case, the therapist works to pinpoint the underlying structure, trying not only to solve the problem but also to transform the current personality, a process which often takes longer.

By asking clear, structured questions, the therapist can also get a clear picture of what precisely the client wishes to accomplish with the therapy. A therapeutic process can thus quickly be established.

Client's History
Knowing a lot about the client is important for the total therapeutic process. The following are some examples of questions which may arise during the initial interview:

What do you know about your parents' living conditions at the time that you were conceived? About your prenatal period and birth (from what you've heard)? What was your youth like? What was your parents' relationship like? What was their relationship with other family members? What kinds of health and other problems have you had (including hospital treatment, operations, medications, addictions and therapies)? What kind of work have you done in the past and present? What is your family life like now? What are your hobbies? etc.

Such questions are not asked out of sheer curiosity. The therapist is looking for specific things. First and foremost, he/she wants to see if the deeper background of the client's problem is recognizably woven through his/her life - and that means the whole life, beginning with conception.

If the client has very specific mental, emotional and/or somatic symptoms, one of the first questions will be: When did these symptoms begin? Then the therapist will explore events that may have taken place just before the onset of the symptoms which may be responsible for them. Suppose that the symptoms began one year after the client broke up with a partner because the partner was unfaithful. The therapist will then ask what the experience meant, how the client felt, what decision or conclusion he/she came to. Suppose the client responded: I felt betrayed. When such a powerful statement is voiced, it is important to see if the conviction of feeling betrayed also comes to light in other situations, such as perhaps feeling abandoned.

When structured questioning leads to a picture in which, for example, father abandoned mother when he heard she was pregnant; the doctor was almost too late for the birth; mother was often not there when school let out; father never tried to make contact with child, and several relationships of various forms were characterized by distrust, then the issue 'betrayal' and the large hologram of betrayal becomes clear. Of course, it is not always easy to arrive at such an issue or character postulate in the initial interview. This is, nonetheless, the goal of the client history questions.

When the issue or character postulate is discovered with the help of the client history it provides a major advantage by allowing the issue to become part of the client's conscious framework at an early stage. He/she can already start to understand that he/she can also share responsibility for the succession of experiences associated with betrayal or abandonment.

A second advantage of an extensive client history is that both therapist and client can prepare for those experiences in the present life which are likely to surface during the re-living: a traumatic birth, fear of going into trance as a result of experiences with anaesthetics, drug-use, medication and/or trance therapies.

Yet another advantage of an in-depth initial interview is that the therapist can use certain information to stimulate the ability of the client to help solve the problem. Particularly in the integration and concluding stages the therapist can use information given by the client on hobbies, interests, work, etc.

Finally, a thorough client history can make therapist and client aware of limiting structures and networks which could delay or even inhibit the process of problem-solving and/or transformation. By structures and networks we mean: family, country, the neighbourhood you were born in, schooling, career, relationships, etc. Taking part in or at least being involved in these structures is ultimately the result of the client's convictions. When these convictions are changed through therapy, these structures will either change also, subtly adapt themselves, or in some cases remain stubbornly persistent. It is important to prepare for this.

Beginning with Re-living
Often the initial interview is completely taken up with the exchange of information, simultaneous trust-building, and identification of problems and underlying issues. Sometimes there is still time left over to begin immediately tracing the unresolved experiences that lie at the root of your fear of water, to focus once more on that example.

We will assume, however, that a second appointment is made to begin therapy. When you arrive for the second session, you probably will not spend much time in discussion. You may have a few more questions that you forgot to ask last time, or the therapist may want some additional information on a particular point.

Then your therapist invites you to lie down on a sofa, mattress, couch or adjustable stool. When you are comfortable, he/she will ask you to close your eyes. The induction - making contact with the experiences that are at the root of your problem - begins.

Methods of Induction
Induction methods are those tools used by the therapist to bring the client into a state in which he/she can re-live experiences from his/her past.

Indirect Methods: Starting with Trance
Classical hypnosis is unquestionably the most commonly-used and best-known of all methods. It is, in fact, no more than the induction of trance through verbal and/or sensory suggestions. Using the hypnotic method, trance is referred to as the consequence of the suggestions. One of the most-used classical hypnotic methods involves relaxation of the entire body, combined with arm levitation. There are, however, a great many other hypnotic methods and techniques.

In recent years, the work of American hypnotherapist Milton Erickson has been gaining popularity. Erickson was a master in the use of language to bring people into trance. His method has developed quite a following. Richard Bandler and John Grinder, who developed the Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), based an important part of their advancements on Erickson's work. NLP is a form of modern hypnotherapy which works with a number of refined trance-inducement methods.

Magnetism is a method of trance inducement related to hypnosis. Magnetizers often strike short movements called 'passes' along the body, though there are other methods. Often the magnetizer supports the work of his/her hands with visual contact and mental concentration. But because most reincarnation therapists do not have such developed gifts, this technique is relatively uncommon.

Far more common are visualization exercises or imaginations, usually in the form of a guided fantasy. Just as in classical hypnotic induction, the first step is to achieve physical and psychological relaxation. The emphasis here is not on going as deeply as possible into trance, but rather on focusing on the body, drawing attention to tense muscles, breathing, heartbeat, etc. Thus the client begins to sink further into his/her body. This pulls attention away from the outside world and begins to enhance susceptibility. The next step is usually to let the client fantasize that he/she is in some archetypical environment; in a valley, on a mountain, near or on the water, or floating on air.

The advantage of this method is that these archetypical images facilitate bridging to a previous life. Such images which might draw a client into the past are fore example going down a set of stairs, climbing a hill, walking over a bridge, or going through a tunnel.

The Direct Method: the Bridge Method
While many reincarnation and regression therapists report success in working with one or more of the induction methods discussed so far, by far the majority of NVRT members prefer the bridge method. The most important characteristic of this method is that trance is induced in the course of the session rather than at the very beginning, and that the problem, with all its verbal and non-verbal signals, is used to bridge the present to the past.

Re-living
You are lying in the therapist's office, eyes closed and waiting for what is going to happen. There is a good chance that you are a little nervous, and an even greater chance that you are fearful. You just cannot seem to relax.

When you voice these feelings, the therapist will tell you these feelings are understandable, but that he/she does not want you to relax. He/she wants to use that tension you feel to bring your unresolved experiences out of the past.

The therapist then asks you to do one of the following things:
Focus on the emotion you associate with the problem;
Concentrate on the physical sensations you associate with the problem;
Think about the last concrete example you can remember of a time when you experienced the problem;
Repeat one sentence that you spoke during your discussion about your problem.

Which of these the therapist asks to do depends on a number of factors, the most important being the nature of the problem.

Returning to the example of fear of water, when you are lying on the sofa in the therapist's office, there is a good chance your fear will not seem as strong as it has at times. When this happens, the therapist will either
ask you to return to a situation you remember well in which you felt your fear vividly;
or ask you to repeat, for example, the sentence: Water is dangerous! several times.

He/she may also choose to combine both: while you remember the situation, repeat the phrase a number of times. Experience shows there is a very good chance you will experience your fear again, especially if the therapist lets fear sound in his/her voice as well.

Next you are asked to feel the fear radiate through your body. Emotions always have one or more specific places in the body where they resonate, such as in the belly, stomach, lung region, back, legs, throat, head, etc. If you give permission to do so, the therapist may touch the regions where you feel the emotion. This physical contact may make you experience the emotions and somatics more strongly. When the therapist is convinced that the emotion and the physical sensations are strong enough, he/she will ask you to return to the first time you experienced these emotions, felt these sensations, and had these particular thoughts. Most often, this leads to a first impression of an experience linked to your fear of water.

The Bridge Method
The underlying assumption of the bridge method is that problems are symptoms of unresolved experiences in our past. The presence of the associated symptoms is evidence that the person in question is bound to this experience. Well-known American reincarnation therapist Morris Netherton noted aptly: it's no problem to bring someone back to the unresolved past, because he/she is already caught in the middle of it! The problem is in drawing the person out of the unresolved experiences.

Advantages of the Bridge Method
This also means that any form of relaxation is quite unnecessary. When trying to track down the source of a certain problem that manifests itself symptomatically in mental, emotional and/or physical tensions, the most efficient and direct approach is to use the tension itself. This is exactly what the bridge method does.

In addition to being efficient, the bridge method has a number of other advantages. In using the bridge method, there is no risk that the client will put responsibility for solving his/her own problems completely in the hands of the therapist. Most people accept responsibility for whether or not they go into trance, because they know it is their responsibility to provide the concentration necessary to enter trance. Otherwise trance simply will not be achieved. But many people still think that their responsibility ends there, and once in trance, the therapist will solve their problems. The therapist cannot solve the problems by using the bridge method by itself. It calls for hard work and responsibility on behalf of the client. This is linked to the reincarnation concept, in which it is believed that we are ultimately responsible for what happens in our own lives.

A third advantage of the bridge method is that the process of entering trance is drawn out: trance is entered in a very natural manner, as a result of going deeper and deeper into the first impressions, which arose as a result of the confrontation with the problems in the here and now. This also prevents an unnecessarily deep initial trance, which is not helpful when trying to achieve insight for therapeutic purposes.

We noted earlier that the trance depth which makes re-living of the past possible also results in our consciousness being split between past and present. An unusual sort of split personality arises. It is precisely this so-called elliptic consciousness which enables the client to draw the link between past and present.

Also of importance is that in this method every symptomatic signal is used: mental (rational), emotional (sensitive), and somatic (physical). No matter which of the three elements we begin with, the goal is always to bring the three together. This is what we call the MES bridge method (Mental, Emotional, Somatic).

Mental Entries
There are three methods of entry at the mental level: via words, sounds or visual impressions.

The verbal entry has gained notoriety through the works of Morris Netherton. The principle behind it is so simple that many clients do not believe in it until they experience it. When discussing the specifics of the problem during the initial interview, the therapist selects a number of key sentences which express the problem, indicate key points, and/or reflect character. These key sentences may be seen as verbal translations of the postulates: deeply engraved experiences and opinions, agreements the client has made with him/herself - often of a predictable nature - stubborn attitudes, etc. Postulates may be seen as our personal programming, and they are very difficult to change. Many people have a series of verbal variations which serve to clarify the same problem. For example:
I feel trapped;
I feel imprisoned;
I have no freedom;
It's like a door behind me has been shut;
I can't get out;
I don't see any way out.

By repeating similar sentences a number of times emotions and/or physical tensions escalate. The therapist can support by letting his/her voice reflect the rising emotions of the client, and by touching the body where the emotions are resonating. When the emotions are properly released, the therapist asks the client to return to the situation in which he/she strongly experienced these feelings and thoughts for the first time, and where the sentence that raises these emotions is literally true.

In this way, many clients move immediately to a concrete situation in this life - in the womb, in an interlife experience, or in a previous life. Despite the instruction to return to the source (the first time that these emotions and thoughts were experienced), many clients still return first to a more recent situation. These situations must be thoroughly worked through before the client can move back to the source experience. We will return to this later as we discuss further therapeutic aspects.

A second mental entry is with the help of a clear visual impression.

Most clients do not know when their problem began. They hope, through therapy, to answer this question. But they do usually know exactly when they last experienced the problem in a concrete way. By asking about this last experience, contact is made with the emotional and physical feelings associated with the problem. Strong recollections from youth, dreams and visions may also be used.

A third mental entry is called the auditive entry. This method uses noises, sounds and intonations of the voice. Imitation of and/or concentration on these noises, etc. can also bring feelings, thoughts and/or visual impressions to the light.

When necessary, the visual, auditory and/or verbal entries may be combined simultaneously to draw out the feelings more strongly.

The Emotional Entry
Some clients are already conscious of their emotions. The emotions may indeed be the problem. When this happens, the emotions themselves are used as entry and then the associated physical and mental aspects are sought.

The Physical Entry
Some people initially experience their problem physically. When this happens, concentration is focused first on the physical symptom, after which the associated thoughts and emotions (and possibly sounds and images) are sought.

The First Impressions
Your first impressions may be quite vague. Even if they are not, you may find yourself wondering if you are just fantasizing. The therapist will quickly reassure you that you are not. First impressions always say something about the problem being studied, and hence are always of therapeutic importance. To make the impressions as concrete as possible, the therapist will ask numerous questions to help bring out the details of all three levels of the experience:

M: Mental impressions: images, thoughts and sound impressions.
E: Emotional impressions: the mood you are in.
S: Somatic impressions: current physical sensations and posture.

Anchoring First Impressions
Anchoring describes the process used to make first impressions as concrete as possible.
Examples of anchor questions and tasks are:

M: What are you thinking? Do you hear something? Is someone speaking to you? What do you see? What is around you? Look at your feet. What are you wearing on your feet? What do your hands look like? What other impressions do you get of yourself?

E: What kind of mood are you in? Let the feeling completely overwhelm you for a moment.

S: What is your body posture? How does that feel? What does your body feel like? Strong? Weak? Normal? Does it feel like a man's or a woman's body? Or more like a young girl's or boy's? Are you running, lying down, sitting, or perhaps floating?

If the MES induction results in a powerful impression, anchoring is rarely, if ever, necessary. It may even be better to avoid it entirely, because it could pull the client out of the experience. However, when the MES induction is less strong, or when it begins to wane in the tension of the moment, anchoring is very important. Without it, a number of things could disrupt the progress of the session.

Generally speaking, many people have the wrong idea about the kinds of impressions they should be seeking. They assume that for the therapy to be effective, they have to go all the way back into the situation, and find sharp MES images of their environment and of themselves. It is true that this type of re-experiencing is often the most satisfying, but it is certainly not necessary for the therapy to be effective. We have already noted that everyone has their own way of storing and reproducing information. For some people it is primarily visual, and for others auditory. For still others it is a case of knowing by feeling, or a sort of internal dialogue. The images are almost entirely missing, but they know and/or feel precisely what is happening.

When client and therapist do not become fixated on one method of re-living, all these forms can be effective. Further, as we noted earlier, the absence of certain sensory impressions may have to do with the unresolved past experiences themselves. Being blind, or in a dark room, or with a blindfold, or in a very frightening situation in which one is afraid to look, will make it difficult to gain a visual impression of the experience. When the fear is extremely strong the visual representation system itself may even become completely blocked.

Tracing and Processing the Unresolved
When your first impressions are, in your own way, made concrete, it is time to look for the exact unresolved experience in your past which is affecting you today. The pursuit of these moments varies from client to client.

It makes quite a difference if your problem is a sharp fear of something very specific, or just a sort of unshakeable sense of depression. You might have dealt your whole life with a constantly repeating pattern - such as the constant failure of intimate relationships, or you may have been persistently troubled by vague, highly varied physical symptoms. Perhaps you find you are never really able to feel at home; you have noticed that others influence you too easily, or that you quickly absorb the energy of those around you.

Each of these examples could be an aftereffect resulting from a number of different types of unresolved past experiences; and each calls for a different therapeutic approach.

Several common elements underlie the different forms of processing. You will notice, for example, that the therapist uses his/her voice and questions to probe the unresolved experiences and to encourage you to re-live them as vividly as possible. He/she is trying to bring the three levels of experience (M, E and S) together.

He/she will make you feel your fear of drowning just as if it were happening to you at that very moment, and will ask you to repeat all of your thoughts while you are drowning and dying. In this way, you can finally release and work through the unresolved.

He/she will almost always take you through the death of one life, even if that particular death is resolved. This is to ascertain if you have truly been able to accept your past life. Should that not be the case, then he/she will work with you until he/she is convinced that the experiences concerned are accepted and integrated. When this happens, you will find yourself in a place of rest after death which enables you to have an insight and overview of your previous life and its relationship to the problem in your current life. It is often this very moment in which insight results, leading to definitive changes, the resolution of the problem and/or transformation

Unresolved Experiences
You are taking reincarnation therapy for a therapeutic goal. That sounds redundant, but given the growing incidence of 'reincarnation tourism' in which primarily the who, what, when and where of previous lives is sought, it cannot hurt to stress the therapeutic goal of reincarnation therapy. We mentioned earlier that the goal can be just problem solving, but it may also be problem solving as a consequence of, or in association with, deeper change processes. We have also noted that the Holographic Model is geared specifically to the realization of the latter goal. To achieve that goal, the client needs to gain insight into the underlying theme of the problem, and in particular the convictions (postulates) that support that theme. Often a series of unresolved experiences have to be worked through to achieve such insight.

When you read any of the literature on reincarnation and regression therapy, you might get the impression that all unresolved experiences have the same characteristics. Anglo Saxon literature, for example, speaks exclusively about 'traumas', when considering unresolved experiences.

When Hans ten Dam began his experimentation with reincarnation therapy, he quickly realized that the methodology for working through traumatic situations did not always yield the desired results. He held that unresolved experiences can be very different in terms of:
The strength and content of the postulates;
The nature and intensity of emotions and somatics;
The length of time the experience lasts;
The number of repetitions that take place;
The role played in a specific situation.

On the basis of these insights, and those of our own practice, we distinguish nine types of unresolved experiences:

Victim traumas: unhealed wounds (emotional, physical and/or mental) which result from victim experiences with a clear beginning and end (accidents, rape, abuse, etc.);

Aggressor traumas: unhealed wounds (generally mental and/or emotional) resulting from traumatizing someone else;

Accomplice traumas: unhealed wounds (generally mental and/or emotional) resulting from allowing, or jointly taking part in the traumatization of someone else;

Spectator traumas: unhealed wounds (again mostly mental and/or emotional) as a consequence of having to watch the traumatization of someone else;

Hangovers: haze as a result of long periods without freedom, love, or periods of exhaustion (long prison sentences, slavery, hard and unappreciated work, a youth without love and warmth, etc.);

Unresolved deaths in previous lives: experiences in a given previous life and/or traumatic or slow death are not resolved, such that the previous personality was not able to let go of his/her previous life, was not integrated, and to a greater or lesser degree still haunts you;

Alienation: a sort of homesickness for a better time or world that leaves one feeling not (entirely) at home with one's family, culture or even world, and/or a feeling that things lack meaning;

Attachment: a strong sensitivity to the energy of other people, animals or things, so strong in fact that this energy can cling to you or get inside of you and lead to all sorts of problems (fears, exhaustion, depression, etc.) and/or to further aggravation of existing symptoms;

Spirit Attachment: an attachment of entities (those who have died) which can also lead to all kinds of symptoms (fears, exhaustion, depression, etc.) and/or to further aggravation of existing symptoms.

Tracing the Moment when the Unresolved Past-life Experience Actualized in this Life

Either in this same session or in another, depending on how much time remains, the therapist will make you explore how the unresolved experience in your previous life restimulated in your present life. We call this tracing the actualization.

Perhaps you come first upon an experience as a pre-schooler in a swimming pool, when a grown-up smacked you and your head went underwater. While this may be the first experience you re-live, it may also be that you had already experienced your fear of water in the womb when your mother nearly drowned one day.

Prenatal and birth experiences are responsible for an especially large number of actualizations. This has to do with the fact that you are so often operating in an unconscious state; a situation which makes you very susceptible to the fears of your mother and/or of others in her environment. These experiences must also be worked through at all three levels, M + E + S.

It can also happen that in pursuit of the sources of your fear, you land first in the actualizations in your current life, each of which is carefully worked through before the real source in the past is sought out.

Actualization of the Unresolved
Re-living the unresolved experiences of your past can result in the disappearance of your problem in the present, but usually this does not happen immediately. It is necessary first to trace the actualizations.

Netherton assumes that every unresolved experience in a previous life is actualized in the prenatal and/or birth experience. In keeping with his thoughts, we distinguish the following actualization-sensitive moments; conception, the moment the mother suspects she is pregnant, the moment she realizes that she definitely is, the moment when she tells her environment, the moment when the baby's head engages for birth, the onset of labour, the birth itself, the first reception after the birth, and all the other negative and/or complicating experiences: an attempted abortion, an accident experienced by the mother, a fight between the parents, a fight between the parents and their environment, and all sorts of related delivery complications - operations, incubation, etc.

Several methods are used to work in the prenatal and perinatal periods. A commonly-used method involves first working through the history of the MES experiences of the mother (and through her with the environment), and then through the MES experiences of the child. It may be necessary to spend a number of sessions on the period in the womb and the birth, particularly when the pregnancy and/or birth had complications.

Actualizations can, of course, also occur later in life, such as during one's first confrontation with death (of a parent, grandparent, classmate, etc.), fire, violence, uninvited sexual advances, serious accident, abandonment, etc.

Re-living these sorts of experiences may also require several sessions.

Some clients can re-experience actualizations with little effort, but block efforts to go back to the sources in previous lives. Others easily return to unresolved experiences in past lives, but do not dare to confront actualization events in their current life. The goal of this type of therapy is, however, to re-live and work through both sorts of experiences.

At the End of the Session
Once you have worked through unresolved experiences in your previous life, worked through you death experience, integrated your formerly unresolved experiences and pinpointed actualizations such that you know exactly where your fear of water comes from, the therapist will check to see that all the aftereffects are indeed gone. He/she will check all three levels (M+E+S), asking you if you still feel fear, if the physical feelings you felt during the re-living are still there now, and/or he/she will ask you to repeat a number of times the sentence: Water is dangerous!

When it turns out there still are symptoms - thus that the experience from your previous life still has not been properly dealt with, he/she will first invite you to see the difference between what you once believed to be true, and what the situation is now. That the savage mountain stream that you fell into and drowned is very different from a swimming pool, a still-surfaced lake or a calm sea. That when you take swimming lessons from a good instructor you do not have to be afraid to drown. Should the problems still not disappear, then you will return via the bridge method to what is not yet worked through.

When all the symptoms appear to have disappeared and you feel freed of your fear, the therapist will then do one last check by testing the future. He/she will ask you to imagine a situation in the future in which you, for example, step into a swimming pool. He/she will watch carefully how you react. If there is even a hint of the old fear, he/she will return again to the still unresolved experiences and/or actualizations, or trace another situation which is related to the fear. If time does not allow, he/she will agree with your subconscious to continue to trace the sources of the fear in another session.

What can happen is that the fear of water turns out to be a symptom of a deeper-rooted fear, such as the theme of loss of control which we mentioned earlier. Perhaps it becomes clear, if your therapist did not know it already, that there have been several times in your life where you faced situations with the fear of losing control. When this happens, more work is needed. You should expect a longer-term therapy.

It is then almost always necessary to take a look at one or more 'polar experiences'. In the case of fear of losing control, it could be that you return to experiences in which you had power (e.g. political), wealth, beauty, physical strength and/or charisma, etc., but then lost the ability to use it with care. That is to say, you rejected the way in which you handled this power, money, beauty, etc. The confrontation with similar 'dark sides' of your personality is never easy. Not being able to accept these dark sides does not mean that they will automatically go away. Quite the contrary: it is just these black pages in your reincarnation history that form the source of many problems.

Integrating and Wrapping Up
It is very important to wrap up both the re-experienced previous life and the session in general properly. To integrate and wrap up a previous life, we consider renovation as an important intervention technique.

During the wrap up, the therapist should return to the starting point, and check that all the irrational convictions and postulates have disappeared. To do this, many reincarnation therapists use Rational Emotive Therapy (RET), Provocative Therapy and methods borrowed from Milton Erickson and his followers to ensure that the client recognizes that what he/she once believed to be true no longer is, and is in fact nonsense.

Finally, a glance into the future can provide extra certainty at the end of the session that the problem is gone. Ultimately, however, only a return to normal life can really show if the problem has vanished or not.

It is for this that catharsis, which we discussed earlier, is used. We think it is valuable to know that in the catharsis experience - the actual sense of being free of a constraining problem - can take many forms.

It may take place as a sudden breakthrough of understanding, linked with a great physical and emotional release, something that can be truly energizing.

Or, it may be a quiet enjoyment of everything a good session has revealed.

Still another form is the sudden discovery - sometimes weeks after the end of therapy - that a bad day no longer sends you plunging into the depths of depression. It is just a bad day, and you can take it.

Catharsis means release. The intensity and the moment of release, however, can vary considerably.

For a real catharsis to take place, acceptance is a pre-condition. Acceptance of all the different experiences and roles locked up in your complete memory. People who can accept their own totality, can, in due time, enjoy a purifying release.

Fear of failure and other blockages
Your first session went well, but it can happen that when you really get out there by the swimming pool and put it to the test, remnants of that same old fear crop up. When you come for a second session, it may turn out that you are, in a number of ways, suddenly disturbed by what you re-live.

It may also be that when you try to achieve those first impressions, you feel convinced that nothing will happen. You do not see anything, feel anything, hear anything, you are not even thinking anything.

The reincarnation therapist has several intervention techniques to deal with this.

He/she can, for example, ask you to repeat: I'm not thinking of anything. And then ask you: How do you know that? Then you realize you are actually thinking, if only: I'm not thinking anything, feeling anything. It's not working. The therapist will then ask you to repeat a number of times: It isn't working. There is always the chance that the fear of failure is arising, linked with another situation, in which fear of water, or more generally, fear of losing control is experienced.

But there are other possibilities. He/she might ask you: suppose that you already knew it - what would it be? Suddenly you are forced to think very hard about something specific. Or he/she may ask you to repeatedly fire out the first thought that comes to your mind in quick succession, until symptoms and/or first impressions begin to surface.

During the re-living you may get blocked in a number of ways: you cannot really get into it (feel too little, experience too little), you get stuck in a particular experience, you go too fast, the images are constantly changing. The therapist also has a number of techniques for helping you break through these blockages.

He/she will begin to check and perhaps improve the anchoring. Then, he/she may use trance-deepening language to bring you in closer contact with the experience. If you cannot face certain experiences and block them through fear, he/she can use dissociation; letting you view the situation from a distance. He/she can ask you to repeat sentences until the fear is in focus and the re-living is on track again.

When too many pictures are appearing, varied or not, he/she will put on the brakes and focus your attention on a detail until the pace slows enough to go further.

Therapeutic Interventions
People get blocked in all kinds of ways during a session. When this happens during the induction of the first impressions, it is important to use the feelings and expressions of those blockages as an entry. In such a situation we talk of recursive feelings and postulates. Recursive refers to those feelings and thoughts which work against the therapy and even the therapist. Often these feelings and sentences turn out to be the best entry into a successful session, because it is often these precise recursive postulates and feelings that are part of the unresolved experiences we are looking for.

Interferences in Re-living
Also during the re-living all kinds of interferences may occur. Often there are problems such as when we touch-up the past (the current personality projects aspects of the current life into the former life), confusion and/or vague, unclear impressions because of poor anchoring. When this happens the solution is most often found in controlling the anchoring. Check and see if the MES of this situation is still strong enough.

When it is still strong, but you still cannot get further in the re-living, then the blockage must be screened with the help of an intervention technique borrowed from the bridge method. The result may be that what is evidently an important situation was passed over. This must first be worked through before proceeding further.

It may also be that the trust in the therapist requires strengthening, such as when intimate or embarrassing experiences are involved. The therapist will then make clear that he/she is not a voyeur, and the client can quietly work through the experience, without having to expose all the details. Later, you can always look back and see if particular details on any aspect need to be opened up. This can happen when strong feelings of embarrassment are involved.

Wanting to go too Fast
Blockages can appear in forms other than those of not being able to get into the re-living, or facing interferences associated with it. With hasty or rather intellectually-oriented people you sometimes face the opposite; namely rush. This involves rattling off one experience after the other without really stopping to examine the feeling. It is like a film on fast forward. Because people with rush often have difficulties listening, the therapist (and ultimately the client) can find him/herself losing track and eventually the whole overview. The remedy is to put forward suggestions which stop the film - the result a freezed frame followed by a more detailed look. By focusing some, albeit inane, detail and finessing it, control can be restored. When rush appears suddenly in an otherwise good session, it usually means the client wants to quickly pass over a threatening situation.

Unable to Let Go of Stress
Another disruption which can be a problem is stress. By this we mean the inability to distance oneself from an emotional situation in the past. Stress is often recognizable in strong physical reactions such as sweating, rapid heart beat, headache or restless movements which do not disappear after the aggravating experience has been re-lived. It can usually be alleviated by going through the experience a number of times in a very calm manner.

When this does not help to alleviate stress, then it is advisable to ask the client to take more distance - disassociate. A good overview and understanding are more important than continually releasing, which can be very exhausting.

Unanswered Questions
Let's assume that the therapy has been successful. You feel completely free of your fear of water and can go unincumbered to your swimming lessons. Or if the problem turned out to be more all-encompassing, you have freed yourself of your fear of losing control, and you feel stronger and more secure in your life, largely because of your improved self-image. As so many clients have done before you, you may even sigh: your past can sure get in your way!

But maybe you still had a few questions that we have not answered, or have not answered adequately.

Unless you actually do have a fear of water, or the more general fear of losing control, you probably want to know if you - with your particular problem - can benefit from reincarnation therapy. And fear of water or not, you want to know how long a session and an entire therapy lasts and how much it usually costs.

Boundaries:

Boundaries of the Therapist
Because we consider all chronic problems and complaints to be a result of the aftereffects (reflection) of unresolved experiences in the past, it is our conviction that every problem, every complaint, every long-term illness can be treated with reincarnation therapy. To this we add, however: as long as the person doing the therapy is suited to work with the person and/or the problem. In other words, whether or not reincarnation therapy leads to resolution of the problem and/or transformation has to do with, firstly, the attitude and quality of the therapist and secondly, the client and his/her problems.

Every therapist at some point reaches the boundaries of his/her knowledge, insight, intuition or skills. Some are less skilled with certain techniques or methods which could have helped a particular client. Others have difficulties with specific problems, such as cancer, suicidal behaviour, serious depression or with people of a certain personality type, with people who seem too self-important, or with people who only look for spiritual experiences.

Boundaries of the Client
Despite the above, it can not be denied that there are clients who exceed the boundaries of quality and flexibility which most therapists can offer and who find it very difficult to allow the required trust in the therapeutic relationship.

Many reincarnation therapists find the boundaries of their own therapeutic abilities with clients who are not interested in insight or in where their problems originate. The same is true of people who cannot or dare not let their feelings show.

It makes little sense to steer patients directly into the re-living of unresolved experiences when they are not interested in insight, do not dare to show their feelings, want to remain patients or, on the contrary, do not want to be patients. Before starting reincarnation therapy, the defense mechanism must be brought to light. It may very well be that it is a similar conviction that also has its roots in the past and you have before you the best entry into a good therapy process.

We feel reincarnation therapy is less suited to psychotic and highly unstable people. This form of therapy requires a relatively rational mind, no matter how irrationally the influence of the past lingers on in the present.

Language is such an important tool of reincarnation therapists that people with serious hearing problems often have difficulties using this type of therapy.

Certain addictions and/or habits can also stand (temporarily) in the way of a successful therapy. These include overuse of stimulating drugs, excessive intake of caffeine, lack of sleep, or use of medicines which suppress emotional or physical sensations. Such means are often used to abate pain - specific pain or more often simply the pain of living. It is part of the reincarnation therapist's task to confront the client with such pain so that it can, in due course, be eliminated. For this reason it is important that those clients who are addicted to a substance and/or habit are prepared to go a few days without it before the session begins. When quitting could be dangerous to the health, then withdrawal should take place under counsel of an appropriate expert, such as a doctor.

Some reincarnation therapists believe that age (too old or too young) is an important contra-indication. The work of Tineke Noordegraaf with young children shows that children between four and twelve years of age can be excellent clients, although they do require creativity on the therapist's side. Our experiences with older clients vary. Some seniors are very open to new hypotheses and ideas of reincarnation therapy. Quite a few, however, have rigid norms and values. They have difficulty letting go, even when their own subconscious tells them something different. When this happens, the chance of a successful therapeutic result is doubtful.

Also of importance is that the therapist ask in the initial interview if the client has ever gone into severe shock, whether or not that involved complete loss of consciousness, such as for example at accidents and operations (anaesthetics).

Then, when an unresolved past experience arises which calls for alleviation or prevention of pain, reference to these things can be used as circuit-breakers for the pain.

For all of the above-named contra-indications we stress again that 'difficult clients' exist mainly by the grace of the boundaries of the therapist.

Boundaries of the Therapy
We said earlier that in our opinion there are no chronic illnesses, problems or complaints that are not suited to reincarnation therapy.

It is important to note, however, that serious physical ailments, particularly when the client is already in a terminal phase or when his/her body has already suffered long-term damage, these things will not simply disappear as a result of the therapy. At such a stage, the physical body reacts slowly to new impulses, and when physical degeneration is already advanced, confrontation and working through of the sources of the illness usually cannot stop the degeneration process - let alone reverse it.

Because we believe in reincarnation, we believe reincarnation therapy to be extremely well suited to supporting the seriously and/or terminally ill. Having insight into the process that made them sick can help people stop fighting the illness, which is often a fight against death. And if ever there was a therapy that was suited to lessening or eliminating fear of death, reincarnation therapy is it.

Duration of Therapy
How long a therapy lasts depends on the nature of the problem and the boundaries of therapist and/or client. In general, however, we can say that the therapy is geared to achieving results quickly. If the client wants to achieve more than simply getting rid of the symptoms and wants to experience transformation, then the client should expect at least ten sessions to achieve this.

Therapist and client together usually determine how often the sessions will be held, but usually this works out to one session every week to two weeks. During the course of therapy the frequency may be changed, from a day to more than a month between sessions. The sessions themselves last between two and three hours; few therapists work longer.

Recommended Reading:
· Christopher M. Bache: Life Cycles. Reincarnation and the Web of Life, New York, 1991.
· Winafred Blake Lucas, PhD.: Regression Therapy: A Handbook for Professionals, Vol. I + II, Crest Park, 1993.
· Hans ten Dam: Exploring Reincarnation, London, 1990; (Dutch version: Een ring van licht - two volumes, Amsterdam, 1983; reprinted in 1990 as Ring van Licht in one volume)
· Joe Fisher: The Case for Reincarnation, Toronto, 1985.
· Dennis Kelsey & Joan Grant: Many Lifetimes, New York, 1967.
· Morris Netherton & Nancy Shiffrin: Past Lives Therapy, New York, 1978.
· Glen Williston & Judith Johnstone: Discovering Your Past Lives, Wellingborough, 1988.
· Roger J. Woolger: Other Lives, Other Selves, New York, 1987.

About the author:
Rob Bontenbal (March 12, 1945) studied Political Science and Urban Planning at the University of Amsterdam. After graduating he did research for the same school and later worked for the Academic Counsel of Dutch Universities. After being introduced to the concept of reincarnation by his wife, he became fascinated with the subject. A graduate of the first Ten Dam Reincarnation Training Program (1984), he organized an informal association for new reincarnation therapists, which developed into the official Dutch Association of Reincarnation Therapists (NVRT). Around the same time he started a newsletter which grew into the Dutch Professional Journal for Reincarnation Therapy, Cyclus, of which he is still an editor. In 1986 he was invited to join informing the Reincarnation Therapy Training Program of the SRN, the Dutch Foundation for Reincarnation Therapy. Together with colleagues Alexander Bund, Joop van der Hagen and Tineke Noordegraaf he developed the Model of Holographic Reincarnation Therapy. In cooperation with Tineke Noordegraaf he also trains therapists in Germany, Switserland, Israel and the USA. He is an Honourary Member of the NVRT and a professional member of the (American) Association of Past-Life Research and Therapies (APRT). After ten years of private practice, editing and teaching, he took time off in 1995 to write an instruction book on Holographic Reincarnation Therapy.