Eating disorders have always been seen as one of the more challenging emotional issues requiring longer treatment times in the fields of mental and psychological treatments. As a clinical psychologist, I am curious about what past life regression therapy can do and what emotional issues it can help treat. The following is another case of an eating disorder where past life regression therapy was used to help reduce the core emotional distress leading to the disorder.
The content below has been shared with the consent of the individual involved in this regression therapy, and personal information has been concealed.
Doris sought help for her long-standing eating anxiety issue. About a year ago, Doris suddenly began to impose strict dietary requirements on herself, counting calories in every food item. She felt uneasy and resistant to consuming greasy or carbohydrate-rich foods. She was very self-conscious about her appearance and figure, fearing that any relaxation would lead to weight gain. Additionally, she used food as punishment and reward; if her work or exercise progress was satisfactory, she felt she could eat, but if not, she felt undeserving and unable to eat. Her strict food rules left her feeling troubled, unable to let go of the controlling thoughts about eating. When consuming a normal portion for the average person, she would feel intense guilt. Due to her food control rules, she didn't dare to dine with friends, fearing others would notice her eating habits. Doris longed to return to a state where she could eat anything without counting and worrying about what she was consuming.
Aside from her eating issues, Doris began to experience symptoms of depression two years ago, which later developed into bipolar disorder. She frequently oscillated between depressive mood and hypomania (mild mania), with the cause of her bipolar disorder remaining unknown.
However, Doris was most troubled by her eating issue, so the goal of this past life regression session was to address the root of her eating anxiety.
Through hypnosis, Doris entered the past life memories causing her eating anxiety. In her past life regression experience, Doris first felt herself lying on a cold street, hugging her knees, shivering in a corner, feeling very cold and hungry, but no one paid attention to her. Gradually, we learned that in this past life, Doris was a little boy born in China, an orphan who had to work in a laundry from a young age. After accompanying the laundry owner's child to play, he was expelled from the laundry and had to live on the streets, begging and stealing to survive his difficult childhood. As he grew older, he finally found a job carrying goods at a dock, met some friends, and had a relatively stable life. Unfortunately, this didn't last long, as he was injured in a warehouse fire, and his left hand was crushed by falling cargo. Afterward, the pain in his left hand never fully healed, causing him to lose his ability to work. He returned to a state of unemployment and hunger. In this past life, although he tried to return to work, his weak left hand led to rejection by employers, and he could no longer do heavy lifting, making life very difficult. His emotions became extremely low; he felt frustrated, useless, anxious, and depressed, closing himself off and gradually driving away friends, resulting in increased feelings of inferiority and loneliness. In modern psychological terms, Doris's past life was in a state of clinical depression.
It took many years for him to regain hope in life, and he eventually met a restaurant owner who allowed him to learn cooking. At this point, he finally felt a little happiness and regained hope for life. Regrettably, the budding hope was shattered again when the restaurant owner suddenly died of a heart attack, leading to the closure of the restaurant. Doris's past life returned to a state of no income and hunger. Moreover, he felt guilty for not being able to save the restaurant, becoming even more despondent.
Years later, he decided to start anew and became a vendor selling snacks. Although his income was not high, he finally had a craft and a job that could support him. However, in his past life, he never seemed to recover from depression. Even with a new job, he still felt extremely lonely and down. When he fell ill, no one visited him, and he felt desperate and without a reason to continue living. As a result, he ultimately decided to end his life by slitting his wrists. He felt that he had accomplished nothing in his life, and when he died, he left this world with feelings of defeat, loneliness, and sadness.
After reviewing the entire past life, Doris realized that in this past life, she had a deep sense of failure and mistrust towards people, feeling that no one was trustworthy or cared for her. Doris understood that the feeling of failure from her past life drove her in this life to constantly push herself to work hard to prove her worth and to control her diet and maintain a beautiful bodyweight as evidence that she could control her body, which was a sign of success for her. Doris's reluctance to ask for help and her sense of alienation from others in this life were also affected by this past life.
Three weeks later, I contacted Doris again to learn about any changes in her eating anxiety after completing the past life regression therapy. Doris shared that her anxiety and control over food had significantly decreased, and she had begun to understand that she had previously neglected her feelings. Now, she pays more attention to her emotions. She has started participating in gatherings with friends and eating in front of them. Doris mentioned that she consciously reduced exposure to dieting and weight loss information, understanding the negative impact it had on her. Doris admitted that while the severity of her eating anxiety had decreased by half, the issue still existed, though the severity and impact were much less than before.
For Doris, a single past life regression therapy session that reduced her eating anxiety symptoms by half was a decent improvement. However, the remaining symptoms made us realize that this past life regression therapy was only the first step. Doris needed more psychological treatment and regression therapy to address the emotional issues she encountered in her current life. Therefore, we can understand that past life regression therapy is not necessarily a one-time treatment. When the situation is more complex, past life regression therapy can quickly reduce symptoms, but multiple treatments may be needed, combined with traditional psychological therapy methods, for a more comprehensive and thorough healing process to help us overcome difficulties and achieve complete healing.