On past-life regression therapy (Part I of III)
I was interviewed by Miami Herald journalist, Andres Oppenheimer, to participate on a panel for his Spanish-speaking show: Oppenheimer Presenta. He interviewed Brian Weiss, psychiatrist and author of Many Lives, Many Masters, and, my favorite, Only Love is Real. Dr. Weiss is best known as the “guru” of past life regressions. He graciously suggested me to Mr. Oppenheimer to participate in his show.
I trained with Dr. Weiss back in 2001, a month after 9/11. I had learned to do hypnosis at 18. I then went on to the advanced level in healing techniques. Around the same time, I also started medical school. After medical school and during psychiatry residency at Saint Elizabeth’s Hospital, I received additional hypnosis training with one of my attending physicians, Dr. Bill Daniels. He was an excellent role model both because of his compassion and understanding of very severely ill patients. This was over a decade after I had first learned hypnosis techniques. Although Dr. Daniels hinted at a fascinating case of a past-life experience and we discussed other cases, we never delved into this.
After a traditional residency training, I went through additional specialty training as a pharmacology fellow at the prestigious National Institutes of Health (I had also been at the NIH before residency training). After the NIH, I worked in the pharmaceutical industry, always continuing part-time private practice. It was then that one of my patients asked me to facilitate the regression session for her. I suggested she go to someone experienced in the technique. Instead, she urged me to be that facilitator: she trusted me and felt she could allow me to help her out. She had attended Dr. Weiss’ lectures and had already visited a therapist he had suggested. Reluctantly, I started inquiring how I could receive training by Dr. Weiss (I have always wanted to learn from “the source.”) I was busy doing many “more relevant” things. I was relieved when I learned he also lived in Miami, wrote to Dr. Weiss, expecting he could train me locally. Unfortunately, he would only instruct both therapists and non-therapists (this was the only way people could have the experience directly with him) during these week-long training sessions for which I had to travel out of state. As I mentioned, I was very busy, and taking a week off to take a course in this “non-scientific” area was somewhat inconvenient. With a critical mind, I researched the data, reading many books and works including those by Drs. Ian Stevenson, Ray Moody, Bernie Siegel, and Rabbi Gershom. I found the subject fascinating and devoured information as I had done in my adolescent years. (For the record, at 14, I self-studied world religions, the metaphysics, astrology, and Freud’s work, as I continued to excel in school).
During that training week in October, 2001, I learned the technique, but I also learned many more things I had never imagined. I became friends with incredible and talented people and continue to cherish their friendship to this day.
More about this technique on Part II
Tags: brian weiss, gershom, hypnosis, moody, nih, oppenheimer, past life regression, psychiatry, siegel, stevenson