Age regression in therapy is a psycho-therapeutic process that aims to facilitate access to childhood memories, thoughts, and feelings.
[1] Age regression has become controversial both inside and outside of the therapeutic community, with many cases involving alleged child abuse, alien abduction, rape, and other traumatic incidents subsequently being discredited.
Many of these techniques are intensely physical and confrontational, and include forced holding of eye contact, sometimes while being required to access traumatic memories of past neglect or abuse.
This is a hypnosis technique utilized by hypnotherapists to help patients remember the perceptions and feelings caused by past events that have had an effect on their present illness.
[6] The purpose of hypnotic age regression is to reframe the negative feelings and perceptions of the past to facilitate progress towards the patient's goals.
The question of whether people should utilize hypnosis to recall memories of early trauma is very controversial.
Psychological research shows that interviews can be carried out in a way that people can easily acquire false memories.
[11] Joseph Green, a professor at Ohio University, conducted a study on hypnotherapy and false memories.