a highly controversial hypnotic regression technique in which a person is encouraged to move back in time to reexperience a supposed previous existence. Therapists who conduct past-life regression believe that the psychological and physical problems (e.g., phobias, insomnia) individuals currently have can be understood and resolved by discovering their origins in the experiences (e.g., traumas, unresolved conflicts, mistakes) of previous lives. Most hypnotherapists are skeptical of the practice and do not recognize it as a legitimate therapeutic tool. They claim that individuals’ memories of past lives are the product of fantasy, imaginative role playing, the expectations and suggestions implicitly conveyed to them by the hypnotist, or unconsciously produced confabulations constructed from personal knowledge, familiar places, events, television shows, novels, and other sources. Although the idea of reincarnation is accepted in numerous cultures, clinicians
generally consider actual past-life enactments to be manifestations of psychopathology. Also called past-life regression therapy; past-life therapy. See also age regression.