I was confronted with some upsetting ignorance over the weekend. What was said struck at the heart of an important and personal matter for me. 

There was inquiry into the certifying body and overseeing of regression therapists. (Basically “who polices?”) There was inquiry into my experience and qualification as a regression therapist. These matters obviously concern me too.

To answer this man now… The International Board for Regression Therapy (IBRT) was founded in response to a need for professional standards for preparation and practice in the field of regression therapy and research. The IBRT’s mission is to set these standards, evaluate the preparation and qualifications of practitioners and the quality of training programs, and to issue certificates to those who pass the rigorous evaluation process. It is a not-for-profit corporation registered in New York State and it’s President, Janet Cunningham Ph.D., is my teacher and friend.  

Concerning my qualification, I have 15 years of experience working with Jeff Ryan, former President of the International Association for Regression Research and Therapies, international speaker, teacher and my father. He is a pioneer of the profession, I’ll get into that more later. I have a BFA in Writing, Literature and Publishing from Emerson College. I’m certified in Transcendental Meditation. I’ve attended the New York School of Practical Philosophy for three years. And I’m currently working towards my certification by the IBRT. I’m considering graduate school to receive academic training in psychology.

My experience is unique. It is non-traditional and almost entirely practical, not academic. This is my strength. I did not learn this from a book. I learned as a boy of 15 with my eyes and ears, watching my father intuit the needs of his clients and healing them. I was in groups where he regressed 12-15 people and began to understand first hand how one moves through the mind and what effect this work has on a life. I had no formal therapy with my father. There was always a consciousness of conflict-of-interest. We continue to hold a respectful policy of boundaries. I worked with his colleagues, Janet Cunningham and Peg Davis. I began to practice on my friends… All this as a teenager. 

In my early 20’s my interest ebbs and flows until I come back to it at 26, traveling with my father and Janet to Istanbul for the first International Conference for Parapsychology, of which my Dad was the keynote speaker. I would go back to Turkey for training with my father and Janet once a year for the next five years.

And finally, I owe a significant portion of my education, my spirituality and my identity to this work. My father provided for me doing this, provided for my brother and I. Put a roof over my head and eventually a head on my shoulders. Regression therapy is approximately thirty years old, like me, and it is in my blood. If I demur at this old man voicing skepticism, it is the strength of my elders which drives me to continue. Brian Weiss Ph.D. was censured by the American Medical Association in the late eighties for publishing Many Lives, Many Masters. Groups of psychotherapists on the east and west coast met in secret to discuss the discoveries they were making and the results it was creating in their patient’s lives around the same time. What did it take for communities of therapists using regression in the UK and Netherlands to connect before the internet? How, eventually, were their results compared to their American counterparts? How did my father practice in suburban New Jersey as a hypnotherapist, and go on to help found the International Association for Past Life Research and Therapies? How did he and his colleagues form a training regimen for a profession with no precedent and no support from the existing medical establishment? And how is a future forged where these lengths are unnecessary and old ideas are disspelled?

By intelligent conversation. By listening. By ethical practice. By honest and thorough examination of the results. By fearless continuance. Yes, but that is not enough.

A stronger, younger community must rise up now communicating with modern means and modern language. Simple answers must be provided for questions. Answers that meet the needs of tomorrow, not yesterday. Answers that inform, not defend. 

And we must not shy away from the challenges put to us. I feel personally tasked with finding a way to gain acceptance for this thing that is so simple and good, wrapped in vagaries and loaded words. I need to continue. I need to work. And I need help. That is not a plea, as much as a statement of fact. I am still very much a student, one with big ideas. So here in the implicit loneliness of writing I help myself by forgiving myself for accepting doubt from the old man who knew no better. In that forgiveness, I set us both free. 

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