How to proceed with client who keeps having conscious thoughts during regression?

I had 2 session with my client whose dominant sense is kinaesthetic, secondary dominant sense is visual. While taking the history I noticed that there were no major emotions surfacing even when the client had been through many traumatic events. The childhood, adult life, relationships, career…they have faced problems in every area of the life.
During the regression, I initially decided to do the happy memories and closures. After I emerged the client back I was told that they weren’t able to concentrate on my instructions and this started right from Dave Elman itself. In client’s own words, “I wasn’t able to keep up with your instructions. I was listening initially but then I would start thinking that I am working on my laptop, or talking to someone, I thought of a post I saw on IG yesterday and many other things. The thoughts were trival and very rapid. And I would listen to the sentence and I snap out and then I remind myself to listen to you again and then I try to follow you but I would miss out what you said and it happened many times. It was very chaotic.” And they saw the same person all the three times during closure but couldn’t communicate anything with the person even once. The client doesn’t have any feelings for whatever happened (I think it supressed very deep down).
The client was very open with me from the beginning. I even told the client to allow themself to experience whatever comes up during regression.
After this I thought that I can just make them relaxed more…so I did the Dave elman and took them to the mountain(place that client likes) but the client slept and I realised it after I was suggesting to emerge out and there was no response.( I think here from now on I can make them speak)
How can I proceed further? Mainly how can I help them with the rapid and continuing conscious thoughts? Body was completely relaxed and the client was able to imagine and visualize everything but couldn’t communicate to anyone who appeared…

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This client feels truly earthy, real, and authentic. Often, in my opinion, clients attempt to suppress their post purchase dissonance in the feedback and convey the words/emotions that the therapist would like to hear. However, this person seems to be completely frank and under no obligation to add any artificial sweeteners.
I look forward to the suggestions to this post. Thanks for the share!

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Dear Siddhi,

Thank you for posting a very pertinent question . With the limited knowledge I have, the below is my response.

At the inception I must tell you that I myself am a thorough Kinaesthetic who have himself been on the Hot Seat (of Client) more than a couple of times.

The K types feel the experience and thus need fairly ample amount of time to process what they are experiencing,even in routine lives. Scenery with Visuals and Sounds are comparatively easy to conceive but when it has to be done with FEELINGS it need comparatively more time as it comes in very minute fragments packet by packet…in nonsequential manner . So TIME is of the essence here.

But once the picture is complete there would be no stopping…Supply will be coming directly from High Tension Line !!!

At times therapist might think that by a given time in a session, the experience should become clear to client but possibly by then the later might still be collecting and integrating the pieces of jigsaw puzzle. PATIENCE at therapist’s end is the needed magic wand.

Clients Drifting Away during the process or falling off to sleep both are not conducive for the session .I think increasing the frequency of taking IMR FEEDBACK INCL Voice Confirmation should definitely help.

Meditation practice may help the client in bringing mindfulness and balance required during PLR as well as routine life.

Scope of Communication with those coming for closures may be explored for an expression on face, some gesture or posture and not only limited to words.

Sometimes even a smile from a loved one can do it all !!!

Best Wishes,

Would love to read about the session.

Regards,

Monesh
:maple_leaf: :maple_leaf: :maple_leaf:

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Thanks a lot @Monesh_Bathre for such a detailed reply. I am also a kinesthetic individual, and I fully understand that processing information takes time for me since it involves feelings. I was particularly struck by this statement from your post, which resonates as deeply true: ’ PATIENCE is the magic wand needed at the therapist’s end. :cherry_blossom:

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Dear Siddhi, Thank you for inquiring with a question.
Kindly correct me if I’m mistaken.
Even though I am still in the process of learning, I would like to share my understanding as I have also come across this situation with my clients, and I would like to share with you what I follow.

For some clients, there may be a lot of resistance due to their analytical and reasoning minds, which can lead to resistance. Or perhaps they need more relaxation. You could consider following these steps:

  1. Encourage the client to engage in Breathing Exercises.
  2. Attempt Progressive Relaxation once more.
  3. Follow up with Deepening Techniques with the client
  4. Ask them, 'What is it that is preventing them from witnessing their past lifetimes?
  5. Try pyramiding technique.

This approach has worked for me, and I hope it proves helpful to you as well. Thank you​:pray::blush:

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Well done @Siddhi
I suspect focusing on the following might have changed the course of this session

  1. rapport building - let there be no walls between us and our clients, complete acceptance
  2. expectation setting in stage 3 (that they are responsible for the outcomes)
  3. Daksina, (charging a fee :joy: so that they valued the session and not dozed off)

May be the client is K, lacked awareness of what PLRT is and the key:-

Knowing the cutie child you are, I felt the feed back given to you by this client was curt, and even a responsibly social person would’ve appreciated the effort. (This is my parental instinct kicking in I suppose :blush:)

Don’t worry, just keep at it, I believe in you and I know that you are a sincere therapist.

We as therapists are like the little baby who the almighty unconscious allows a ride and is infinitely gracious :pray:

IMG_3859

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“May be the client … lacked awareness of what PLRT is” (Line 6 in the previous post by Venu Sir). This line raises a question in my mind.

The line would mean that in order for the therapy to be effective, it is required that the client should (A) believe in the idea of PLRT; or (B) at least, have an awareness of PLRT. Simply stated, we need a buy-in of the client into the philosophy of PLRT for the treatment to work.

But isn’t this is a strong dependency that curtails the applicability/ capability of therapy. Shouldn’t the therapy work irrespective whether the client believes in the idea. Do they need to compulsorily believe in the idea for the therapy to work on them?

IMO, our simple/minimal requirement should only be that the client agrees to undergo and cooperate in the procedural execution of PLRT.

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I felt the client was genuine and very open, wherever I felt client not expressing much, I asked for more details. On the second day we were able explore more.
I would like to share what I did with this particular situation, maybe it can help others as well:

  1. I assured again that it’s normal to have conscious thoughts under regression.
  2. I told the client to gently push away the conscious thoughts whenever it interferes.
  3. I asked to let me know whenever the thoughts interferes way too much.
  4. During Dave elman the thoughts were interfering much…so I suggested to imagine those thoughts coming out while exhaling and fading away. I also asked if there were any more thoughts, to give time to push it away.
  5. I kept suggesting, “if any unnecessary thoughts interferes, you can always imagine it going out of your mind as you exhale each time”.
  6. When it happened during PR, I suggested to imagine those thoughts coming out from the mind in any form or shape, going into the ball of light just above the head and to imagine it gradually fade away.
  7. Whenever the client said to me about thoughts and couldn’t push it away, I asked to let me know what the client were thinking and would then suggest the same… to let it go in ball of light. I think this helped slow down the conscious thoughts.
    Client was able to push away the thoughts afterwards on their own.
    The situation happened with 2 of my clients and it helped me both the times.
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Thank you @sandhya :sparkles:

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Thanks a lot @Monesh_Bathre, I agree with…

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In my humbel opinion, these are excellent suggestions. I am sure it will help all of us If we get similar clients.

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Thank you Arvind uncle! :innocent::sparkles:

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My…my …dear @Siddhi
Don’t worry… v all r high profile “Kinesthetic”…lure her with ur smiles and wear specs, so u dont look like cutie child as dad mentioned and other thing … as he taught us on 1st day 1st line…how can u forget "CASH IS KING":wink::wink::wink::wink:… put some nice instrumental music for her …so she is always with u and we are also always with u :smiling_face_with_three_hearts::smiling_face_with_three_hearts::smiling_face_with_three_hearts::smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

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Smile :white_check_mark:
Music :white_check_mark:
Cash :white_check_mark:
Hmmm…specs, I have to think about it :stuck_out_tongue:
Jk, I think making client more comfortable and as @Monesh_Bathre said, patience on therapist’s end is very important.
And I know you all are always with me…so grateful…:smiling_face::sparkles:

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Dear Siddhi - thank you so much for being the absolutely innocent soul that you are! I learned so much from you in those 5-6 days in Bengaluru, without you even realizing it and I don’t think I told you. Never lose your childlike confidence and innocence. My humble suggestions for your questions, basis my own work with clients is as follows:

  1. I realized spending a lot of time during the steps 1 to 6 is important. I stress always that while the unconscious/sub-conscious mind may be accessed during the sessions, the client will always have access to the conscious mind. I suggest that the client can allow the conscious mind to be there and accept its presence (like an uninvited member to a party!) but the client will be so relaxed as to allow the conscious mind to be on the periphery and just observe, not interfere - this suggestion has helped my clients relax and regress.
  2. I use our Noble Teacher’s - Venu’s advice and say, “if there is any noise or disturbance or any unnecessary thoughts interfere, allow them to take you even deeper and deeper.”
  3. Also, I told my clients that each experience is different for everyone - some may have blurs or just thoughts, some may have clear images, some may have feelings, allow each aspect to be part of the process - there is no right or wrong. If there are trivial thoughts - that is also ok, if it is rapid - that is also ok, if they see a scene that may not have any bearing, that is also ok. Importantly, it is for the mind to process what the mind wants to process it and just re-visiting a scene may release some emotion or pain or happiness wherever, whenever.
  4. For my kinaesthetic clients, I ask them to feel. E.g. - Feel each step as you descend, the next level of the staircase is just beneath your foot, feel the breeze in the garden, feel the leaves around you as you touch the plants, feel the spray from the mist of the fountain on your face… and so on.
    Hope this helps, and thank you for being you!
    Hugs, Vida
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Thank you so much! it means a lot to me. I have learned a lot from each one of you too. :innocent::hugs::sparkles:
Your suggestions are really valuable. Thank you for sharing, I am sure it will be helpful to many of us. :smiling_face::sparkles:

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Dear Siddhi, Try to regress the client to L(-1), L(-2)…and Archor at L(-1) and not to let him/her to L0. They should temporarily get flushed with past records and then ask the client to hold hands, touch entities, feel them, sit, stand etc. Involve them with Kinasthetics…it will happen! BEST OF LUCK!!!

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