A PLRT Case of Paternal Loss, Guidance, and the Search for Meaning
PLRT Case Report-3
(Client name changed for confidentiality)
My greetings to all seniors.
This is my third PLRT case report.
The client came with a long-standing feeling of being a misfit and a recurring sense that he should have been somewhere else or doing something else. He also carried questions connected with the early death of his father and a strong search for a guru and deeper meaning.
The session did not follow the route I had initially expected. It moved through several different experiential scenes before eventually returning to the childhood memory of his father leaving on his final journey.
What became particularly meaningful for me was that the strongest emotional activation appeared around the father scene rather than around the more elaborate regression imagery.
I have tried to document the case as faithfully as possible, keeping the client’s experience separate from my own interpretation and subsequent integration.
The session was conducted in Hindi. The English portions are my translation, while preserving the meaning and sequence of the original dialogue as closely as possible.
1. Case Overview
Client: “Rajan” (name changed)
Age / Gender: 45 years / Male
Occupation: Professor at a private college
Sessions: 3 sessions
Total duration: Approximately 9 hours
Dates: 11, 12 and 13 September 2026
Hypnotic Responsiveness: 4/10
V/A/K Modality: Visual 3, Auditory 4, Kinesthetic 5
Eye Roll Test: 2+1, medium depth
Initial Emotional Distress: 9/10
Initial Physical Distress: 8/10, experienced as heaviness in the head
Immediate Emotional Distress: 0/10
Immediate Physical Distress: 3/10
Primary working themes: Loss and Grief; Motivation and Direction; search for guru and meaning
2. Presenting Concerns and Present-Life Context
The client came with two main questions.
The first was about his long-standing feeling of being a misfit and the persistent feeling that he should be somewhere else or doing something different.
The second was connected with his father’s early death.
His father died when the client was approximately seven years old. One emotionally significant memory was of being ill, lying in his mother’s lap and watching his father leave on his final journey.
The client was born in a village in Bihar in a lower-middle-class family. He described his educational and career journey as involving considerable struggle. At present, his career and family life are relatively stable.
He described a continuing search for direction and meaning and also a tendency to look for a guru.
He currently lives with his wife and daughter in another city. His relationships with his mother and brother were reported as warm, although they live separately.
My initial working impression was that the case involved childhood loss and grief along with ongoing inner restlessness, dissatisfaction and meaning-seeking.
This was only a working impression and not a formal diagnosis.
3. Safety and Consent
Self-harm or suicidal ideation was not reported.
No psychiatric emergency or acute instability was reported.
The client was reported to be broadly stable in work, family and daily functioning.
No relevant medication or parallel treatment was reported in the case material.
Informed consent was obtained.
The regression imagery and spiritual experiences are recorded as the client’s subjective experiences. They are not presented as independently verified historical events or as established medical or psychiatric causes.
4. Intended and Actual PLRT Process
For this case I had planned the Amarantos 15-stage protocol session by session. My intention was to carry the full protocol through.
However, the actual session developed organically and did not follow the planned sequence.
Intended Process
The intended process included history taking, rapport, pre-talk, assessment and theme finalization, followed by induction and deepening, Happy Memory and Age Regression, in-utero exploration, regression work, KMF2C, carry-over, resolution, Inner Child Healing and finally return, closure and integration.
What Actually Happened
Preparation and Assessment
The client’s two main questions were established and became the focus of the work.
Induction and Deepening
Dave Elman induction and deepening were completed. The client appeared to reach an adequate depth for experiential work.
Happy Memory and Age Regression
When invited toward a happy memory, the client moved directly into the emotionally significant scene of his father’s final journey.
In-utero
The suggested in-utero route did not develop as intended. The client instead reported an out-of-body type experience followed by blankness and fog.
Regression Exploration
Several scenes emerged, including space and yellow light, a royal warrior, a priest in a Shiva temple and a monastery warrior-monk.
KMF2C, Carry-over and Resolution
These were not completed as clearly separated protocol stages within one continuous regression narrative. The session followed the material as it emerged and eventually returned to the opening father scene.
Inner Child Healing
The work developed into a father-child reparative dialogue involving connection, receiving and protection.
Return, Closure and Integration
Grounding and return were completed, followed by therapist-led integration.
The protocol therefore remained partial and incomplete.
That deviation was my decision, and I record it as part of the case rather than presenting the spontaneous route as necessarily superior to the planned protocol.
5. Original Session Q&A Transcript
Below is the original dialogue sequence of the final session, translated from Hindi. T is me, the therapist, and C is the client.
The dialogue is retained as the primary record of what was actually said. My observations are kept in parentheses only where they were part of the original record.
Scene 1: The Mother’s Lap and Father’s Final Journey
T: Let us move toward that turn in your life where things feel happy.
C: (Instead of a happy moment, the client begins in a scene of grief.) I am in my mother’s lap. I am ill. Father is leaving. I am watching him go, silently.
T: Where is your father going?
C: It is his last journey. I am lying in my mother’s lap, watching him.
T: What feeling are you going through?
C: I am sad, but I am silent. The tears will not come.
T: Would you not like to stay with this emotion for a while?
C: No.
T: All right. Let us go a little further back in your life, to when you were in your mother’s womb. A count from three to one, and we are in that time. Now that you are in the womb, would you like to tell us something?
Scene 2: Out-of-Body Experience Instead of In-utero
(Instead of the in-utero experience, the client spontaneously moved into an LBL-like state.)
C: There is a forest, very dense. There is a hill. Below it, a ravine.
T: Where are you at this moment?
C: I am watching all of this from the sky.
T: Are you in a body?
C: No, I am out of body.
T: Is there something here that carries significance?
C: I am feeling relaxed. Completely light.
T: Good. Then let us stay a while in this dimension.
C: (After a few seconds, on his own.) Everything has gone blank.
T: So you cannot see, hear or feel anything at all?
C: Now a kind of fog has spread all around.
T: Stay with the fog for a while. Sometimes nothing happening is also a kind of happening.
Scene 3: Space and the Circle of Yellow Light
C: (Again, without being asked.) I am in space, among the moon and the stars. There is a circle of yellow light all around me.
T: What are you experiencing right now?
C: Protected.
T: Anything else you would like to say?
C: Someone is coming from far away.
T: Who is it?
C: Some shadow.
T: What does it want?
C: It wants to harm me.
T: Would you like to tell me more about this shadow?
C: It is masked, dressed in black.
T: Is it close to you?
C: It is still some distance away, but now they have become many.
T: Are you afraid of these black shadows?
C: Yes, a little.
T: Can you hear any sound as well?
C: Those masked shadows are coming toward me like rockets.
T: Have they reached you now?
C: They are not able to. They cannot cross the circle of yellow light.
T: Have you ever seen such a scene before?
C: No, never.
T: Anything else you would like to say?
C: Then the fog spread again. Everything clear, everything quiet.
(Here I asked nothing for a while and only observed. There was movement under the eyelids and a slight furrowing of the brow. Then he began to speak on his own.)
Scene 4: The Commander in the Palace
C: I am in a palace, in royal dress.
T: Are you part of the royal family?
C: No, I am a commander.
T: Is there anyone here whom you know?
C: No, no one.
T: What are you doing at this moment?
C: I am a warrior. I am preparing to go to war.
T: What is it that you like?
C: War is dear to me. The battlefield is my field of action.
T: So are you present on the battlefield?
C: I do not know, suddenly a fog has come.
(A few seconds of silence.)
Scene 5: The Priest of the Forest Shiva Temple
C: I am in a forest. Before me is an ancient Shiva temple.
T: What are you doing there?
C: I am the priest of this temple.
T: What would your age be?
C: I am in the last stage of life.
T: Tell me about the temple.
C: A divine Shivling, self-luminous, with fire burning all around it.
T: Is anyone else there besides you?
C: Devotees have gathered. A special worship is being prepared.
T: For what is the worship?
C: A great ritual, for a siddhi of mine.
T: Do you desire this siddhi?
C: Yes. Through it I will become more powerful.
T: How necessary is this siddhi for you?
C: I have waited many years for it.
T: Why many years?
C: The guru’s permission was not coming.
T: Has the guru given permission now?
C: No, but I can wait no longer.
T: Is it right to disobey the guru’s instruction?
C: I will win Gurudev over later.
T: Let us move a little beyond the ritual, with a count from three to one. Is there any experience you would like to share with us?
C: There is fog all around. Emptiness. Silence.
(A few seconds of silence, then he began to speak on his own.)
Scene 6: The Warrior-Monk of the Monastery
C: I am returning from war.
T: I see. Would you like to say more about this?
C: I am a monk of the monastery, and a warrior as well.
T: Where are you at this moment?
C: I have returned to the monastery. The guru is before me. He looks somewhat displeased.
T: Displeased. Would you like to tell me about that?
C: Gurudev says I should do meditation and sadhana. My mind is drawn to war.
T: War, violence, in the life of a monk?
C: Defending the monastery is also necessary.
T: From whom is the danger?
C: There is terror from the invaders. Weapons will have to be taken up.
T: Would you like to tell me about any significant experience of this life?
C: The invaders have attacked. I am fighting.
T: Are there no others fighting on your side?
C: There are many other monks, but one of them betrayed me. I have been struck from behind with a sword.
T: A sword. Are you badly wounded?
C: Yes, a lot of blood is flowing. But the enemy has fled.
T: Would you like to stay with this experience, or is there something more you wish to say?
C: My people have come to see me. It is the final hour.
T: The final hour. Would you like to share the experience of this moment?
C: The body is growing limp. The eyes are still. I am above, the body is below. There is no pain now. Peaceful.
T: With this peace, whatever you are experiencing, will you tell me.
Scene 7: Return to the First Scene and the Father-Guru Recognition
(Without any suggestion, the same scene returned with which the session had begun.)
C: I am in my mother’s lap. Father is leaving.
(Tears appeared in the client’s eyes and his voice became choked.)
T: Do you want to say something to your father?
C: Yes.
T: Now let us return to the dimension a little before the death. With a count from three to one.
(Countdown.)
Inner Child Healing and Father-Child Dialogue
T: Look, your father is before you. Move toward him slowly. Meet him, feel his affection and his protection. If there is any unfinished question or anything left unsaid, you may place it before him.
C: Father. Guru.
T: Is the guru there as well?
C: Father. Guru. One.
T: Are you saying that you see the form of the guru in your father?
C: (Softly.) Yes. (FEW SECONDS PAUSE)
C: I asked my father, why did you leave so soon.
T: What answer did you receive?
C: I am the guru, I am the father. What you could not learn then, you will have to learn now, and alone.
T: If you wish, you may also ask your father about the dissatisfaction in your present life.
C: Father is saying, how long will you keep fighting. If fighting becomes a habit, you will have to ask yourself why it is necessary. Winning is not that important. This time focus on giving, not on the craving to obtain.
C: And now, in this life, the guru is not somewhere outside. He is within you. Awaken the guru within you.
(With this, grounding and the return from trance were carried out properly.)
6. Session Integration
After the return from trance, I connected the themes that had emerged during the session with the client’s present life.
The focus of my integration was on self-connection, acceptance, personal responsibility, inner guidance and purposeful giving.
This part was therapist-led. I therefore keep it separate from the client’s own statements during trance.
My intention was not to establish a metaphysical explanation for the experiences, but to help the client consider what meaning these experiences could have for his present life.
7. Session Observations
The client did not enter the requested happy memory. He instead moved directly into the childhood scene of his father’s final journey.
Initially, he acknowledged sadness but did not want to remain with the emotion.
Following the in-utero suggestion, he reported being outside the body, experiencing lightness, blankness and fog.
He then moved through several spontaneous scenes involving a yellow protective boundary, masked figures, a royal warrior, a Shiva-temple priest and a warrior-monk.
The priest and warrior-monk scenes both contained a theme involving the guru and the client’s relationship with guidance and action.
After the warrior’s death, the client spontaneously returned to the opening father scene.
The return to this scene was accompanied by tears and throat constriction.
A recurring process observation was that fog appeared before major transitions.
At several of these moments I initially experienced the scene as a possible dead end. Later I began to observe that the fog was repeatedly followed by a transition into another experience.
8. Experience and Interpretation
Father Scene
The client reported being in his mother’s lap while his father was leaving on his final journey. On the later return to the same scene, tears and throat constriction appeared.
My interpretation is that current-life paternal grief may be an important part of the case.
Out-of-Body Experience
The client reported observing a forest from above, feeling light and then experiencing blankness and fog.
I record this as an out-of-body type experience. I do not classify it as a verified LBL event.
Yellow Light and Masked Figures
The client reported a yellow protective circle and figures that were unable to cross it.
The client also reported both slight fear and a sense of protection.
I considered whether the yellow light could have functioned as a symbolic protective resource. This remains an interpretation.
Priest and Guru Permission
The client reported waiting for guru permission and later deciding to proceed without it.
This may be relevant to themes of authority, guidance and action.
Warrior-Monk
The client reported tension between the guru’s expectation of meditation and his own orientation toward fighting and defending the monastery.
This repeated the broader guidance-versus-action theme.
Father and Guru
The client said:
“Father. Guru. One.”
This statement is important as client-generated material.
However, I also recognise that it came immediately after my question, “Is the guru there as well?”
I therefore do not describe the statement as completely independent of therapist influence.
9. Working Inner-State Patterns
Loss and Grief
The strongest direct emotional signal in the case is connected with the father’s death.
The father scene appeared at the beginning and later returned spontaneously, and the later return produced stronger emotional activation.
I therefore consider Loss and Grief the primary working pattern in this case.
Motivation and Direction
The client’s long-standing feeling of being a misfit, his sense that he should be somewhere else or doing something else, and his search for meaning and a guru suggest a second important area.
I consider Motivation and Direction a secondary working pattern.
Loneliness and Disconnection
The statement about having to learn alone may be relevant here.
However, the session did not establish whether the client experienced this as loneliness, autonomy, responsibility or something else.
I therefore leave this as an open area for follow-up.
Attachment
Paternal loss is clearly relevant, but the available information is not sufficient for me to make a broad attachment formulation.
No diagnosis is being assigned through this framework.
10. Trigger and Response Pattern
A tentative working pattern emerged around loss and unresolved meaning.
The early loss of the father may have contributed to a sense that something important was missing.
That feeling may have been associated with the client’s continuing sense of being a misfit and his search for direction and meaning.
The search for a guru may then have become one way of looking for guidance outside himself.
The material emerging toward the end of the session appeared to move the client toward a different possibility: receiving guidance while also recognising personal responsibility and inner guidance.
I consider this a working formulation rather than an established causal chain.
11. Guidance During the Session
On reviewing the transcript, I recognise that therapist guidance was not uniform throughout the session.
At several points I asked open questions and allowed the client to continue.
At other points I used more specific questions.
The strongest therapist influence occurred around the father and guru moment.
The client first said:
“Father. Guru.”
I then asked:
“Is the guru there as well?”
The client responded:
“Father. Guru. One.”
I then asked whether he was seeing the guru’s form in his father, and he answered yes.
Therefore, although “Father. Guru. One.” is the client’s own statement, the elaboration that followed was influenced by my questioning.
The question about the client’s dissatisfaction in present life was also therapist-suggested.
The Inner Child section contained directed imagery involving approaching the father and receiving affection and protection.
The integration after trance was entirely therapist-led.
I consider this an important methodological limitation because therapist guidance affects how independently the resulting material can be treated.
12. Outcome and Follow-Up
Emotional Distress
Before session: 9/10
Immediately after: 0/10
Physical Distress
Before session: 8/10
Immediately after: 3/10
There was a substantial immediate subjective reduction in emotional distress and a partial reduction in physical distress.
No adequate follow-up data are currently available.
Therefore, I record this as an immediate subjective change only. I do not interpret the before-and-after change as proof of efficacy or causation.
13. Client-Generated Meaning
The most important meanings expressed by the client during the session were:
“Father. Guru. One.”
“I am the guru, I am the father. What you could not learn then, you will have to learn now, and alone.”
The client also expressed the message:
“How long will you keep fighting. If fighting becomes a habit, you will have to ask yourself why it is necessary. Winning is not that important. This time focus on giving, not on the craving to obtain.”
Finally, he said:
“And now, in this life, the guru is not somewhere outside. He is within you. Awaken the guru within you.”
I record these as meanings that emerged within the session.
My later integration is kept separate from these statements.
14. Therapist Learning
One of my strongest learnings from this case was that the most elaborate regression imagery is not necessarily where the deepest emotional activation occurs.
The session contained several vivid experiences, but the strongest emotional response appeared when the client returned to the current-life father scene.
I also learned something about silence.
There were moments when I initially felt that the process had reached a dead end. The recurring fog was particularly challenging for me.
When I allowed more space and did not immediately interrupt, the experience sometimes moved forward on its own.
At the same time, I recognise that I moved too quickly away from the first grief scene after the client declined to remain with it.
The priest sequence also contained a potentially important conflict around guru permission and action, but I did not explore it sufficiently.
After the warrior’s death, disidentification and closure were not completed.
The yellow-light experience contained a possible protective resource, but I did not adequately explore or anchor it.
The most important learning, however, concerns my own questioning.
The father-guru moment was also the point where my guidance was highest.
This has made me more conscious of the need to distinguish between helping a client explore an experience and inadvertently directing the meaning of that experience.
15. Limitations of the Session
The session did not reach a clearly established root-cause resolution.
A complete Prati-Prasava process was not achieved.
KMF2C and Carry-over work were not completed as clearly separated processes within one continuous regression narrative.
Disidentification after the warrior’s death remained incomplete.
The specific present-life triggers of the client’s misfit feeling were not sufficiently explored.
The yellow-light protective experience was not sufficiently developed as a resource.
Some of the later meaning-making involved therapist guidance.
There was also a discrepancy between session notes and the transcript regarding the extent of the father’s response. In this report I have retained the transcript-supported version and avoided adding unsupported details.
16. Follow-Up Questions
If further work is undertaken, I would like to explore:
How does the client now experience the message that he will have to learn alone?
Does he experience it as relief, autonomy, responsibility or loneliness?
Has there been any sustained change in the grief or longing connected with his father?
In which specific situations is his feeling of being a misfit strongest?
What situations trigger the feeling that he should be somewhere else or doing something else?
Has his external search for a guru changed after the experience of the guru being within?
Has the insight about giving rather than obtaining translated into actual behaviour?
Has the residual heaviness in the head persisted or resolved?
If further regression work is undertaken, can one sequence be explored more completely before moving to another scene?
17. What This Case Contributes to My PLRT Learning
This case reinforced for me the importance of distinguishing current-life emotional material from regression imagery.
The strongest emotional activation occurred around the current-life father loss.
The spontaneous return to the opening father scene was therefore an important process observation, although its mechanism remains unresolved.
The priest and warrior-monk scenes both contained a guru-related tension between guidance and action.
This is interesting enough for me to observe in future cases, but I do not consider one case sufficient to establish a general pattern.
Another process observation was the repeated appearance of fog before transitions.
I would like to remain attentive to whether similar transition patterns appear in future cases.
The case also reinforced the importance of recording Guidance Load and preserving the actual transcript.
18. What Remains Unresolved
This case does not establish that the reported regression scenes are literal past-life memories.
It does not establish that the father’s death or the client’s present dissatisfaction has a karmic or past-life cause.
It does not establish a specific metaphysical mechanism connecting the different scenes.
The regression material may be understood through several possible lenses, including current-life grief, existential meaning-making, symbolic processing or a PLRT-based interpretation.
The case does not provide sufficient evidence to determine which explanation accounts for the entire experience.
It is also not known whether the immediate reduction in distress will persist over time.
The exact meaning of the yellow light, masked figures, recurring fog and the father-guru connection remains open to further exploration.
19. Final Professional Reflection
This was my third PLRT case, and it became an important learning experience for me.
The session did not unfold in the way I had expected.
There were several moments when I felt that the process had reached a dead end. Yet the experience continued to move, sometimes after I simply allowed more silence.
The most meaningful part of the session for me was the eventual return to the father.
After moving through several different experiential scenes, the client returned to the childhood memory of his father’s final journey.
This time, the emotional response was stronger.
I invited him to go towards his father, meet him and receive his blessings.
He then asked his father why he had left so early.
The response that emerged was connected with learning what could not be learned earlier and now having to learn it himself.
Only in the course of this father experience did the father-guru connection become explicit.
The client said:
“Father. Guru.”
After my question about the presence of the guru, he said:
“Father. Guru. One.”
For me, the sequence matters.
The father scene came first.
The meeting came first.
The blessing came first.
The dialogue came first.
The recognition came afterwards.
At the same time, I must acknowledge that my questioning influenced this part of the process.
That is an important part of my learning from the case.
I do not want to force a story toward a predetermined conclusion.
I also do not want to use the organic flow of a session as a reason to ignore the discipline of the PLRT protocol.
My learning from this case is therefore about finding a better balance between the two: staying present with what is emerging while remaining aware of the structure, my own influence and the limits of what can actually be concluded.
The regression experiences in this case remain meaningful within the client’s subjective experience, but their historical or metaphysical status remains unresolved.
I have intentionally preserved that uncertainty.
For me, that uncertainty is not something to hide from the report.
It is part of what this case has taught me.
Thank you to all the seniors for reading this case and for your guidance and observations.