Past Life Regression: Dr Brian Weiss MD

A graduate of Columbia University and Yale Medical School, Brian L. Weiss M.D. is Chairman Emeritus of Psychiatry at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami.

In a series of bestselling books, Dr. Weiss has recommended hypnosis for patients, in order to overcome phobias. These phobias, Dr. Weiss believes, go back to experiences from previous lives. By going back to those experiences through hypnosis, the patient confronts his/her fears, and ultimately, becomes desensitized to his/her original fears.

Weiss says that 33% of patients recall past life experiences the first time under hypnosis, the number climbs to 80% after several sessions.

Past-life therapy "gives us a more expanded concept of ourselves," says Weiss, "for what we really are, not these bodies, which are vehicles to carry us around, but are they really us? So, when you can do that, you can begin to get rid of anger and fear and negative emotions and feel very peaceful on the inside."

Though Weiss is a member in good standing, the APA's official statement regarding his
controversial therapy is a withering condemnation:

"The American Psychiatric Association believes that past life regression therapy is pure quackery. As in other areas of medicine, psychiatric diagnosis and treatment today is based on objective scientific evidence. There is no accepted scientific evidence to support the existence of past lives let alone the validity of past life regression therapy."

His first book Many Lives Many Masters was an overwhelming success. Eight more books have followed. Workshops, speaking engagements and other commercial endeavors have Catapulted PLR into the mainstream.

Dr. Alan Stevenson’s work on Reincarnation met the highest standards of research, whereas Dr. Brian Weiss work has met the highest standards of commercialism.

I do not state this as a criticism, rather as a different approach.

Dr. Brian Weiss