We take a lot of enquiries about the use of hypnosis to recall past events, find lost items, or uncover details of things that happened. 

Sometimes a person will enquire with us about using hypnosis to go over past events because they (or someone else) wants to have certainty about the truth of something that has occurred. 

There are lots of reasons why a hypnotherapist might be careful about someone wanting to uncover a memory, including: 

• Memory is not a fixed thing, and it changes over time; our emotions and experiences affect the content of our memories; 
• Sometimes memories are not created at all, such as where a person is under the influence of drugs or alcohol, or where a brain injury occurs;
• Where a traumatic event has occurred, not remembering can be serving a useful purpose; we want to ensure that someone is not re-traumatised by the process of recall;
• Where someone is looking for the ‘truth’ of a memory, this cannot be offered with certainty. People are capable of lying when they are hypnotised, and as mentioned before, memories can become altered as time passes.

You can read some more of what we have to say on this subject here: 

REGRESSION HYPNOSIS – What TV gets right and wrong about hypnotic regression

MEMORY AND CHANGE – Looking forward, not back, when we want to resolve our issues from the past

MEMORY RECOVERY  – Why that’s not always the best way forward

MEMORY & CONCENTRATION – Improving our recall so we can learn more effectively