Past-Life Memories: What Therapists Need to Know About Trauma, Anxiety, and Spirituality

Tuesday, September 30, 2025.

Every so often in your practice, a client will look you dead in the eye and say: “This isn’t my first life, you know.”

For most clinicians trained in the U.S., the reflex is to either change the subject or quietly consider an appropriate DSM code.

But a new Brazilian study in The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion suggests we should pause before pathologizing.

Adults who report past-life memories show higher rates of anxiety, depression, and PTSD than the general population.

At the same time, they often report stronger spirituality and—crucially—higher happiness when forgiveness and spiritual coping also come into play alongside ancient memory.

In other words, whether you think reincarnation is real or not, these memories are clinically meaningful.

Let’s dig deeper. I was born for this.

From Stevenson’s Children to Brazil’s Adults

Psychiatrist Ian Stevenson had a curious calling; documenting children around the world who remembered previous lives, often with uncanny details—names, places, causes of death, even birthmarks corresponding to fatal wounds. Some of these memories faded with age, some did not. Stevenson made it his life’s work to compile these stories, while scrupulously avoiding making specific claims about reincarnation.

But this Brazilian study shifts the focus to adults with memories of past lives.

Adult memories were less likely to be about identity (“I was a merchant in Delhi”) and more often about trauma—violent deaths, unfinished business, or the sense of being forced back into life.

That difference, apparently matters.

Children’s memories often intrigue families and researchers. But adults’ memories tend to burden you with phobias, intrusive images, or existential despair.

For clinicians, the adult narrative is more symptom-laden and, at times, more isolating. But we need to look closer to make sense of the findings.

Clinical Patterns: Symptoms Across Centuries

The 402 participants in the study reported:

• High rates of anxiety and depression (46%).

• PTSD symptoms (39%).

• Phobias beginning in childhood—often linked to how they believed they died in a past life.

• Philias (unusual desires/interests)—such as early fascinations with particular weapons, eras, or activities.

From a clinical standpoint, these echoes resemble trauma imprints. They behave like trauma whether or not we believe in their origin.

Spirituality: The Protective Factor Therapists Can’t Ignore

Despite high symptom rates, many participants also reported greater happiness—but only if they practiced forgiveness and positive spiritual coping.

Forgiveness alone reduced PTSD risk by a whopping 79% and boosted happiness by nearly 400%. Negative coping (“I am being punished”) had the opposite effect, dramatically increasing distress.

For therapists, this is less about debating metaphysics and more about noticing what actually works.

Clients who found meaning in their memories, and who cultivated forgiving or spiritual frameworks, did better. Those who interpreted their memories as punishment did worse.

Cultural Context: Why Brazil?

In Brazil, reincarnation narratives are part of the cultural and religious mainstream.

Spiritism frames life as a series of incarnations designed for moral progress. Telling your friends about a past-life memory doesn’t mark you as psychotic—it makes you more interesting as a dinner guest.

In the U.S., the same disclosure might trigger suspicion of delusion or trauma-related hallucination. This cultural contrast is crucial for therapists: what reads as pathology in one setting may be an ordinary, even respected, spiritual experience in another.

Practice Implications for Therapists

• Keep Your Face Neutral. Clients detect condescension faster than a reincarnated bloodhound. Nothing screams amateur therapist like an incredulous scowl.

• Listen for Metaphor. “I was executed in a past life” may symbolize betrayal trauma, intergenerational fear, or unresolved guilt.

• Validate the Meaning. Regardless of literal truth, the memory organizes suffering into a narrative. That can be stabilizing.

• Support Protective Strategies. Encourage forgiveness, positive coping, and community connection.

• Avoid Dismissive Shortcuts. “That’s delusional” kinda shuts down the therapeutic process. The question is not “Is it true?” but “How does it affect you?”

The Larger Lesson

As therapists, we sit at the intersection of suffering and meaning-making.

Past-life memories, whether metaphoric, metaphysical, or both, highlight how humans metabolize trauma. They remind us that healing often depends less on what happened than on how the story is told—and whether someone is willing to hear it.

So whether or not you believe your client once lived in 17th-century France, the task is the same: respect the story, reduce the suffering, and look for the threads of ongoing resilience.

Past-Life Memories and Therapy: FAQs

Do past-life memories cause trauma?
Yes. Many adults report PTSD, anxiety, or depression tied to their recollections.

Are they always pathological?
No. The memories themselves aren’t inherently symptoms. The distress often comes from isolation, stigma, or negative spiritual framing.

How should therapists respond?
With cultural humility. Listen, validate, and explore the meaning rather than challenging the “truth” of the memory.

Can spirituality protect clients?
Yes. Forgiveness and positive coping are strongly correlated to resilience and lower distress.

Should therapists take past-life memories seriously?
Absolutely. Even if you don’t accept reincarnation, the experience is real to the client and clinically significant.

Final thoughts

At the end of the day, therapists don’t need to believe their client was burned at the stake in 1632.

We just need to believe that the memory hurts now.

Whether you think of reincarnation as cosmic truth or as your client’s flair for historical fiction, the therapeutic work remains the same: help them make meaning, soften the edges of the fear, and maybe even laugh with them at some absurd aspect of being human.

Laughter changes brain chemistry, and its pursuit, in these cases, should be an occasional clinical strategem.

On the intimate, psychological level, the phrase “laughing and forgetting” refers to how people cope with pain, love, betrayal, and shame.

We laugh at our own follies, sometimes as a way to soften memory until it fades.

Laughter can be a form of denial — a refusal to hold onto the gravity of events. But it can also be liberation — a way to move forward without being destroyed by the weight of memory, even memories of past lives. That’s where the resilience of forgiveness comes in.

After all, if the power of forgiveness can stretch across centuries, perhaps laughter is another coping strategy we can all also agree deserves a second life.

Be Well, Stay Kind, and Godspeed.

REFERENCES:

Carvalho, S. M. de, Tucker, J., & Moreira-Almeida, A. (2024). Who does report past-life memories? Claimers’ profile, religiosity/spirituality and impact on happiness and mental health. The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion. https://doi.org/10.1080/10508619.2024.xxxxx

Stevenson, I. (2001). Children who remember previous lives: A question of reincarnation (rev. ed.). McFarland & Company.

Koenig, H. G. (2012). Religion, spirituality, and health: The research and clinical implications. ISRN Psychiatry, 2012, 278730. https://doi.org/10.5402/2012/278730