Doyle P. Henderson has introduced a new concept in regression psychotherapy with his Panacea! interactive computer program. He is also the author of Amazing New Truths About Your Emotions which he has offered to computer users of various bulletin boards throughout the world. The techniques espoused by his earlier work required the use of a second party to access early feelings, but with Panacea! the innate problem of this early limitation has been resolved.

The computer program is the culmination of a lifetime of research and development by its author. He has also turned the theory of regression therapy on its head and further claims that his technique is not a form of psychotherapy. What Panacea! does, he claims, is to change the way that early memories are stored and recalled. Henderson says that the program works by converting an early body memory (before age 5) into a conceptual memory.

Thus, after a "bad" feeling has been worked through with Panacea!, when one experiences an event which has an emotional component similar to a feeling originally experienced in early childhood, the new conceptual memory is experienced instead of the older troublesome memory.

You do not have to agree with Panacea!'s theory for it to work, but it is necessary that you understand the theory as well as you can. The author makes this easy by repeating the essential parts of the theory many times but always in a clear and concise way which never becomes boring. Henderson writes the way you would expect an engineer to write -- which is his former occupation. He is now retired.

At first glance, Henderson's theory seems to fit in quite well with the work and research of Candace Pert, Ph.D. phamacologist and professor who feels that memories are body states which are actually stored in various body systems and organs.

"The mind," she writes,". . . is not just in the brain -- it is also in the body." She believes that "unexpressed emotions are buried in the body -- way, deep down in the circuitry of the organs, or the GI tract, or a loop in a ganglium."

However, as far as I know, Pert does not distinguish between the storage of conceptual memories and body-state memories. This distinction is the heart and soul of Panacea!

The author claims that every feeling which an adult experiences is really nothing new. It has all been felt before in events which occured before age five. He believes that all feelings have their origins in prebirth, birth, infancy and early childhood.

One implication of his theory is that it makes it possible for a person to eliminate the residuals of not just early traumas but also favorable and happy emotions. Thus Panacea! makes it theoretically possible to create a new type of human, a completely rational, non-emotional person, -- yes, a Mr. Spock (of StarTrek fame) type person.

Unlike other regression therapies which use feelings which are brought up in therapy to trace them to their source in early children or infancy, in Henderson's concept one may and does resolve all involuntary body states, which can be triggered by thought such as, blushing, sexual arousal, food dislikes, fears of public speaking, etc. whether this feeling is online or not. The program enables one to bring up those residual body feelings, re-live them and convert them to conceptual feelings. For the process to work you must be able to recognize those body state(s) which accompany the feeling you want to eliminate.

Chapters devoted to the implications of his Panacea! process are an integral part of his book. These include discussions of

• Alcoholism and other drug abuse problems - three chapters - (such addictions are merely a technique for tranquilizing uncomfortable feelings),
• How to raise healthy children - three chapters - (give them plenty of good feelings so they will have happy memories.),
• Sexuality and the perversions, etc.

The author recommends that food dislikes be the way one first uses the techniques espoused by Panacea! He claims that all food dislikes are the result of early feelings about food and presents good reasons why this is so. But you really need to become an accomplished "time tripper" to work with Panacea! properly. And you must not only use the technique to return to the past in yearly increments, but also sometimes in monthly, and even daily increments! Thus, you may need to track an event to its origin when you were aged five and a half or 4 years and 2 months and seven days!

I was incredulous that this was possible, but I spoke with a person who has used Henderson's Pancea! with success and he also said matter-of-factly that the mind knows exactly when the event occured!

Sometimes one's feelings become contaminated with other feelings later in life and it becomes necessary to go back in time to those parts of the feeling which make up a combined feeling. You thus return to the recent or remote past to find and re-live the separate feelings which makes up the more complicated feeling. By checking body sensations at earlier and later ages you find out when the feeling occured. And after you have removed the feeling you also return at a later date to see if the feeling indeed has been eliminated. If it has not, then it was comprised of still other combination feelings which must be tracked down and re-lived.

The Panacea! text is also a instructive device to teach someone how to track those early feelings which is an ability needed for the program to work.

The author does not promote Panacea! as a teaching device, but, after using the device a number of times, I believe that one, without conscious effort, will easily and naturally memorize the technique and be able to use it without a computer. I believe that, in some cases, this would be an asset as one could more easily trace feelings while lying down and use the techniques in places where a computer is not available.

But was I able to use Panacea! successfully?

I have tried the software program only two times since reading the book carefully a number of times, so in my case, the verdict is still out. Are my neurological circuits (grooves) too entrenched to change the way I access my early feelings? I am essentially a self-primaler. I always wait for the pre-primal tension to build naturally. It usually connects on its own, sometimes aided by music. I have had great difficulty in successfully using Stettbacher's method.

This will not merely be an academic exercise for me since I have a real incentive in getting Panacea! to work. I have been bothered by an extreme blushing reaction from early childhood and presently have the results present as rosacea -- a flushing facial skin reaction. So far, self-primaling has not worked in resolving this condition since I have not accessed any memories dealing with early shame which many believe is the emotion which causes this chronic skin condition.

Time will tell whether Panacea! will help me to get rid of my blushing reaction and facial skin rash, but I plan to give the Panacea! computer program a fair and careful evaluation during many months of daily use!

Now if only I can learn how to successfully "time trip"!