Past life regression is often pitched as a way to find the buried root of a fear of closeness, the idea being that a betrayal or loss in another lifetime still shapes how a person guards themselves now. Someone who struggles with intimacy and has not found relief elsewhere can understandably be drawn to that story. Whether it can actually release the fear is a question worth answering carefully, because the answer is mostly no, with one narrow exception.
The exception is relaxation and narrative. A regression session is essentially guided hypnosis, and the deeply relaxed, focused state it produces can feel calming and absorbing. Some people leave with a vivid story that seems to explain their wariness, and that sense of having a reason can bring temporary relief. The relaxation is real, and a story can reorganize how a person thinks about themselves. Neither of those depends on the story being literally true.
The literal claim is where honesty has to hold firm. There is no scientific evidence for past lives, and research on regression shows how these memories form. When a hypnotist suggests a past life, suggestible people produce detailed identities, and the content tracks the person’s prior belief in reincarnation and the cues they are given rather than any recovered history. The memories that result can feel as real as ordinary ones, which is exactly what makes them risky. A confident false memory of a past betrayal is still a false memory, and building present relationships on it can mislead more than it heals.
Fear of intimacy usually has nearer and more workable origins: early attachment, past hurts in this life, anxiety, or trauma. These respond to approaches with real support behind them, particularly forms of psychotherapy that address attachment and trauma directly. A trained therapist can do this without planting events that never happened. For anyone whose fear is severe or tied to past abuse, that route is both safer and more likely to help.
So past life regression cannot reliably release a fear of closeness, and it carries a specific hazard in the false memories it can create. A relaxing session may offer brief comfort or a story that feels meaningful, but lasting change comes from working with the real history a person carries, ideally with a professional equipped to handle it.