Freeing the Captives: The Emerging Therapy of Treating Spirit Attachment

Dr. Ireland-Frey has written and eye-opening, informative, and enlightening book about an important area of spiritual work. She gives a wide variety of situations and many instructive anecdotes. That being said, this is not a how-to manual. If you are interested in knowing about spirit attachment, this is an excellent starting place. If however, you wish to learn HOW to do spirit releasement, I suggest William Baldwin's "Spirit Releasement: A Technique Manual". This is the gold standard handbook for actually doing spirit releasement, but certainly is not "light" reading.

I really enjoyed Dr. Louise's gentle approach to releasing entities. She seemed to have compassion for even the darkest of entities but didn't hesitate to put them in a room of mirrors if they got too nasty. I like her methods and visualizations. Just a wonderful book.

I think this is an excellent book from cover to cover that deals with Spirit Release Therapy. Her approach when dealing with patients, alive and dead, human and non-human, is direct but most of all compassionate. She understands that no soul should be left lost outside the presence of the Divine, and that the Divine is in all things, even non-human entities, all should be given the chance to cross over.

I have thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. The reader who was disappointed and gave this book "1 star" must have missed the point and the purpose of this book. The books is about Spirit Releasement and it contains an abundance of real-life stories, which make it for an enjoyable and easy reading. The author doesn't state that all problems in anyone's life are related to spirit releasement, however she does tactfully and routinelly check for the possibility of any mental and energetic influences from external sources. It simply makes it easier when assisting the client to deal with issue that actually relate to the client. It is not the purpose of spirit releasement techniques to place all the blame and responsibility on outer sources. After all, it is the individual's own thoughts and emotions that open the person to any external influences. And even when spirit releasement does indeed provide speedy relief from some perplexing problems, unless the individual invests some conscious effort in maintaining healthy state of mind, emotions and body, he may very well open himself to more unhealthy influences. The thing that I particularly like about spirit releasement books as opposite to exorcism books is that the therapist doesn't just remove the unhealthy influence, but makes sure to help it to understand and exprience that there is a better way to live and that it is in its best interests. I like Irene Hickman's metaphor (from her book "Remote Depossession") that compares the exorcism method to taking nails out of one's tire and then tossing them out on the road, so they can pierce someone else's tires, or even one's own should the individual drive along the same road at a later time; whereas she compares spirit releasement method to actually disposing of the nails so that they don't cause damage to anyone later on. I have particularly appreciated the compassionate approach in this book of providing a brief therapy even to disembodied spirits before directing them into the light. The book lists and provides examples of extremely wide range of external influences - the greatest number of external influences being by lost and confused human beings who have not successfully made a transition to the spirit world. The influences are not always by those we'd consider "dead", but also by mental influences from other living human beings. Again, I find it important to add that nothing and noone can influence the person, unless the person has first created some kind of an opening to be influenced. Most of us take daily care that our bodies and clothes are clean - not many take care that their thoughts and emotions are clean, too.

Sometimes a spirit, or soul, gets confused when its earthly body dies. It either doesn't see the light that awaits it, or fails to turn to the light. And sometimes these confused spirits attach themselves to new living bodies, interfering with the soul that already inhabits that body. In Freeing the Captives: The Emerging Therapy of Treating Spirit Attachment, hypnotherapist Louise Ireland-Frey, M.D. details how and why these "obsessing entities" must be released. A pioneer in "spirit releasement therapy," Dr. Ireland-Frey practiced medicine until 1979. At age 67, she then began a new career as a hypnotherapist. Since then she has studied with others doing releasement and helped hundreds of clients. Dr. Ireland-Frey believes there are two parts to releasement: the living person must first have the obsessing entity freed from it; and then the freed entity must be shown the way to light, so that it finds its proper place and doesn't attach itself to others. Releasement is also known as "dispossession" by other practitioners. Persons who have attached spirits may experience personality changes, become inexplicably depressed, or find themselves doing things they normally wouldn't do. Dr. Ireland-Frey has included dozens of case studies that illustrate how attached spirits affect people, and how she, and other practitioners, have released them. "The earthbound souls of deceased human beings are by far the most commonly found kind of obsessing or oppressing entity," according to Dr. Ireland-Frey. There are, however, various other kinds of entitles, such as past-life personalities, negative thought-forms, elementals, and "dark beings of a demonic nature." The obsessing entities can occupy physical locations, such as homes, as well as living bodies. For those readers interested in helping others with releasement, the final chapter offers basic instructions and cautions. Dr. Ireland-Frey says "the need is great; many souls are wandering or hiding, some in bewilderment, some in fear of hell, some in fear of continuing terrors of war, abuse, or betrayal." She urges readers to "reach out to these souls and rescue or release some of these needy ones." Practitioners must take care, however, to first protect themselves from possession. Freeing the Captives sheds new light on the age-old problem of possession and offers hope and encouragement to those whom invading entities have attached themselves, as well as providing guidance to those wishing to help free the living person and the obsessing entity.