Mediumship, Grief, and Psychotherapy

Mediumship has occurred in every culture, in every part of the world, throughout time. “Both mental and physical mediumship, the ability to communicate with entities on the other side that have passed over, has its philosophical roots in ancient traditions that go back to time immemorial” (Leonard, 2005, pp. 42-43). Leonard (2005) continued, “Indigenous peoples who inhabited the whole of the earth since the dawn of time have sought out and communicated with those in the spirit world” (p. 43).

What is mediumship? What is the difference between mediums and psychics? The theory of mediumship is that everyone has a soul that survives physical death (Gee, 2021). Gee (2021) described mediumship as working “soul to soul,” although people may call it working with “the spirit world . . . we are working our soul, to their [disincarnate] soul, and when we are working psychically, we are working from our soul to the soul incarnate” (lecture). As a medium one blends one’s soul with a disincarnate soul, whereas when working psychically one blends one’s soul with a person living on earth in a body.

Messages can be given while the medium is fully aware, in semi-trance, or in full trance (Dreller, 1997). In evidential mediumship, which occurs when the medium is fully aware, also called mental mediumship, the medium brings through specific information that they had no way of knowing that provides the client with evidence that they are being contacted by their loved one (Morningstar, 2016). Evidential medium Konstanza Morningstar (2016) listed types of evidence that can be relayed from the spirit person to “bring healing by providing evidence of the survival of consciousness beyond physical death” (p. 24). These include the person’s age at death; details of how they died; specific personality characteristics, habits, or likes and dislikes; and stories from their life with and without the client.

Messages, wrote Morningstar (2016), can be about anything and can be simple reassurances of the deceased’s love, wellbeing, or presence and support, or can be very specific. Morningstar provided the following examples of types of messages:

Wanting to express something they didn’t get to say before death; validation of end-of-life decisions; a desire to make amends; a new perspective on an old situation; validating of attempts at spirit contact; validation of dream visits; emotional support for the sitter during life crisis or difficulty; guidance on upcoming events in the sitter’s life. (p. 171)

Morningstar (2016) also explained that one does not need to have a gift to be a medium: “I believe that mediumship is a natural human skill, and that it can be developed just like you can learn how to read, . . . drive a car, or play an instrument” (p. 1).

In their podcast, medium Fleur Leussink and grief therapist Clair Bidwell Smith (2020) shared about working with clients first in a grief therapy session with Smith, and then a mediumship session with Leussink. Leussink said that she sends her clients to grief therapists after providing them with a mediumship session and that she is now getting clients who have been referred to her by therapists and physicians. Smith said that she has repeatedly witnessed how a good medium can connect a grieving client with their loved one in a way that helps the client review their life with the deceased, contact and process emotions, address unresolved aspects of their relationship, develop a new helpful connection or way of keeping the deceased present in their life.

The late Mavis Pittilla (2021a), one of the best and most respected mediums of our time, who had over 55 years of mediumship experience and was world-renowned for her mentorship of mediums, emphasized that mediums must have respect for the people in the spirit world.

The respect for the real people that are living out their lives in another world. Treating them like people. Not energy, not vibration, they are not ‘stepping in’ off the street, they’re people . . . just try to think of them as real people, living out a life, but holding fast to this world, through the memories that they have. Because that is really where the evidence is, it is in their memories. (lecture)

Pittilla (2021a) also cautioned mediums to remember they are not therapists, adding that therapists who are mediums should not combine mediumship and therapy in the same session, but should do them separately so as to keep the different roles clear.

The Windbridge Institute (2024), founded by pharmacologist Julie Beischel, is a scientific organization that conducted quintuple-blind studies on mediums for over 20 years. The studies have certified a certain number of mediums and have shown a high percentage of accuracy. Windbridge’s (2012) research findings concurred with continuing bonds theory that “grief is resolved when the bereaved are able to recognize their continuing bonds with the deceased” (“Continuing Bonds,” para. 1). Windbridge listed the following statements from grieving participants in its study of the benefits of mediumship:

 [It] had a profound effect on my life and my grieving process.

 After the reading . . . I had a different definition of my relationship with my mom that was more special than I could ever expect.

 When my first [therapist] negated the reading I had with a medium, I switched to someone who understood and supported “my new reality” and therefore received much more constructive help with my grief.

 I know that I personally needed to go through counseling as well. However, the level of healing was accelerated by getting readings.

 [The medium] helped me manage the grief that has been with me for more than 20 years.

 The medium reached my heart, the social worker my mind. (“Representative Participant Comments,” paras. 1-6)

Beischel (2023) shared that through mediumship research at Windbridge “we learned that some mediums can report accurate information about DLOs [deceased loved ones] without using fraud and their experiences of acquiring that information—even under laboratory conditions—reflect communication with actual DLOs, not ‘regular’ psychic functioning” (p. 232).

Induced After-Death Communication

Induced After-Death Communication (IADC) (n.d.) “is a brief psychotherapeutic intervention that generally involves only two treatment sessions, typically 90-minutes” (para. 2). IADC therapy is generally not recommended for the first 6 months following the loss, as the earliest stages of grief are characterized by shock, disbelief, and emotional numbing. For IADC to be effective, clients must be able and willing to access their sadness during these initial sessions. For nearly all people, it takes some time for the sadness to become fully assimilated (Neimeyer, 2021, p. 280). IADC (n.d.) directly asks the client to focus on the core emotional issue in grief—namely sadness—while receiving the bilateral stimulation. Since ADCs are naturally occurring experiences, no suggestion is offered. Any suggestion offered by the therapist will likely prevent the ADC experience. Therefore, the instruction to clients is simply to “just be open to anything that happens” (Neimeyer, 2021, p. 281). Neimeyer (2021) wrote that most messages received

seem to indicate that (a) their loved one continues to exist and is “okay,” (b) that their loved one is journeying with the client as they go forward with their own life, (c) that all residual issues of guilt, anger and blame have been “forgiven” and replaced by unconditional love, and (d) that the deceased wishes for the survivor to be happy and to go forward with their own life. Whatever the source of these messages, they seem to be uniformly healing for those clients who have a “successful” course of IADC therapy. (pp. 282-283)

Jung (1961/1963) questioned “whether the ghost . . . is identical with the dead person or is a psychic projection, and whether the things said really derive from the deceased or from knowledge . . . present in the unconscious” (p. 301). However, he also said after learning about spiritualism, that the spiritual phenomena about which he read were similar to “stories I had heard again and again” in childhood; concluding, “the material, without a doubt, was authentic” (p. 99). It interested him that the people he shared this with scoffed at it. Why “should there not be ghosts? How did we know that something was ‘impossible’?” (p. 99). Despite the unknowable reaches of spirit, “most people believe their experiential reconnection is real, but they do not have to believe in the authenticity of the experience to benefit from its profound healing effects” (IADC, n.d., para. 4).

This is an exerpt of my master’s thesis. Read the full version here: Spirit Therapy: Mediumship as an Adjunct to Depth-Oriented Grief Therapy

References:

Beischel, J. (2023). Love and the afterlife: How to stay connected to your human and animal loved ones. The Windbridge Institute.

Dreller, L. (1997). Beginner’s guide to mediumship: How to contact loved ones who have crossed over. Weiser Books.

Gee, A. (2021, January-December). Mavis Pittilla foundations [Online course]. https://www.mavispittilla.com/mentorship/

Induced After-Death Communication. (n.d.). IADC® therapy and the center for grief and traumatic loss. Induced-adc.com. https://www.induced-adc.com/

Jung, C. G. (1963). Memories, dreams, reflections (A. Jaffé, Ed.; R. Winston & C. Winston, Trans.). Vintage Books. (Original work published 1961)

Leonard, T. J. (2005). Talking to the other side: A history of modern spiritualism and mediumship: A study of the religion, science, philosophy and mediums that encompass this American-made religion. iUniverse.

Leussink, F., & Smith, C. (2020). Moving Beyond [Podcast]. Podbean. https://movingbeyond.podbean.com/e/moving-beyond-an-abusers-suicide/

Pittilla, M. (2021a, January 12). The whole medium [Recorded unpublished lecture]. Pittilla, M. (2021b, February 3). Mavis Pittilla foundations: World within worlds [Recorded unpublished lecture].