When skillfully presented by a clinically adept therapist, or a well trained intuitive counselor, psychic readings, or intuitive consultations, can become powerful, respectable, and remarkably effective tools of brief therapy. Psychic readings offer a useful and efficient bridge between mental/emotional suffering and a force that opens into deeper, more fundamental healing.

 

If you find this concept startling, let’s start with a useful definition of psychotherapy. Traditionally we have come to think of psychotherapy as the mobilization of alternate ways of understanding one’s life story; the opening of new vistas; and the facilitation of more positive feelings and functional behaviors. This accepted definition, with its variations, has led to a wide variety of established therapeutic approaches. 

 

Psychodynamic therapy, for example, describes how we got “this way,” how we produced our characteristic and unique adaptations and neuroses. Body therapies help us understand how carrying trauma as bodily tension often leads to self-imposed limitations. Body-work can bring to the surface the same kind of memories as those revealed in psychodynamic psychotherapy and other more interpretive modalities, while cognitive therapy can restructure beliefs and restore positive perspective. Hypnosis uses trance and evocative language to release the power of the unconscious mind to shift belief and behavior.

 

Methods such as these constitute our more familiar way of experiencing the world of clinical options, and have constituted our traditional understanding of how to provide therapy. Provided in a context of therapeutic intervention, psychic readings offer another effective approach. Readings utilize the benefits of trance, the interpretive features of more traditional modes, as well as some powerful “value-added” ingredients based 0n the mystery and mystique of the “psychic.” In many cases, a “psychic” reading allows the patient to take in messages, and make therapeutic shifts more readily than she/he might with a more traditional clinical method.

 

Now, if you are looking for more resonance with these ideas, consider the following questions: Have you come to understand that hypnotic interventions can effectively bypass our rigid ego structures? Have you ever utilized the power of trance to assist your patient in accessing the wisdom of the unconscious? 

 

Are you still curious about the added value or still a bit skeptical?

 

Are you perhaps thinking that in order for a reading to be truly “psychic,” the intuitive counselor must be blindfolded or in a separate room in order to avoid picking up minimal, or subliminal cues being broadcast by the subject? That might make an interesting experiment, but we are not discussing becoming fortune-tellers.

 

Rather we are suggesting that psychic intuition can be a useful tool in the kit of therapeutic skills. For our discussion, we pose the idea that minimal and subliminal cues are regularly “read” by therapists to formulate interventions that will work.

 

We suggest that, as clinical experts, we are trained to “read” resistance, and intuit the moments when a fertile opening for intervention is offered. Think about the moments when, after a successful session, you congratulated yourself on your gut feeling about taking things in “the right” direction.

 

Consider the following: Have you followed an intuitive thought that came to you in a therapy session? Have you utilized “hunches” in combination with your academic learning, and your clinical experience, to pose a question or venture an interpretation? Minimal and subliminal cues are basic material “read” by therapists to formulate creative interventions that will work.

 

We suggest that we consistently “read” our clients, intuiting the moments when there is an opening to intervene, and guide the patient to the goal. Sometimes we are spot on, and sometimes we try again. From this angle, psychic readings can be seen as having some similarities to traditional clinical practice. And, like clinical modalities, psychic readings also come in a variety of creative and effective forms.

 

What we typically consider to be “psychic readings” is the traditional setting in which information assumed to be intuited by the reader is interpreted and offered with or without questions or discussion. Other readings utilize an object such as Tarot Cards or Rune Stones, or a piece of jewelry (Psychometry) as an intuitive tool for the reading. Other types of readings, such as past life readings, can be interactive, as in the past life regression case example.

 

In an interactive reading the reader engages the client in the reading itself, creating a mutual intuitive experience, somewhat some similar to a role-play or a gestalt intervention. All types of readings, when offered from an intention of helping the client to grow, can pave the way for more positive meanings, moods, and emotions to become part of the client’s ongoing life story.

 

The common denominator in all types of readings is the reader’s stillness of mind, or mindfulness, or “trance” (a term used by both clinicians and psychics) as a tool for entering a state of availability for the intuitive message to come through, and for a mutual state of peacefulness to be experienced by the reader and his client.

 

 

Some may disregard messages that come from a psychic reading because, “No one really takes these things seriously!” However, we propose that psychic readings suggest to the client a powerful source of new knowledge and wisdom that when taken seriously can lead to healing shifts in mental states and even physical conditions. Anticipation is what can make a difference.

 

Anticipation is the key because reading clients typically expect an unfamiliar and exciting insight, which can become compelling motivation to listen. In our experience, this motivation can facilitate more rapid integration of the material presented, and advance shifts in emotion, and changes in behaviors that might occur more slowly with more traditional modalities.

 

In our experience, when, instead of saying, “Tell me about yourself;” the reader offers, “Let me tell you what I sense about you,” there begins compelling motivation for the client to attend and take in the information and the wisdom. In this way, psychic readings can actually bypass the cognitive obstruction of denial that arises during questioning or probing, thus increasing the potential for a deeply transformative and lasting healing via a more welcomed (and exciting) medium. 

 

    Yes, I did say medium! 

 

In fact, we suggest that in a psychic reading, the medium is the medium. For when you offer the idea of a reading to a client, a powerful joining begins. Clients come to a session ready to be “read”, wanting to believe that you have something meaningful to offer, wanting to take in what is said, wanting to feel better, and eager for transformational “magic.” This is where resistance departs and wisdom, trance, belief and the power of an evocative story come in. 

 

Take for example the case of Amy, who sat for past life “reading” with Mario, a gestalt therapist, who used past life readings in his practice. Mario engaged Amy in a psychic experience that helped her understand her story and potentiated significant shifts in Amy’s mood and behaviors.

 

Brought up by loving, Irish parents who had adored her, Amy had spent four years in therapy working on traumatic circumstances that had happened both in childhood and in adulthood. Even after much working through of these events, Amy remained unable to resolve the issues maintaining her low-grade depression.

 

The first trauma had occurred during second grade, when after an illness Amy had gained extra weight, with which she still struggled. Second, Amy had been sexually molested at ten by a stranger who fondled her in a movie theater. In young adulthood Amy’s father, whom she dearly loved, had died. Finally, in her late thirties, after having lost weight for the first time, Amy had been the victim of a date mugging while on vacation.

 

Albeit committed, motivated and insight-oriented, Amy continued to suffer from lingering dissociative features, inability to commit to another successful weight loss program, and a troubling sense of insecurity and loss that she did not understand, and that her therapist could not help her to fully resolve.

 

During this time, Amy's therapist was part of a group of clinicians exploring alternate states of consciousness and alternative forms of therapy. Fortified by what she was studying, Amy’s therapist suggested that the root of Amy’s continuing difficulties might lay further back in the past than they had considered. Amy’s therapist suggested that an interactive past life psychic reading with Mario might help explain what was keeping Amy stuck, and orient her toward the shift she so deeply desired.

 

With her interest piqued, Amy agreed that she and her therapist would attend a session with Mario. During consultation Mario offered to guide Amy through a "past life reading/regression, “ suggesting that Amy might re-experience “past” circumstances and feelings that could help explain the blocks to recovery, potentially enabling the shift that could assist Amy in moving on with her life. 

 

An avid traveler, Amy welcomed, and was excited by, the idea of a past life “reading.”  However, Amy was clear that she did not want to go back to a life in France. She explained that she’d always had an unexplained aversion to visiting that particular country. Nevertheless, using skilled intuition and gentle questioning, Mario guided Amy into trance and together they uncovered a past lifetime in France.

 

Amy discovered that invading soldiers had abducted her young son and had murdered her husband and other family members. In order to survive in that life, Amy had not been able to show or even feel any of her sadness. As the reading progressed, Amy described her struggle with one of the soldiers, a man who eventually killed her. 

 

Through the course of the reading, Amy wept, and was able to experience these “past” circumstances, and a variety of feelings, we might refer to as “repressed” in other contexts. Amy touched into grief that might have been “old” in her past life, or old in this life, and that, in either life, facilitated a release of grief that would prove to be useful in helping Amy to make meaning of her current difficulties, and to shift from a state of victimization to a state of mobilization.

 

While still in trance, Amy was given the suggestion that her unconscious mind would find a way to help her feel her feelings and forgive herself. Mario suggested that the healing process could renew Amy’s energy for self care, and that she could release residual self-accusation, anger and/or guilt.

 

During debriefing, Mario asked Amy what she might have brought with her from this past life experience into her present life. Amy responded that she had carried forward the need to stay numb, and the inability to forgive herself for having been unable to prevent the loss of her loved ones, particularly her small son, whom she had witnessed being taken away by the invaders. 

 

In considering this case, it is tempting to get into the issue of whether such a reading represents a reality. We might conclude that past lives exist and can be accurately recalled. On the other hand, we might see this psychic experience, skillfully guided by the therapist, and openly accepted by the patient, as a type of evocative metaphor that was able to reach Amy on a level that a more direct approach had been unable to do.

 

Whatever your assessment, it can be concluded for the purpose of this discussion, that this version of reality emerging from her reading enabled Amy to begin to heal her dissociative symptoms, reduce her insecurity and diminish her sense of free-floating loss. No longer did Amy need to rely on emotional numbing. 

 

In the months following the reading, Amy reported that both her self-esteem and her ability to recognize and describe her feelings were improving. She began to explore weight loss programs and eventually Amy chose a program that gave her tools for healthy eating. With normal fluctuations in her motivation, and shorter periods of mild depression, Amy remained committed to maintaining growth and health. About a year after the reading, Amy was able to accept treatment for a chronic substance-abuse problem

 

A second case, involves a Tarot reading by a traditionally trained psychiatrist. The doctor, who had been reading Tarot for many years, describes the event and its results as follows: 

 

“In February of 2001, our family was on vacation in Mexico. We were staying at a small hotel, very neat and orderly. Too neat and much too orderly. The staff was polite, but reserved and timid. I soon came to understand why this was. The owner, Pauline, was a small, thin and thoroughly miserable person. Her movements were furtive, her expression tight and angry. A policeman in the town told me he used to work at the hotel, but could not stand her despotism. The therapist in me was aroused. 

 

I often introduce myself by saying “I read Tarot”, and as it turned out, Pauline’s assistant, Manuela, was eager for such a reading. Manuela said she had a number. Her number was 6, for lovers. As is typically done in a Tarot reading, I spread the deck, face down, and out of the 78 cards, Manuela picked the Major Arcana VI, the lovers’ card. The reading, concerning her future plans, seemed to strike a chord in Manuela. She broadcast her “amazing” reading to the entire staff. That night I prayed Pauline would let me do a reading for her. The next afternoon she asked me for one. I made an appointment and then thanked God. Then I prayed that the cards would be kind. They were.

 

I asked Pauline to pick a card to represent herself as she was when she came into this life. As always, I spread out the cards face down. Pauline picked the Empress, a beautiful card (in my deck, a soft and lovely woman, at home in the forest surrounded by pets and dragonflies). I explained to her that this beautiful card described a spiritually evolved, lovely woman who represented the female principle- she was born lovely. Pauline responded, “I may have been born that way, but now I am ugly and mean!” I then suggested that Pauline draw a card for her as she is now. She drew the 5 of Pentacles, the “outcast,” a family out in the cold in winter, exiled from the warm town behind. Pauline sadly agreed that that was how it was for her now.  

 

I asked Pauline how this had happened. What had changed her in this way? She said she had no idea. I asked her to draw three cards for a past life. The three cards, all benign, gave no help in explaining Pauline’s perceived transition from lovely to ugly. So I asked her to draw three cards for her childhood. Pauline drew the three of swords, a man bent over with three swords piercing him; then the Water Dragon, a sea dragon coiled in the depths (which for me has always represented deep emotional turmoil); and finally the seven of swords (in my deck, a robed Chinese figure).

 

I explained that the first two cards meant severe emotional pain, and wondered what that might mean. Pauline then told me that her parents had thrown her out on the streets at age 12 and divorced a year later. On the street she became bitter as she struggled to survive. She learned to trust no one. She became mean. ‘What about the Chinese figure?’ I asked. ‘The only person who helped me,’ Pauline explained, ‘was a Chinese woman who took me in.’

 

The rest of Pauline’s reading promised her a happier future. We also spent a while questioning her belief that she still had to be mistrustful and mean to survive. Perhaps if she let her natural self (the Empress) show through, she could trust that people would respond with Love.

 

Three months later I sent her a follow-up questionnaire to Pauline, as I always do after a Tarot reading, asking if she enjoyed the reading (‘Yes, I enjoyed it.) Had she learned anything new? (‘Yes, a little bit, as I already know that I had a really bad side.’). Had it changed her life? (‘Not already, but I’m trying to be better and not so hard, in a way to realize all the things you spoke to me about.’).  

 

I want to say several things about this reading, and Tarot readings in general. First, these cards (Merryday Tarot, designed by Louisa Poole) are highly evocative. The image of the Empress is vivid, conveying softness and kindness. Looking at it goes much deeper inside, with greater impact, than words such as, ‘You were born lovely.’ Because this particular deck is more detailed and emotive than many other decks, all the images in this reading, as in other readings with this deck, speak directly and powerfully to a deeper consciousness. They are archetypes, and their meaning is indirect, requiring no direct knowledge of Tarot, or the more direct intervention of a cognitive replacement technique.  

 

Secondly, because Pauline drew the cards face down, she could shift into a state of welcoming that was waiting to be revealed. The anticipation conveys an exciting sense of magic, which allows both the message and its meaning to be absorbed.

 

This psychic reading was neither Pauline’s nor my invention. On the one hand, it could be seen as coming from ‘above,’ like a message from God, with all the power that implies. On the other hand, it could be seen as random and coincidental, of no value, easily dismissed. This duality allows these readings to be of great power to those who find them useful, and allows them to be dismissed if unwanted.

 

I believe that in Pauline’s case, as in many cases, a more traditional encounter that revealed Pauline’s embittered, exploitive attitude, and confronted her with her interpersonal behaviors, would have met, not with welcome, but with cynicism, anger and resistance. These features, antithetical to change, were bypassed by a welcomed and evocative psychic reading. Given the ‘magic’ implied by a reading, Pauline was able to reduce defenses, allow herself to take in the message, and begin to make the valuable changes.”

 

A third case, a channeled reading, also done by a traditionally trained therapist, with years of experience as a professional medium, again bypasses traditional trappings to reach a deeper state of intuitive knowing. The therapist recalls this encounter.

 

“I received a call from a woman in Florida who wanted to speak with her deceased son. I took her name and phone number and called her at our appointed time. She again asked to hear from her son if at all possible and I got quiet in my mind and waited. Soon I saw two young men in my mind’s eye. I explained that I saw a blond, tall, strong man in his 20s who had a military bearing and exuded confidence.
 

I also saw a smaller, slighter man of the same age with long, brown hair who lacked self-confidence. He appeared depressed and was tinkering with either motorcycles or bicycles in a garage or basement. My client said, “Yes, that’s my son.” I asked, “Which one?” and she said, “Both.” She went on to explain that her son appeared to the world like the Golden Boy.

He was in the Marines, blond, handsome, tall, strong and outgoing. Yet, when he was home, he would often spend long periods of time in the garage working on bikes and refusing to talk or go out. In private, he was actually prone to bouts of depression and doubt. 

Once she had accepted that her son was with us in spirit, I asked him what message he wanted to share with his mother. He said that he was extremely sorry he had let her down and taken his life. From his new vantage point, he could see the guilt, shame and grief she was dealing with, and he had come to tell her that his death was not her fault. 

Her son pointed out that she had always loved and cared for him, had listened and tried to get him help when he was struggling. He also pointed to the good times they had had laughing and having adventures together, and wanted her to remember what a good mother she had been. Then he explained that he had had a chemical imbalance and that he couldn’t see any way out of how horrible he was feeling. Finally, he said he was in a much better place and would always be with her in spirit.

During this conversation, my client was mostly silent. Every once in a while, I could hear her crying. After the session, she explained that her son had indeed committed suicide and that she hadn’t been able to recover from this loss. She had lost her will to live, even though she had a good life in Florida with family and friends around her. Through this reading with her son, she said a huge weight had been lifted and could feel the beginnings of self-forgiveness and love coming back. She concluded that she was on the road to recovery and peace and thanked me for the session.”

In the above three cases, the issue is not to prove whether psychics were tapping into reality, but rather to demonstrate that psychic readings, when carefully and skillfully interpreted, have utility as short-term psychotherapeutic interventions. Because a quality reading can point a patient toward positive potentials with relative speed, orienting her/him effectively toward overtly or intuitively desired conclusions, we suggest that psychic readings offer yet another tool for powerful, and brief (often a single session) therapeutic shifts.

While all very different in circumstance and substance, there are important commonalities in these three cases, as well as in readings in general. We submit for your consideration that these examples demonstrate the effectiveness of psychic readings as brief therapy. In all three cases there existed a variety of factual as well as metaphoric features. Regardless of the ratio of fact, fiction and metaphor to one another, all readings whether past life, channeling, or general information readings imply healing, orient toward a cognitive shift and indirectly guide the client toward the options for change.

Psychic readings, with their implication, and at times presumption, of something “magical,” can induce relaxation, stillness of mind, openness to possibilities and motivation for change. Trance-like features allow the client/patient to move quickly and effectively into deeper understanding of Self, as well as into positive shifts in emotion, mood, and Self states. With their ability to deepen openness for change, readings offer hope for clients to actualize more productive behaviors and greater optimism for life.

We conclude further that despite the disbelief many of us have for the idea of psychic phenomena being viable, authentic, and respectable tools of our trade, we might want to consider that psychic readings be recognized for their potential to foster personal growth in ways that can enhance, or in some instances, even replace more traditional approaches. 

We offer these cases and these ideas with the suggestion that we clinicians might consider broadening our notion of what constitutes “therapy.” Throughout human history, intuitive and spiritual interventions by shamans, healers, oracles, clergy, and others believed to have “supernatural” awareness have had an accepted place in the healing arts.

 

We conclude that psychic readings can enrich our techniques, enhance our understanding of human nature, and empower our endeavors as successful agents of healing and change. We suggest that it behooves us to recognize the many ways successful therapeutic outcomes are possible with intuitive venues.

 

Perhaps we might be more judicious regarding by which methods clients are apt to heal. Perhaps we can allow that intuitive/psychic skills already peacefully co-exist with traditional therapy, and that intuition is now recognized as an aspect of emotional intelligence.

We might even begin to realize that that bone fide psychic counselors are “finely tuned,” intuitively, making psychic readings, at times appear more exotic, and more exciting.

 

In any case, we posit that, conducted by bone fide intuitive counselors, psychic readings can not only efficiently go the distance, but often can go a little faster and take us a little bit further. Based on our experience and that of others, we offer for your consideration that successful outcomes are possible with the venue of a psychic reading. We conclude that psychic readings can be exciting and enriching. They can augment our techniques, enhance our understanding of human nature, empower our endeavors as agents of change, and they can promote and advance the healing we intend for our clients—and sometimes for ourselves.