Rachel E. Evenden presents “A Counselling Approach to Mediumship: Adaptive outcomes of Grief following an Exceptional Experience.”

Abstract: In the last few decades there has been much corroborative research suggesting that exceptional experiences (EEs) during bereavement lead to improved coping and a healthy recovery from a negative emotional state. Aside from ‘spontaneous’ exceptional experiences and their impact on the bereaved, ‘sort’ experiences such as mediumship can be an equally rewarding and positive experience for the bereaved. Few links have been explored regarding the counselling nature of mediumship with regards to bereaved individuals, and therefore this paper addresses such issues using a counselling approach and qualitative design. Results suggest that those who experience mediumistic counselling produced a high sense of agency, resulting in adaptive coping. Additionally, the findings suggest that areas of counselling, clinical studies and positive psychology would benefit from forming links with the findings of parapsychological research, with regards to the bereaved and their experiences.

Biography: Rachel Evenden is a certified Integrative Counsellor and Research Assistant within for the Study of Anomalous Psychological Processes (CSAPP), at the University of Northampton. Her research and lecturing covers a broad range of subject areas surrounding Counselling and Positive Psychology domains. Her current research focuses on Clinical parapsychology in the UK to investigate the range and incidence of clients seeking advice for anomalous experiences (AE’s) in a secular counselling service, and the training needs of student counsellors and clinical psychologists.

The presentation is moderated by Dr. Nancy L. Zingrone.

Published on February 1, 2017