Mental health and mediumship: an interpretative phenomenological analysis

ABSTRACT

There is a lack of research examining the mental health of practicing mediums, yet the nature of mediumship work inherently presents a number of challenges to the mental health of practitioners. In this study, we aimed to gain an understanding of how mediums experience their mental health in relation to their mediumistic practice and how they recognise and respond to psychological difficulties experienced by their clients. Fourteen mediums from the North West of England took part in one-to-one interviews, which were transcribed and subject to interpretative phenomenological analysis. Four themes were identified: from past traumas to mediumistic identity; spirit makes sense, mental illness is chaos; being resilient but vulnerable; and ethical mediumistic practice. The research highlights the value of not dismissing or attempting to change appraisals of valued aspects of mediums’ anomalous experiences. However, the findings do indicate that support for exposure to clients’ difficulties might be helpful.

KEYWORDS:

• Anomalous experience
• bereavement
• hearing voices
• medium
• qualitative
• psychic
• trauma

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Craig D. Murray http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0951-5700

Notes

1. Although it is a robust part of other religious and cultural traditions (e.g., see collection of essays in Hunter & Luke, 2014).

2. According to the Spiritualists’ National Union’s (SNU) website (https://www.snu.org.uk/about-us), there are “over 340 Spiritualist churches and centres throughout the UK with … approximately 11,500 paying members.” The Spiritualists’ National Union (SNU) “supports Spiritualist Churches all across the United Kingdom, including the training of spiritual healers, spirit mediums, public speakers and teachers.”

3. Those who did not respond may not have met the inclusion criteria as described in the participant information sheet: psychic practitioners who experienced clairaudience but were not regular participants in religious groupings or psychic networks; did not routinely experience distress as part of their mediumistic work; and had not received any medical or therapeutic treatment within the previous two years.

4. There are no objective criteria for determining what constitutes a theme in qualitative research. However, a theme in IPA can be summarised as a particular set of recurring features and interpretations of recounted experiences identified by the researcher that together comprise a discrete set of complementary elements or components of analysis in a coherent and explanatory manner.

5. Ellipsis points denote a short pause in the flow of a participant’s speech or where material has been removed.

6. Square brackets indicate any inserted text for purposes of comprehensibility.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by The Bial Foundation, project number 39/16.