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Author’s copy

Published in Mental Health, Religion & Culture (2015)

DOI: 10.1080/13674676.2015.1022520

The working life of a medium: a qualitative examination of

mediumship as a support service for the bereaved

Gemma Osborne & Alison M. Bacon

School of Psychology, Plymouth University UK

Abstract Despite widespread skepticism, it has been estimated that around 10% of the UK adult population regularly visit a medium and television programmes showing mediumship demonstrations draw in millions of viewers. While many assume mediumship to be purely for entertainment, an alternative discourse presents it as being a service offered to comfort and support the bereaved. In this qualitative study, data were collected through semi- structured interviews with nine working mediums and examined with an interpretative phenomenological analysis which aims to understand the lived experiences of participants. Three key superordinate themes emerged, Responsibility and Ethics, Passion to Help and Therapeutic Value. These themes are discussed in terms of mediums’ perception of their work as a helping profession and an ethical framework which illustrates awareness of the vulnerability of sitters. We also consider whether mediums may be equipped to deal with sitters experiencing complicated grief.

Keywords: mediumship; interpretative phenomenological analysis; IPA; bereavement; complicated grief

Introduction

Individuals experiencing bereavement often seek out mediums in hope of

contacting the deceased in spirit. The medium attempts to offer reassurance that

the spirit is safe and content and relays messages and guidance. Mediums

claim to receive information from spirits in the form of sensory perceptions

which are not apparent to others. Messages may be transmitted verbally or with

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the help of a physical tool, such as a writing pad whereby the medium

produces written words subconsciously, supposedly directed by the discarnate.

Mediumship is often practised in private readings to individuals or small groups

(usually referred to as sitters), but also in a spiritualist church or theatre, where

the medium performs a stage demonstration in front of an audience. While

many individuals are skeptical of their abilities, mediums are known to have

a significant following with about 10% of Britons thought to visit them

regularly to obtain guidance, whether or not they have suffered bereavement

(Roe, 1998). Television programmes presenting mediumship demonstrations

draw in millions of viewers (Brown, 2001) and stage demonstrations by touring

celebrity mediums can reach audiences of several thousand per year. However,

their popularity may in part be due to a rhetoric which is ontologically positioned

to enhance the sense that spirit communication is occurring and thus presumably

the reality of the medium’s powers (Wooffitt & Gilbert, 2008).

While mediumship is often seen as entertainment, an alternative discourse

positions it as a service offered to comfort and support the bereaved (Evenden,

Cooper, & Mitchell, 2013; Roe, 1998; Walter, 2008). The present research

explores this idea of mediumship as a helping profession from the point of

view of mediums themselves. The lived experience of mediums and their

working lives is a neglected area in research which has tended to focus

predominantly on the veracity of mediumistic ability (Hansel, 1980; Kelly &

Arcangel, 2011; Rock, Beischel, & Cott, 2008/2009) or on levels of

suggestibility and belief in psychic ability among sitters (Wiseman & Watt,

2006). This has important implications for neuropsychology and the assumption

that human personality, cognition, and consciousness are dependent on a living

brain (Kelly et al., 2007). However, as Maraldi, Machado, and Zangari (2010)

have argued, a comprehensive understanding of mediumship also requires

consideration of its psychosocial aspects and one key question concerns a

possible role for mediumship within the spectrum of counselling and therapeutic

services.

Research has suggested a role for mediumship in supporting a “continuing bond”

(Walliss, 2001; Walter, 2008). The continuing bond view of grief suggests that

rather than disengaging from the deceased, the bereaved person continues

their relationship, albeit in altered form (Klass, Silverman, & Nickman,

1996). Field (2006) writes about how, within a counselling context, this bond

can be perceived as an ongoing process of reflection on loss, a necessary and

therapeutic part of the healing process. While only a relatively small minority

of individuals experiencing bereavement will actively seek the support of a

medium, according t o Walter (2008) those that do find comfort, a sense of

connection with their dead and encouragement to move on with their lives.

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Evenden et al. (2013) have also proposed that by facilitating a continuing bond

with the deceased, the mediumistic experience can help to m ee t unmet

psychological and relationship needs. Hope of there being some form of

continuation beyond death and the embracing of this emotion by the bereaved

through mediumistic counselling can produce a heightened sense of agency and

adaptive coping. Walter (2008) concludes that:

By focusing on the dead rather than on the bereaved, mediums may have something to offer mourners denied them by those bereavement counsellors who focus on the client’s feelings – mourners typically think about the dead as much as about their own feelings, and it is this that mediums recognise and cater for. (p. 7)

However, while this supports the proposal that mediumship can be a therapeutic

experience, research has tended to focus on the experience of the sitter. The few

studies which have explored the qualitative experiences of the medium have

focused on the mediumistic experience itself, for instance, the modality in which

spirit contacts are made, the nature of verificatory signs (a sign of contact with a

discarnate; Rock et al., 2008/2009) or anomalous experiences such as hearing

voices (Roxburgh & Roe, 2013). The present study aims to investigate

mediums’ perceptions of their role as a helping professional. Our key

research questions were: (1) How do the mediums perceive their professional

responsibilities towards the sitter and (2) Is helping people to cope with

bereavement indeed a prime motivator for their work. The first question is of

importance given that mediums are not bound by regulatory bodies. Chauran

(2013) has high- lighted that sitters may be emotionally vulnerable and tend to be

trusting of mediums who may not have much understanding of mental illness,

intellectual disabilities, substance abuse or trauma. In addressing our research

questions we employed an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA;

Smith, Flowers, & Larkin, 2009) approach to explore the lived experiences of

nine working mediums.

Method

Participants

Nine working mediums took part in this study. All were recruited by the first

author through personal contacts. Table 1 shows participant details. The names

shown are pseudonyms. All nine live and work in the Devon area of the UK,

although four had worked worldwide. Time working as a spiritual medium

ranged from eight to over 30 years. The table also shows the typical/preferred

working methods of each medium, stage demonstration, one-to-one readings or

both. One mentioned the spiritualist church and one told us that although she did

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work with individual sitters occasionally, she much preferred stage work as she

thought she could help more people that way.

Table 1: participant details

Participant

pseudonym

Age

Sex

Years

experience

Typical working area

Typical working

methods

Rose

55

Female

8

Devon and Cornwall, UK

Stage/one to one

Peter 42 Male 20 All UK areas and

worldwide

Stage/one to

one/spiritualist church

Carol 48 Female 30 Devon, Kent in UK and

abroad

Stage/one to one

Sarah 54 Female 12 Devon, UK Stage/one to one

Jane 51 Female 12 Devon, UK Stage/one to one

Roger 68 Male 30 Worldwide Stage/one to one

Pat 63 Female 15-18 Devon, UK Stage preferably

Andrew 36 Male 9 Devon, UK Stage/one to one

Derek 71 Male 30+ Japan, London and

worldwide

Stage/one to one

Design

As our research question was concerned with mediums’ experiences and their

personal interpretations of these, the data were best obtained using qualitative

methods. IPA allows for an in-depth exploration of the experiences of participants

who form a relatively homogenous sample in terms of the phenomena of interest (in

this case mediumship). The method adopts an ontological approach, suggesting that

participants’ talk is representative of their psychological world and that they are the

experts in their own experiences. How individuals make meaning from their world

is explored and a double hermeneutic stance taken in that IPA acknowledges the

interpretative role of the researcher in attempting to make sense of the participant’s

attempts to make sense of their own experiences (Smith et al., 2009). In terms of

sample size, IPA supports a focus on fewer participants examined in greater depth,

rather than a more superficial analysis of many individuals (Hefferon & Gil-

Rodriguez, 2011; Smith et al., 2009). Our sample was sufficient to identify recurrent

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themes and divergences across participants, while also balancing the need to

preserve the strongly ideographic nature of the data.

Procedures

Ethical approval for the study was obtained from the authors’ university ethics

committee which ensured the research adhered to British Psychological Society

(BPS, 2009) guidelines. All participants were briefed about the research and

informed that their data would remain confidential and that they would not be

identifiable in written reports of the study. They were aware that participation

was voluntary and that they could withdraw their data within three months of

their interview if they wished. All expressed interest in the research and

welcomed the opportunity to discuss their work.

We employed a semi-structured interview method, incorporating a series of open

questions and prompts to provide a framework for our conversations while

allowing individual participants the freedom to elaborate and expand on aspects

most salient to them. Such interviews can be seen as a collaborative process

constructed jointly between researcher and participant, rather than simply a

process of data gathering from a passive subject (Mason, 2002). A semi-structured

interview schedule (appendix) was developed according to the principles

recommended by Smith et al. (2009). Participants were interviewed individually

by the first author. Interviews lasted around one hour, were recorded on a

standard Dictaphone and transcribed verbatim.

Analysis

Analysis aimed to discover emergent themes in the data to inform the research

questions. We used a traditional paper-based method and, in line with the process

suggested by Smith et al. (2009), repeatedly worked through the corpus of data

to identify recurrent themes. This process comprised four stages: (1) reviewing

data in the first transcript, compiling a list of issues relevant to our research

questions and noting where in the transcript supporting evidence could be

found; (2) reviewing subsequent transcripts in the same way, adding new issues

to our list, or new evidence in support of those highlighted previously; (3)

repeating the process for all transcripts; (4) clustering related issues into three

superordinate themes, Responsibility and ethics, Passion to help and Therapeutic

value.

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Reliability and validity

In order to ensure the validity of themes, we specified that they needed to be

clearly grounded in interview data from at least five participants, acknowledging

convergences and divergences of experience and opinion related to the theme.

The emergent themes, both at initial extraction stage and at consolidation into

superordinate themes, were repeatedly examined and, in identifying evidence for

each recurrent theme, care was taken not to introduce bias through over

interpretation and by keeping to the participants own words (Yardley, 2000). A

regular dialogue between the two authors (one of whom had little experience of

mediumship and no additional knowledge of participants) helped to maintain

objectivity and openness to reinterpretation of data.

Reflexivity

Shaw (2010) has argued that reflexivity, the process of examining how personal

assumptions and experiences may influence data collection and interpretation, is

integral to qualitative research. IPA, through its acknowledgement of

participants as experts in their personal experience and that both these and the

researchers’ interpretations occur within a cultural context, demands that

reflexivity issues be addressed. In the present case, neither author is themselves a

practicing medium, though the first author has a long-standing interest in the

area. She has a close relative who practices mediumship and has grown up with

this as a regular part of life. Interviews were conducted by that author, who was

aware that experience may influence her questioning, analysis and interpretation

of the data. However, this awareness allowed for a conscious effort to focus on

the participants’ experience and to remain open-minded. Both authors were

also aware of the skepticism with which many people view mediumship and that

some participants may be reluctant to be frank because of this. However, that they

were recruited by word of mouth, through the first author’s contacts, meant that a

level of rapport and trust was apparent as participants knew of her as “a believer”.

This author’s awareness of mediumship generally meant that she was prepared for

hearing about experiences which might have been surprising for someone less

knowledgeable about what can occur at a sitting. The second author is open-

minded about mediumship in general but had very little prior knowledge of it.

That she also examined the data and discussed the emergent themes allowed for

the ongoing examination of potential reflexivity issues. Neither author had

experienced a recent bereavement, visited a medium as result of bereavement

or received bereavement counselling. However, the second author in particular

felt she gained a more sympathetic perspective regarding how mediumship

may positively support individuals going through bereavement as result of this

research.

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Results

Three themes emerged which were particularly relevant to our research questions;

Responsibility and Ethics, Passion to Help and Therapeutic Value. These are

discussed below in terms of our participants’ contributions. Extracts from the

participants’ transcripts have been quoted verbatim. An ellipsis ( … ) indicates a

silent pause or gap in the narrative.

Responsibility and ethics

This theme reflects a sense of responsibility towards sitters, duty of care and

ethical codes of conduct when working. All nine mediums made comments

that reflected an awareness of the need to be sensitive towards their sitters,

acknowledging their potential vulnerability. Roger told us about how he

stresses this to new mediums that he trains:

I always say are you ready for this responsibility because you have the ability to change peoples’ lives for better or worse that’s why development and learning your trade as they say is so, so important.

While Roger emphasises the importance of this for beginning mediums, Rose

who has been working for eight years, described having concerns at the level of

responsibility:

… because it was having such an effect on people I wanted to be

guaranteed that I was doing the right thing and saying the right

things myself and when you work you see what a responsibility it is

Rose went on to explain how such a sense of responsibility started to make her

question her vocation and her abilities. Carol felt similarly:

… the other thing is you start to question is your own ability it’s your own confidence in doing it you see these people aren’t approaching you, you think oh I’m obviously not up for this spiritual job so when you start questioning it it’s a horrible place to be in.

Sarah highlighted a related concern about letting clients down, mediums

making unrealistic promises:

… so rather than give a disappointing reading to somebody I’d rather not give the reading and … erm yes like I say its … she particularly wanted her husband to come through and I said well I can’t guarantee it

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you know. I’m not a charlatan … some people would say oh yes, yes come and see me but I don’t do that.

On the other hand, misunderstanding the nature of mediumship may lead to

unrealistic expectations, as Andrew states:

I’m not a fortune teller so I think that some people have got a misunderstanding of what being a medium is.

Similarly, Peter discussed a concern that some sitters relied too heavily on what

a medium had to say:

… there are people in this life that, that are really, really gullible and erm, er, and will basically, some that will hold on to every word you say …

Unlike registered counsellors or therapists, mediums have no mandatory

supervision and these comments highlight a possible need for this. The

Spiritualists’ National Union (SNU) (n.d.) does provide training and principles

for members to work by which stress the importance of personal responsibility.

They also issue a formal safeguarding statement on their website, similar to the

code of practice that professions such as counsellors adhere to. However, most

helping professionals are required to be registered (for instance, with the Health

Professions Council), have their practice monitored and are required to complete

continuing professional development activities. There are no such requirements

for mediums and membership of SNU is voluntary.

Passion to help

This theme reflects the mediums’ motivation to help others. Sarah discussed why

she sought out spiritualist churches and trained to be a medium:

I started to think well there’s a lot of people out there that need a lot of help, so I, I’ll do something about it and so I did.

Other participants expressed a similar sense of vocation. Rose explained:

I feel I’ve always done work spirit work, in one way or another, not in a mediumship way in a, er, helping way, but I’ve always wanted to help people and I think spirit world then uses people that, it’s in their nature to help people and finds a way of getting you to work with them … when er, they’ve experienced grief first hand then there’s a need for it more than a curiosity there’s, an actual

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need otherwise they feel they can’t even continue their own lives, so it helps a lot in that way.

Jane offered a wider perspective in terms of her belief that mediumship can help to

heal the world. She discussed how we all have the capability to help others and

that if everyone helped and sup- ported each other more, it would have a positive

impact on the world as a whole:

I don’t see that I’m any different than anybody else can be, you know, and if we could all help each other … probably stop all these wars and that wouldn’t it … it [mediumship] just makes you realise what we’re all capable of.

Roger sums up the thoughts of many when he defines what constitutes a good working

medium:

Developing your spirituality, caring, compassion, love, they are all the

ingredients of what makes up a good medium.

However, he also expresses concern that some celebrity mediums seem to have

lost this focus on personal growth and helping, being more concerned with

supporting their own “ego” [his term].

the magic word that comes with it is ego. Too many now celebrity

mediums not all of them cause I know most of them some of them have

got their head stuck up their jacksie.

Pat shares the concern:

… famous mediums that you know I sort of wonder about them sometimes

and erm they’ve got such big egos which is a shame really because that’s

not what it’s about.

For both Roger and Pat, it seems as though celebrity is giving mediumship a bad

name, detracting from the useful work that mediums can perform, and about

which they feel so passionately. Jane sums up the thoughts of many on this

theme:

Mediumship is not about me, it’s about helping other people.

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Therapeutic value of mediumship

This theme reflects the extent to which participants believed that mediumship can

be considered a form of counselling/therapy. All nine participants spoke about

this to an extent, however, while some felt explicitly that their work was a

form of, or similar to, counselling, others felt that mediumship offered a

different, more appropriate, service for the bereaved. Pat saw herself in a

counselling role and that she was able to create a space similar to a therapeutic

setting where sitters feel safe and confidentiality is assured. She told us:

… people tell me things that they would never tell anybody else, their doctor, their husbands, their brothers, their sisters, their wives, husbands, they entrust with you, that they can tell you, and it’s amazing how they trust you and obviously everything’s confidential from one reading to the next cause it’s all confidential …

And later in the discussion:

what you’re doing really, I feel is you’re counselling, you know, cause I’ve done readings where people have carried the burden of being raped all their lives and never told anybody, I’ve … , I’ve had people say all sorts of things about their past lives, like when they were younger, and that, you know, just carrying on their shoulders for a long time and then they open up and tell you and it, and it can be a huge relief for some of them.

Derek discussed helping sitters who were struggling with their grief:

sometimes you know it’s almost like they’re looking for permission to

move on.

He was able reassure them that:

… It’s alright for you to love again or it’s alright for you to get rid of that

stuff …

However, Derek also emphasised the importance of referral to other professional

services when necessary:

She’s almost suicidal, so I’ve got to keep counselling her so, so, I do more counselling than I do mediumship so, so, a medium, medium, could be all

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these things but we’re not, we mustn’t put ourselves above the counsellors, we mustn’t put ourselves above doctors or nurses.

Unlike Pat and Derek, Peter saw little benefit in counselling and seemed to

perceive mediumship as more effective:

I certainly think it’s far more advanced than any counselling anybody can give from, you know, any sort of university qualification or what have you that they’ve got … that connection, that evidence, that that that feeling that whatever that person gives you. I don’t think you can’t make somebody feel that way from something that you’ve learned out of a textbook.

Andrew also felt mediumship was more appropriate than counselling for some

people. He told us about a sitter who was struggling to cope with the death of her

mother after six months of bereavement counselling:

the counselling can talk about the here and now about the behaviour

cognitive therapy that sort of thing but in actual fact I think that lady just

wanted a message from her mum … she just wanted to know that her mum

was ok.

The sitter in question has apparently:

Never been so happy since she knows that her mum is still around her she’s finally getting on with her life.

Like Andrew, Rose saw mediumship as offering something different for

individuals for whom counselling had been ineffective. She described how:

people needed guidance and spiritual and more, more than just practical

or on a counselling level …some people need more as in a form of

spiritualism.

Roger also saw mediumship and counselling as separate things:

Counselling is a very different thing with counselling when people go to counselling you really sort your own problems out … I would keep the two separate I believe that very much giving evidence of life after death you can confuse the person that’s coming for the message they think oh this is coming for my mum when it’s it maybe not actually it maybe the councilor part.

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Roger made several comments along similar lines, reiterating his belief that

counsellors direct people to help themselves. These data suggest that some

mediums may have an incomplete idea of what counselling is and how

counsellors work, perceiving it as just about “the here and now” (Andrew),

“that it is highly directive” (Roger), or that mediums are better placed to

make a “connection” with the client (Peter). Jane, however, has taken the

decision to train as a counsellor in order to better support her clients. She uses

her counselling skills frequently to compliment her mediumship, or

sometimes instead of it, as she told us:

there is a counselling attitude towards it and tarots as well you have to have responsibility and I’ve noticed that a lot of times people come to tarots it’s because they need to talk to somebody more than the tarots you know cause sometimes I’ll say shall we put the tarots away and concentrate on what you’ve really come for.

Carole also expressed a belief that mediumship and counselling can work

together, alongside traditional medicine. Unlike Rose, Carol sees all healing as

spiritual in some way, not just that which is conducted through mediumship:

healing is now being accepted at certain doctors now isn’t it. What is

healing and counselling if it’s not a form of spiritual help, that’s how I

see it.

Discussion

This study aimed to explore the lived experience of a group of working

mediums in order to answer two key research questions – how mediums

perceive their professional responsibilities and whether their work is motivated

by a desire to support people coping with bereavement. Three key themes

emerged from our interview data which presented a number of

phenomenological insights in terms of these questions. Overall, the themes

present a picture of a conscientious and ethical approach, motivated primarily by

a desire to help others. A belief in the value of mediumship in supporting the

bereaved in working through their grief was very clear in the majority of

participants’ data.

Given the lack of formal regulation in the UK, it was reassuring to see our

participants expressing strong feelings of responsibility towards their sitters,

and awareness that some may be emotionally vulnerable. Roger’s words to his

trainees cited above echo those of Chauran (2013), who describes how

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mediums have the “power to influence people’s lives in a deep and meaningful

way” (p. 1), highlighting the responsibility mediums have to avoid

inadvertently causing harm. Chauran discusses how some sitters may have

unrealistic expectations, or the medium may lack awareness of the grieving

process and these concerns were reflected in participants’ accounts. We did not

ask our participants whether they had received any training, but this is known to

support the development of ethical working principles in addition to offering a

safe place for less experienced mediums to control and interpret otherwise

disturbing experiences without fear (Maraldi et al., 2010). Furthermore, training

groups and membership of organisations such as the SNU may also provide

support networks where mediums can discuss their work, effectively providing

an informal supervision service. Our data suggest that formal training and

regulation are not necessarily essential for mediums to work responsibly.

However, being a member of a professional association, much like

counsellors/therapists, may ensure standardisation of good practice and

safeguarding of vulnerable sitters (Chauran, 2013).

In our second theme, it was clear that all the mediums had a passion for their work

and that this was strongly rooted in a desire to help others. Interestingly here,

some expressed concern about celebrity mediums who they perceived as driven

by financial or self-enhancement motives. Certainly, some celebrity mediums

have a large and faithful following, possibly in part due to what Wooffitt and

Gilbert (2008) have described as a “persuasive mediumistic rhetoric” designed

to ensure that “people are more likely to return to see him again, and report

approvingly to friends and family” (p. 237). By such means, it is argued that

mediums gain an ever-increasing fan base, together with the associated

adulation and monetary gain. In the present study, Roger and Pat particularly

appeared saddened by what they saw as the use of mediumship for personal

profit, rather than for the benefit of needy others.

In our third and final theme, the results show that many (though not all) of the

mediums perceived their work as a type of alternative therapy similar to

counselling. They have a strong belief in the value of their work in terms of

reducing acute grief, as has been suggested in previous research (Roe, 1998;

Walliss, 2001; Walter, 2008). Roxburgh and Roe (2013) also highlighted the

idea of “Mediumship as Counselling” stating that “participants described the

purpose of mediumship as therapeutic support” (p. 35).There are some clear

similarities with the current study in

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that both suggest that many mediums do see at least part of their purpose as

providing bereavement support and that this often takes a counselling

approach. However, Roxburgh and Roe present no divergent evidence. Here we

found that some participants saw their work as qualitatively different from

counselling, and for some, their accounts suggested they believed the two were

completely separate entities and should remain that way. Furthermore, unlike

Roxburgh and Roe, we did not sense that mediums felt the need to support the

veracity of their craft in order to provide reassurance that a life after death

actually exists. Overall, comparisons of the two themes reveal some

similarities, but also some differences. It would seem that those who see their

work as therapeutic feel passionately about the value of this. However,

mediums are far from unanimous in their opinions on the matter.

Bereavement is an inevitable part of life, few people remain untouched by it and

most adapt with no professional help (Love, 2007). A significant minority,

however, experience what is sometimes termed complicated grief, an intense

and long-lasting form that results in significant impairment of health and well-

being (Horowitz, Bonanno, & Holen, 1993; Shear et al., 2011). Symptoms may

include distressing intrusive images, emotional avoidance of the loss, maintaining

a relationship with the deceased as if they were alive or an inability to resume

normal functioning (Horowitz et al., 1993). Field, Gao, and Paderna (2005)

describe how behaviours such as imagined conversations or efforts to connect

the deceased (both implicit in mediumship) may impede the progress of

grieving and acknowledgment of irrevocability. Moreover, the bereaved may

have pre-existing psychopathology which the medium may not be aware of and

may have little expertise in. Accordingly, Chauran (2013) has argued a case

for mediums to have some basic knowledge of mental health and other

psychological issues known to influence grieving. Overall, grief and adaptation

to bereavement is complex, and while it may be easy to imagine mediumship

supporting continuing bonds, the differential effects on individual sitters may

be hard for mediums to recognise.

Some of our mediums appeared to believe that their work was more effective

than regular bereavement counselling. The comments of Walter (2008), cited

previously, appear to echo this sentiment, emphasising that sitters wish to focus

on the deceased, rather than their own feelings. However, trained bereavement

counsellors argue that they do focus on the deceased, by working with the

history of the relationship and the death itself, and by using therapeutic

techniques such as linking objects (photographs, last thing deceased wore,

etc.), letter writing and the gestalt technique of “empty chair”, a form of role

play whereby the client imagines the deceased sitting opposite them in an

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empty chair and converses with them (Mallon, 2008). More- over, counselling is

known to be effective in cases of complicated grief, particularly when specifically

tailored towards addressing the post-traumatic symptoms which typify the

condition (Currier, Neimeyer, & Berman, 2008; Shear, Gorscak, & Simon, 2006).

There has been no empirical evaluation of mediumship in this context.

Nevertheless, some of our participants’ comments suggest that mediumship may

be helpful in certain complex cases, especially when considered alongside

previous research which has examined the sitters’ perspective. Derek’s

account of sitters needing “permission to move on” clearly resounds with some

academic interpretations, such as case studies reported by Shear et al. (2006),

where individuals reported feeling disloyal for continuing to enjoy life or feared

that “moving on” was a betrayal of the deceased. Hall (2014) has discussed how

failure to find meaning following a bereavement, especially in terms of

"making sense" of the death itself, is associated with higher levels of complicated

grief symptoms, especially following violent or unexpected deaths. In such

cases, seeing a medium may be an attempt to find a spiritual meaning in the

loss, but sitters are likely to be exceptionally vulnerable.

Finally, although mediumship is regarded with skepticism by many, it has long

been practiced alongside other alternative therapies and there have been calls for

it to be formally recognised by mental health, medical and bereavement

professionals (Mosher et al., 2010). Goforth (2011), a working medium who is

also a practicing psychotherapist and social worker, s t r o n g l y supports the

integration of these services, and echoes Chauran (2013) in advocating formal

standards of care policy. Any move towards formalisation of mediumship as a

mainstream bereavement service will inevitably elicit calls for greater regulation,

however, which some mediums may not welcome. It is worth noting in this

context that a study such as ours is unlikely to elicit any evidence for negative

effects of mediumship. Further research will need to focus on the experiences of

vulnerable sitters in particular, clarify welfare issues and formulate how

traditional and less traditional support services can work together to best serve

their often complex emotional needs.

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APPENDIX: Semi-structured interview schedule

1. Introduction:

- Do you have any questions before we begin?

- Can you please tell me your age?

- How long have you been working as a medium?

- In which geographical area do you work?

2. Being a medium:

2.1 Tell me how you started working as medium?

Prompts:

- How did you first discover you had an ability to be a medium?

- Do you remember any early experiences of a spiritual or anomalous nature?

How did you feel about them?

- It is something you’ve always been interested in or did a specific event lead

to your interest?

- Can you pinpoint roughly when you because spiritually aware? What

happened?

2.2 What is your preferred way of working, stage demonstrations, one-to-one

readings or another setting?

Prompts:

- Describe any personal feelings towards the difference styles of working?

- What makes you enjoy that setting?

2.3 What do you think are the positive aspects of your work? Any negative aspects?

2.4 What do you think is your ongoing motivation for spiritual work?

Prompts:

- What are your thoughts and feelings when working with clients?

- Do you think it supports you own personal development? In what way?

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3. Roles and responsibilities

3.1 How do you see your role as a medium when giving a reading?

Prompts:

- Why do you think people visit a medium?

- What do you think sitters gain from visiting a medium?

- Do you think there are any negative aspects to their experience?

- How do you think they feel afterwards?

- Maybe think of someone specific that you saw recently. In general terms

what were they interested in? What do you think they took away from the

experience?

3.2 What responsibilities do a think a medium has to their clients?

Prompts:

- What qualities make a suitable medium? And why?

- What do you think clients are feeling? Does that make a difference to how

you work?

4. Mediumship as a service

4.1 Do you feel that there is a need for mediums?

Prompts:

- From a client’s point of view

- From society’s point of view.

- Do you think that mediumship is helpful in some way? How?

- Is mediumship just a form of entertainment? Why/Why not?

5. To finish

5.1 When reflecting on your past work as a medium what do you feel that you’ve

achieved?

Prompts:

- Can you describe what you feel you have provided for your clients over

the years?

5.2 Is there anything else you’d like to add?