Atlas›Domain XIV · Western esoteric, divinatory & new spiritual movements›Guide 107
Guide XIV-107

Ouija and planchette

Charles Kennard, Elijah Bond1890United States
A 31 · L 58 · M 1114 interventions in the Trinity explorer
Client cardCompare
[source: …] where a claim comes from[uncertain] not confirmed in a primary source[synthesis] the writer's reconstruction

1. Introduction

Version followed: the commercial "Ouija" talking board and planchette, patented in 1891 by the Kennard Novelty Company and sold today under the Hasbro trademark, as historians and museum curators describe it; the psychotherapist's work with clients who bring Ouija experiences is clinical [synthesis] built on the sources cited.

What it is. A talking board is a flat board printed with the alphabet, numbers and "yes"/"no"; one or more people rest their fingertips on a small pointer (the planchette: a teardrop-shaped piece, often with a window, once wooden on casters, now usually plastic on felt feet), ask questions, and the pointer appears to move by itself to spell answers [source: Smithsonian, McRobbie 2013/2024]. This guide gives the format in outline only; it is not a how-to.

History, as historians describe it.

  • It grew out of nineteenth-century American Spiritualism (the belief that the dead communicate with the living), usually dated from the Fox sisters' "raps" in 1848 and enlarged after the Civil War by grieving families; mediums and inventors developed alphabet calling, automatic writing, the planchette and talking boards [source: Laycock 2016; Smithsonian].
  • After 1886 press reports of talking boards in Ohio Spiritualist camps, the businessman Charles Kennard and investors formed the Kennard Novelty Company (1890); the Baltimore attorney Elijah Bond filed the patent, granted 10 February 1891. The patent described how the device was used, not why it moved [source: Smithsonian].
  • The name: the company story is that Bond's sister-in-law, a self-described medium, asked the board what to call it and it spelled "Ouija"; the popular "French oui + German ja" etymology is described as later and unsupported; one historian suggests a misread portrait locket of the novelist Ouida [source: Smithsonian, quoting the Ouija historian Robert Murch].
  • William Fuld, an early employee and stockholder, ran the business after Kennard and Bond left; he did not invent the board, though later claims said so. Parker Brothers bought it in 1966 and sold about two million boards in 1967; Hasbro acquired Parker Brothers in 1991 and controls the trademark [source: Smithsonian; Strong Museum, Hisert 2023].
  • Popularity rose during the First World War. In the 1910s a St Louis woman, Pearl Curran, published poems and stories she said were dictated via the board by a spirit called "Patience Worth" [source: Smithsonian; Laycock 2016].
  • Catholic authorities pushed back early: Pope Pius X commissioned J. Godfrey Raupert, whose 1919 book warned Catholics against the board. William Peter Blatty's novel (1971) and the film The Exorcist (1973), loosely based on a 1949 Maryland case, fixed the board's demonic reputation; the 1980s–90s "satanic panic" extended it [source: Laycock 2016; Strong Museum]. Laycock argues the dark reputation itself made the board attractive to teenagers as a way to confront and reject dark forces [source: Laycock 2016].
  • Contemporary positions differ: many Christian bodies reject it as divination (a Catholic diocesan column cites Catechism §2116, "All forms of divination are to be rejected", and advises avoiding Ouija boards) [source: Diocese of Springfield in Illinois]; some practising Spiritualists treat talking boards as tools for spirit contact that carry responsibility and depend on intention; sceptics attribute movement to the ideomotor effect; many users treat it as a party game [source: Strong Museum, Hisert 2023].

Evidence status (one line). Movement of the planchette is explained in the research literature by the ideomotor effect (involuntary muscle movement without conscious intent, described by the physiologist William Carpenter in 1852) and by joint, prediction-driven action between players; there is no research evidence that boards contact spirits [source: Smithsonian; Gauchou, Rensink & Fels 2012; Andersen et al. 2018].

The science clinicians should know.

  • Gauchou, Rensink and Fels (2012, Consciousness and Cognition 21, 976–982): participants answered factual yes/no questions by spoken report and by Ouija response (believing another person or a robot was moving the planchette). When they felt they knew the answer, both methods agreed; when they believed they were guessing, spoken answers were at chance (about 50%) but Ouija answers were about 65% correct. The authors conclude that implicit semantic memory can be expressed through ideomotor action [source: Rensink publications page; Smithsonian].
  • Rensink explains that the board "works" when players relinquish conscious control, so the brain wrongly attributes the movement to another agent; playing alone tends not to work [source: UBC Computer Science 2021].
  • Andersen et al. (2018, Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, doi 10.1007/s11097-018-9585-8): eye-tracked Ouija enthusiasts at a paranormal conference predicted letters less in free sessions than when deliberately spelling; believers reported a lower sense of agency than sceptics; meaningful answers emerged only at the level of the pair, as interacting predictive minds imposing structure on random movement [source: Aarhus Interacting Minds Centre].

How change happens (for the therapist's work). Clients rarely present wanting to "do Ouija"; they present with fear, intrusive thoughts, grief, a family or faith conflict, or unusual experiences after a session. Change comes from (a) understanding what the experience means to the client within their own tradition, (b) accurate differential assessment, (c) evidence-based treatment of any disorder (for example exposure and response prevention for OCD), and (d) restoring the client's sense of agency over thoughts and decisions [synthesis].

2. Framework

This is a cultural and recreational practice, not a therapy; there is no manual, phase model or session count in the sources. The structure below is a clinical framework for the psychotherapist [synthesis].

  1. Engagement and meaning (first contact). Goal: a non-shaming account, in the client's words, of what happened, what they believe it was, and why it matters now. Move on when the client feels heard and the presenting problem is named (fear, intrusive thoughts, grief, a message, conflict).
  2. Cultural and differential assessment. Goal: DSM-5-TR Cultural Formulation Interview core questions plus the Spirituality, Religion, and Moral Traditions module where belief is relevant; screen for OCD/scrupulosity, anxiety and panic, trauma reactions, psychotic or manic symptoms, dissociation, complicated grief, substance use and risk. Move on when you have a working formulation and a risk judgement [source: APA CFI Supplementary Modules; IOCDF].
  3. Targeted work. Goal: treat what was found (ERP for obsessional fear; graded coping for media-induced fear; grief work; safeguarding for minors; psychiatric referral for psychosis or mania). Move on when the presenting symptoms and avoidance have reduced and the client can hold their own view of the experience without compulsive checking.
  4. Consolidation and relapse planning. Goal: anticipate triggers (anniversaries, horror films, friends suggesting another session, religious messages), agree what the client will do, and involve family or community leaders only if the client wishes [synthesis].

Format: individual sessions; with adolescents, add parent or carer sessions with the young person's assent; with groups of young people after a shared frightening episode, liaise with school or health services [synthesis]. Number of sessions: not given by any source; set by the disorder treated.

3. Guiding principles

  • Attribute, do not adjudicate. Describe spirit contact as the client and their tradition hold it, and the ideomotor findings as researchers report them. Practical meaning: "Some people understand it as…; researchers have found…" rather than "it was only you" or "it was a spirit" [synthesis; scope from Strong Museum's three viewpoints].
  • Meaning before mechanism. Ask what the experience means before offering any explanation. Practical meaning: offer ideomotor psychoeducation only when it serves the client's goal and with permission [synthesis].
  • Belief is not pathology. Fear of spirits or demons can be culturally normative; assess impairment, distress, form of symptoms and fit with the client's own community, not the content of belief. Practical meaning: use the CFI and, where useful, ask how others in the client's tradition would view the experience [source: APA CFI].
  • Distinguish faith from OCD. OCD can look like devotion while undermining it; fear of possession and of offending God are listed scrupulosity themes. Practical meaning: target the compulsive process (reassurance, checking, ritual), not the faith [source: IOCDF].
  • No reassurance loops. Repeated certainty-giving ("you are definitely not possessed") feeds obsessional fear. Practical meaning: give information once, then work with uncertainty [source: IOCDF on reassurance-seeking as a compulsion; synthesis].
  • Agency. Experiments show the board can make one's own movements feel like someone else's [source: Andersen et al. 2018; Rensink]. Practical meaning: help the client re-own decisions taken "on the board's advice" without shaming them.
  • The therapist is never the medium. No boards, readings or "contact" in session, even as a demonstration; Rensink's speculation that ideomotor responding might have therapeutic uses is a researcher's idea, not a clinical method [source: UBC CS 2021; synthesis].
  • Children and adolescents first. Safeguard, involve carers, obtain assent, never use labels in place of assessment [synthesis].
  • Risk overrides curiosity. Any "message" urging self-harm, harm to others, stopping treatment or giving money triggers a risk assessment the same day [synthesis].
  • Community by consent. Involve priests, ministers, Spiritualist ministers or other leaders only if the client asks; IOCDF notes leaders can help clarify their institution's position [source: IOCDF].

4. Intervention inventory

All interventions below are the psychotherapist's own work with clients who have used, fear, or are affected by talking boards. Unless a source is given, steps are [synthesis]. No intervention involves using a board.

4.1 Client-led exploration of meaning

  • Purpose / when: first sessions, and whenever the client mentions a board session, a "message" or a frightening aftermath.
  • Steps: (1) Ask permission to talk about it and what words the client uses ("spirit board", "the game", "Ouija"). (2) Get the narrative: context (sleepover, party, alone, with a grieving relative), who was present, what was asked, what was "said", what happened afterwards. (3) Ask what the client thinks happened and how confident they are. (4) Ask what it means for them now (fear, comfort, guilt, curiosity, a decision). (5) Ask what others in their family or faith community think. (6) Summarise in their words and agree on the problem to work on.
  • Example language (illustrative): "People make sense of these sessions in very different ways. How do you understand what happened that night?" / "What has been hardest since then?"
  • Watch for: shame or fear of being mocked (slow down, normalise that many people have tried it); the client testing whether you believe in spirits (answer that your job is to understand their experience, not rule on it); signs the story is organised around one feared conclusion (possible OCD, 4.5). Working: the client speaks more freely and can name what they want from therapy.

4.2 Cultural Formulation Interview (CFI)

  • Purpose / when: whenever belief, religion, family tradition or community reaction shapes the problem; before any differential judgement.
  • Steps: (1) Use the DSM-5-TR CFI core interview to elicit the client's definition of the problem, cultural explanations, stressors and supports, and help-seeking. (2) Add the Spirituality, Religion, and Moral Traditions supplementary module (16 questions), which covers the traditions the person and family identify with, their role in daily and family life, how they have helped with the problem, and whether they have contributed to it, including distress or conflict linked to them. (3) Add the Coping and Help-Seeking module (help from religious, medical and other healers) and, for minors, the School-Age Children and Adolescents module. (4) Record the client's explanatory model alongside your formulation. Paraphrase the questions in your own manner; do not read the instrument as a script you hand out. [source: APA CFI Supplementary Modules]
  • Coding note: where the clinical focus is a religious or spiritual problem rather than a disorder, consider Religious or Spiritual Problem, Z65.8; ICD-10-CM Z65.8 ("Other specified problems related to psychosocial circumstances") lists "Religious or spiritual problem" as an inclusion term [source: ICD-10-CM Z65.8 (Unbound Medicine)]. Exact DSM-5-TR wording for this category [uncertain: not verified].
  • Example language (illustrative): "Is there a faith or tradition that matters to you or your family? How would people there understand what you went through?"
  • Watch for: family members whose tradition forbids the board while the client does not share that view (conflict, secrecy); the client fearing their community's judgement more than spirits. Working: you can state the client's explanatory model in a sentence they agree with.

4.3 Differential assessment without pathologising belief

  • Purpose / when: after any report of fear, "presences", voices, loss of control, sleeplessness or changed behaviour following board use.
  • Steps: (1) Separate belief content ("I think a spirit answered") from form and impairment (persistent intrusive thoughts, hours of rituals, hallucinations outside the session, grandiosity, sleep loss, dissociative gaps). (2) Screen in turn: OCD/scrupulosity (unwanted intrusive thoughts, neutralising, reassurance-seeking) [source: IOCDF]; anxiety and panic; post-traumatic reactions after a terrifying session; psychotic symptoms (voices or messages continuing away from the board, fixed beliefs not shared by the client's own community, functional decline); mania (reduced need for sleep, pressured certainty of special mission); dissociation, depersonalisation or derealisation; complicated grief (4.9); substance use during sessions. (3) Use the client's community as a reference point: is this experience recognised and bounded there? [source: APA CFI] (4) Check risk (4.12). (5) Refer for psychiatric assessment when psychosis or mania is suspected.
  • Example language (illustrative): "Since that evening, are the messages or voices only there when you use the board, or do they come at other times too?" / "Do the frightening thoughts feel like your own thoughts that you hate having, or like something speaking to you from outside?"
  • Watch for: reading every spirit belief as delusion (avoid); missing a first psychotic episode because it is framed spiritually (avoid). The spiritual emergency debate (Grof; Lukoff) is relevant background [uncertain: not verified]. Working: a formulation that names a disorder only where form and impairment support it.

4.4 Ideomotor psychoeducation (offered, not imposed)

  • Purpose / when: when the client wants to understand how the planchette moved, when terror rests on "nobody was moving it", or when decisions were outsourced to the board. Not when the client's faith-based explanation is serving them well and is not the problem.
  • Steps: (1) Ask permission: "Would it help to hear what researchers have found?" (2) Explain in plain words: Carpenter (1852) described small muscle movements made without awareness [source: Smithsonian]; in the UBC study, people's Ouija answers were more accurate than their own guesses, showing that knowledge they did not know they had came out through movement [source: Gauchou, Rensink & Fels 2012]; in the Aarhus study, believers felt less agency, and answers came from the pair moving together [source: Andersen et al. 2018]. (3) Frame it as information about minds, not a verdict on the client's beliefs. (4) Invite reflection: "What do you make of that?" (5) Stop if it raises shame or argument.
  • Example language (illustrative): "Researchers have found that our hands can move a pointer without our feeling we chose to, and that this can feel exactly like someone else moving it. That doesn't settle what you believe; it may explain why it felt so convincing."
  • Watch for: the explanation used as a new reassurance ritual in OCD (give it once; see 4.6); the client feeling foolish; religious clients for whom the board is forbidden regardless of mechanism (respect that; the issue is guilt, see 4.13). Working: less terror about "something moving it", more sense of authorship.

4.5 Exposure and response prevention for obsessional fear after use

  • Purpose / when: when assessment shows OCD or scrupulosity: intrusive thoughts of having "let something in", of being possessed, or of having sinned, with compulsions. IOCDF lists fear of being possessed and of offending God among scrupulosity obsessions, and treats scrupulosity with CBT using exposure and response prevention (ERP), with SSRIs as the main medication [source: IOCDF].
  • Steps: (1) Psychoeducation on the OCD cycle (intrusion, anxiety, compulsion, short relief, return). (2) Map compulsions: excessive prayer, repeated confession, purifying rituals, mental reviewing, checking for signs of possession, avoidance of the word, room, film or friends, reassurance from clergy and family [source: IOCDF compulsion list]. (3) Agree values: the aim is to separate OCD from the client's faith so they can live by it [source: IOCDF]. (4) Build a graded exposure hierarchy with the client's consent, using only exposures that do not violate their tradition (for example writing or saying the word, looking at pictures of a board, being in the room where the session happened, watching a trailer, sitting with the thought "maybe something was let in") [synthesis]; never ask a client to use a board. (5) Response prevention: delay and reduce rituals and reassurance, with family agreement. (6) Review between sessions; progress up the hierarchy as distress falls. (7) Where the client wishes, ask a religious leader to clarify the tradition's position (for example on what counts as sufficient prayer or confession) [source: IOCDF]. (8) Medication questions go to the prescriber.
  • Contraindications, safety and consent: delay ERP and refer when there is active psychosis, mania, acute suicidality, or untreated substance misuse; obtain informed consent describing temporary distress; for minors, obtain assent and carer consent [synthesis].
  • Example language (illustrative): "OCD is taking something you care about and turning it into a test you can never pass. Let's practise letting the thought be there without doing the ritual."
  • Watch for: exposures that become new rituals; hidden mental reviewing; clergy or family drawn into reassurance. Working: falling distress across repeated exposures and fewer hours lost to rituals.

4.6 Reducing reassurance-seeking

  • Purpose / when: when the client repeatedly asks you, family, clergy or the internet whether they are safe, possessed or damned.
  • Steps: (1) Name reassurance-seeking as a compulsion [source: IOCDF]. (2) Agree with the client a response everyone will give (warm, brief, non-answering). (3) Coach family in that response, with the client present. (4) Track frequency. (5) Pair with ERP (4.5).
  • Example language (illustrative): "I can hear how much you want to be sure. I'm not going to answer the certainty question, because we've seen that the relief doesn't last. Let's notice the urge together."
  • Watch for: the client switching to a new source of reassurance (forums, videos); family distress at withholding answers. Working: requests fall in frequency and urgency.

4.7 Media-induced fear

  • Purpose / when: fear, nightmares or avoidance after horror films, videos or online content about Ouija and possession, with or without having used a board. In a retrospective study of over 150 students, 90% recalled a fright reaction to scary media from childhood or adolescence, about a quarter still had residual anxiety, over half reported sleep or eating changes, over a third avoided the situation shown, and nearly a quarter reported obsessive thinking about it; effects lasted longer when viewing was younger and when the person watched because someone else chose it; younger viewers used behavioural coping, older ones cognitive coping [source: University of Michigan release on Harrison & Cantor, Media Psychology 2007].
  • Steps: (1) Identify the specific images or ideas that stay. (2) Match coping to age: for young children, behavioural and comforting strategies with carers (night routine, company, light); for older children and adults, cognitive strategies (it is fiction, how scenes are made) [source: Harrison & Cantor via UMich]. (3) Reduce avoidance gradually. (4) Address sleep. (5) If obsessional features appear, move to 4.5. (6) Guide carers on age-appropriate media choices and on not pressuring children to watch [synthesis].
  • Example language (illustrative): "Films about Ouija are made to frighten, and they are very good at it. Which scene keeps coming back?"
  • Watch for: fear that persists for months, panic, or trauma symptoms (assess as anxiety disorder or PTSD). Working: sleep returns, avoidance shrinks.

4.8 Children and adolescents: safeguarding, assent and group episodes

  • Purpose / when: a minor presents after board use (sleepovers and pre-teen groups are a common setting [source: Strong Museum]), or a group of young people becomes distressed together. Reports from Colombia describe groups of schoolgirls taken to hospital after playing with a board, found to have no physical illness, and discharged under psychological follow-up while families sought prayers [source: Colombia Reports; uncertain: single thin report, diagnosis not stated].
  • Steps: (1) Obtain carer consent and the young person's assent; explain confidentiality and its limits. (2) Interview the young person alone as well as with carers. (3) Assess fear, sleep, OCD features, trauma, self-harm and suicidal thinking, and any unusual experiences. (4) Ask how the family and community are responding: punishment, exorcism or deliverance, isolation, refusal of medical or psychological care on faith grounds; follow local child-protection procedures if a child is harmed or care is withheld. (5) Make sure spiritual labels ("oppressed", "gifted", "sensitive") do not replace assessment for anxiety, ADHD, autism or other conditions; refer for specialist assessment where indicated. (6) In group episodes, work with school and health services, reduce rumour and contagion, see children individually, and avoid dramatic public responses [synthesis]. (7) Give carers calm guidance: listen, avoid ridicule or horror, keep routines, limit frightening media (4.7).
  • Example language (illustrative): "Lots of young people try a board at a sleepover. You're not in trouble here. What happened afterwards that worried you?"
  • Watch for: a young person afraid of punishment at home; adults amplifying fear; online "Ouija challenge" content; never name minors in records shared outside the clinical team. Working: the child sleeps, attends school, and can talk about it without panic.

4.9 Grief and attempts to contact the dead

  • Purpose / when: a bereaved client has used, or wants to use, a board or a paid medium to contact someone who died. Talking boards emerged from Spiritualism and were taken up by grieving families after the Civil War and in the First World War era [source: Laycock 2016; Smithsonian].
  • Steps: (1) Ask what the client hoped for and what they received. (2) Explore the ongoing relationship with the dead person (continuing bonds) in ways the client values: memories, rituals, conversations, faith practices. (3) Assess complicated grief: persistent yearning, inability to accept the death, functional impairment, avoidance, or life organised around contact. (4) Ask about frequency, cost and who profits (paid sittings, online "spirit board" sessions). (5) Look at messages received: do they bring comfort, or blame, instructions or fear? (6) Where grief is complicated, offer evidence-based grief treatment or refer [synthesis]. Continuing-bonds literature [uncertain: not verified].
  • Example language (illustrative): "It sounds like you were longing to hear from her. What did you need her to say?" / "How are these sessions leaving you afterwards: closer to her, or more unsettled?"
  • Watch for: escalating spending; a third party relaying "messages" that steer money or decisions; distress when "contact" fails; abandoning other supports. Working: the bond is held in ways that comfort without dependency.

4.10 Unusual experiences after a session: dissociation, psychosis, mania

  • Purpose / when: depersonalisation, derealisation, "losing time", feeling controlled, voices, or elated certainty of special status after board use.
  • Steps: (1) Grounding in session (orienting to the room, the date, the body) if the client is dissociating [synthesis]. (2) Gentle reality testing focused on function and safety, not belief: sleep, eating, work, relationships, whether others in their tradition recognise the experience. (3) Check substance use. (4) Urgent psychiatric referral for possible first-episode psychosis or mania; same-day risk assessment if indicated. (5) Advise against further sessions while symptoms are active, framed around rest and safety, not ridicule [synthesis].
  • Example language (illustrative): "Right now, can you feel your feet on the floor? Tell me three things you can see." / "Whatever this is, your sleep has gone and you're exhausted. Can we get a doctor's view as well?"
  • Watch for: hostility if belief is challenged; command-type messages. Working: symptoms settle and the client engages with assessment.

4.11 Decisions made by the board; dependency and money

  • Purpose / when: the client consults a board, app or paid reader repeatedly before decisions, or feels unable to act without it.
  • Steps: (1) Map frequency, triggers and costs. (2) Explore the function: reducing uncertainty, avoiding responsibility, staying close to someone. (3) Use the agency findings (4.4) if the client wants them. (4) Practise small decisions without consulting, tolerating uncertainty. (5) If compulsive, treat as OCD (4.5); if a paid provider is steering money or isolating the client, explore coercion and consumer-protection options [synthesis].
  • Example language (illustrative): "What would it be like to make this one choice yourself, and see what happens?"
  • Watch for: secrecy about spending; relatives' concern. Working: decisions made with the client's own reasoning.

4.12 Risk response to harmful "messages"

  • Purpose / when: a board "told" the client they will die, should harm themselves or someone else, stop treatment or medication, or leave their family.
  • Steps: (1) Ask directly about suicidal thoughts and intent using your service's standard risk assessment. (2) Make a safety plan, including lethal-means counselling (storage and removal) where relevant. (3) Ask about threats to others. (4) Never advise a client to start, stop or change a medicine; route medication questions to the prescriber. (5) Involve crisis services when risk is high [synthesis].
  • Example language (illustrative): "When the board spelled that, did you have any thoughts of ending your life or hurting yourself?"
  • Watch for: adolescents who have been frightened by peers' prank messages; command hallucinations. Working: the client keeps to the safety plan.

4.13 Faith, guilt and community liaison

  • Purpose / when: a religious client feels guilt or fear of punishment for having used a board that their tradition forbids, or family conflict over it. Many religious groups condemn the board as divination [source: Strong Museum]; a Catholic diocesan column cites Catechism §2116 rejecting all divination [source: Diocese of Springfield in Illinois].
  • Steps: (1) Explore the client's own relationship to their tradition's teaching. (2) Distinguish ordinary religious guilt (which the tradition usually provides ways to resolve) from scrupulosity (endless, ritualised, never enough) [source: IOCDF]. (3) If the client wishes, involve a trusted religious leader to clarify what the tradition asks of them; prepare the client for that conversation. (4) Do not offer theological rulings yourself.
  • Example language (illustrative): "In your tradition, what would usually be done after something like this? Have you been able to do that? And did it help, or did the doubt come straight back?"
  • Watch for: deliverance or exorcism requests for a minor or for a client with psychiatric symptoms (coordinate care, safeguard); clergy drawn into reassurance cycles. Working: the client experiences their faith as a support again.

4.14 Boundaries, self-disclosure and dual roles

  • Purpose / when: throughout, and especially when asked "Do you believe in it?" or when the therapist has personal involvement in Spiritualism, paranormal investigation or occult practice.
  • Steps: (1) Do not use a board, perform readings or "contact" anyone in therapy. (2) Keep any personal spiritual or paranormal practice separate from clinical work; do not see clients in both roles. (3) Self-disclose beliefs only if it clearly serves the client, briefly. (4) Seek consultation on religious and spiritual competence where needed; the Vieten et al. (2013) spiritual and religious competencies are a reference point [uncertain: not verified]. Ethics points here are [synthesis].
  • Example language (illustrative): "My view matters less than yours here. I'm interested in what it means to you and how it's affecting you."
  • Watch for: pull to be the expert on spirits, or to debunk. Working: the client uses therapy for their own goals.

5. Handling problems

The sources do not address clinical problem-handling for this practice; all guidance below is [synthesis] unless a source is named.

  • The client wants you to confirm it was (or was not) a spirit. Name the wish for certainty; say your role is to help with how this is affecting them; if OCD is present, treat the request as reassurance-seeking (4.6) [source for reassurance as compulsion: IOCDF].
  • The client feels mocked by "it's just the ideomotor effect". Repair the rupture: acknowledge the explanation landed as dismissal, return to meaning (4.1), and offer research only as one perspective (4.4).
  • Stuck in ERP because exposures feel sinful. Revisit values; ask whether a trusted religious leader can clarify what the tradition permits (IOCDF notes this role); choose exposures to uncertainty rather than to forbidden acts [source: IOCDF; synthesis].
  • Overwhelm during exposure or recall of the session. Pause, ground (4.10), step down the hierarchy, check for trauma or dissociation, and re-consent before continuing.
  • Non-adherence (rituals continue in secret, client keeps using boards or apps). Explore the function without blame; agree smaller steps; involve family in non-reassurance only with consent.
  • Family insists on deliverance, exorcism or removal of the child from treatment. Use the CFI to understand the family's model; seek a collaborative plan that keeps assessment and treatment going; involve a trusted religious leader the family respects; escalate under child-protection procedures if a child is harmed or necessary care is withheld.
  • Group contagion in a school or peer group. Coordinate with school and health services; avoid sensational messages; see affected children individually; give carers simple guidance (4.8).
  • The client is bereaved and dependent on paid sittings. Focus on grief and the bond (4.9); explore costs and any steering of decisions; avoid attacking the medium, which can push the client away.
  • Persistent unusual experiences after reassurance and grounding. Do not keep reframing; refer for psychiatric assessment (4.10).
  • The therapist's own reactions (fear, scorn, fascination). Use supervision; keep the boundary that the therapist is never a medium or debunker in session (4.14).
  • Online content keeps re-triggering fear. Agree a media plan; treat compulsive checking of videos and forums as reassurance-seeking or avoidance as fits the formulation (4.6, 4.7) [source for media effects: Harrison & Cantor via UMich].

Sources

Web sources:

Works cited via the sources above: Carpenter, W. B. (1852) on involuntary muscular action; Raupert, J. G. (1919) book warning Catholics against the board; Harrison, K. & Cantor, J. (2007), "Tales from the Screen: Enduring Fright Reactions to Scary Media", Media Psychology. Further background: Grof and Lukoff on spiritual emergency; Vieten et al. (2013) spiritual and religious competencies; continuing-bonds grief literature [uncertain: not verified].

← Previous · XIV-106Automatic writingNext · XIV-108 →Channelling (Seth, Abraham-Hicks, Ramtha, Kryon)