Induced After-Death Communication

By Michael E. Tymn
Source: Nexus Magazine

Basically, there are two explanations for a revolutionary new form of grief therapy discovered by Dr Allan Botkin, a clinical psychologist practising in Libertyville, Illinois. Either the grieving patients are hallucinating or they are in touch with "the dead".

The therapy, called Induced After-Death Communication (IADC), results in patients seeing and communicating with deceased loved ones and occasionally with deceased enemies. IADC is an offshoot of EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) therapy, which was discovered in 1987 by Dr Francine Shapiro of California. As explained on her website, Shapiro was walking in the park one day when she realised that eye movements seemed to decrease the negative emotions associated with her own distressing memories. Some experimentation resulted in the development of the procedure she initially called Eye Movement Desensitization (EMD).

After the patient's emotional issues are fully analysed and a treatment plan developed, the patient and therapist focus on distressing events that apparently have led to the emotional disturbance. The patient is instructed to focus on a particular image or negative thought while simultaneously moving his or her eyes back and forth following the therapist's fingers, which are moved about in the client's field of vision for 20 to 30 seconds or longer. The patient is told to let the mind go blank and take note of whatever thought, image or memory develops. The patient is then asked to focus on a positive belief identified at the beginning of the session and to focus further on the emotionally disturbing event. After several sets of eye movements, patients generally report increased confidence in the positive belief and elimination of the emotional disturbance.

In IADC therapy, the person who is grieving the death of someone is asked to focus directly on the sadness during the eye movements. The typical IADC involves the patient seeing a deceased person, and that deceased person telling him or her that everything is okay and not to grieve. In a number of cases, the deceased has related information previously unknown to the patient. The therapy works with people of all beliefs, including atheists and sceptics. The end result is that the majority of patients overcome their grief.

Botkin is reasonably certain that the many patients who have benefited from the therapy are not dreaming, imagining, fantasising or otherwise hallucinating, but he prefers not to speculate as to whether patients are actually in touch with the spirit world. Whatever the explanation, according to Botkin it works at least 70 per cent of the time.

"As a psychologist who is primarily interested in healing people who suffer so profoundly, I have taken the strategy not to engage in arguments about beliefs," he says in explaining his position. "Believers and sceptics have been waging this battle for some time. I believe that if I take a side, and get placed in one camp, it will be more difficult for me to get help to those who need it."
Moreover, Botkin points out that his neutral position allows the patient to interpret the experience without being influenced by the therapist's beliefs.

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