Atlas›Domain XIV · Western esoteric, divinatory & new spiritual movements›Guide 106
Guide XIV-106

Automatic writing

A 31 · L 56 · M 1313 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: automatic writing (psychography) as the Spiritualist and psychical-research tradition describes it (F. W. H. Myers and the Society for Psychical Research, William Stainton Moses, the "cross-correspondences"), as it is taught today in Spiritualist and psychic-studies settings and practised in Brazilian Spiritism, with clinical framing from Pierre Janet's work on psychological automatism and current research on dissociation and unconscious authorship. This guide describes the practice in outline only and gives no steps for producing it.

What it is. Automatic writing is writing produced involuntarily while the writer's attention is ostensibly directed elsewhere, in an alert waking state or in trance, usually in a séance or circle; it is also called psychography [source: Britannica, "automatic writing"]. Practitioners attribute the content to spirits of the dead, guides or other agents; psychical researchers placed it among "motor automatisms"; clinicians place it among dissociative phenomena [source: Britannica; Hamilton, Psi Encyclopedia, Myers; van der Hart & Horst 1989].

Background as its sources describe it.

  • Myers and the SPR. Frederic Myers (1843–1901), a principal founder of the Society for Psychical Research (London, 1882), defined automatisms as images and movements produced without conscious thought or will: sensory automatisms (e.g. hallucinations) and motor automatisms (automatic writing, involuntary speech), which he traced to "submerged or subliminal elements" of the person. He wrote on automatic writing in the SPR Proceedings in the 1880s and proposed five possible sources: conscious will, unconscious cerebration, a higher faculty of the writer's own mind, telepathy from living minds, and discarnate or extra-human intelligences, reserving the last for exceptional cases. He did not regard automatisms as necessarily pathological and held that they could be purposive and even helpful. His main theoretical work, Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death, appeared posthumously in 1903 [source: Hamilton, Psi Encyclopedia, Myers].
  • William Stainton Moses (1839–1892). An Anglican priest and teacher who sat in a private circle, he began automatic writing around 1873; he reported that it often came unbidden, that he could not always produce it at will, and that he could read other material while his hand wrote. The writings were attributed to a band of communicators led by one calling itself "Imperator"; a compilation, Spirit Teachings, was published in 1883. He founded the London Spiritualist Alliance (now the College of Psychic Studies) and was among the organisers and a vice-president of the SPR, resigning in 1886 [source: Tymn, Psi Encyclopedia, Moses; Psi Encyclopedia, College of Psychic Studies].
  • The cross-correspondences. From 1901, after Myers's death, several automatists writing in different places (among them the Cambridge classicist Margaret Verrall, from 13 March 1901, and, in related trance work, the professional medium Leonora Piper) produced scripts whose fragments appeared to interlock; some were signed "Myers". By 1936 more than 3,000 scripts were available. Interpretations remain divided: survival of a directing mind (Eleanor Sidgwick 1917; Hornell Hart 1959), telepathy among the living, chance patterning in a large literary corpus, and investigator bias and wish-fulfilment among researchers close to Myers [source: Psi Encyclopedia, Cross-Correspondences].
  • Janet. In L'automatisme psychologique (1889) Pierre Janet treated automatic writing as a psychological automatism: with a hypnotised patient whose attention was distracted, the hand wrote answers under another name and disclosed memories and sensations the patient's ordinary self lacked. Janet linked such split-off activity to a narrowed field of consciousness, to traumatic "fixed ideas" and to dissociation, a lineage that runs into modern trauma and dissociation theory [source: van der Hart & Horst 1989].
  • Unconscious authorship. Experimental work places automatic writing, the Ouija board and table-turning among "coaction automatisms" whose actions often do not feel willed and are sometimes attributed to spirits; participants' own knowledge shapes guided responses, and belief that another agent is a plausible source drives the attribution of authorship to that agent [source: Wegner, Fuller & Sparrow 2003]. A popular summary reports a study in which ideomotor Ouija responses were more accurate than chance when participants believed they were guessing, and describes the 1919 Glastonbury Abbey case, in which an architect attributed excavation guidance to automatic writing with a medium [source: French 2022, The Skeptic].

Modern esoteric practice (outline). Automatic writing is listed among the workshop and talk topics of the College of Psychic Studies in London, alongside mediumship training, trance and working with guides and angels [source: Psi Encyclopedia, College of Psychic Studies]. In Brazilian Spiritism, psychography is a mediumistic practice in which, as practitioners put it, the spirit writes through the medium's hand; one study of experienced psychographers reported 15–47 years of practice and 2–18 psychographies a month [source: Peres et al. 2012]. Practice ranges from solitary home use to circles and paid workshops; it overlaps with channelling (see 098 mediumship development circles, 100 Kardecist Spiritism, 108 channelling). Detailed method is not given here.

Evidence status (one line). That automatic-writing content comes from discarnate agents is not established; researchers of the cross-correspondences remain divided, and experimental work shows that writers' own unconscious knowledge shapes guided output and is readily attributed to other agents [source: Psi Encyclopedia, Cross-Correspondences; Wegner et al. 2003]. One small neuroimaging study of ten healthy Brazilian psychographers reported reduced activity in several regions during psychography alongside more complex written content, and called for replication [source: Peres et al. 2012].

How change happens in therapy. The therapist does not teach, induce or interpret automatic writing. Clients bring it as a religious or spiritual practice, a grief practice, a curiosity, or a frightening experience. Change comes from (a) understanding what the practice means and does in the client's life, (b) careful differential assessment of dissociation, psychosis, mania, OCD and grief without pathologising belief, (c) reducing harm (dependency, distress, exploitation), and (d) where writing itself would help, offering conscious, self-authored therapeutic writing, which is a distinct clinical method (Pennebaker's expressive writing; see Domain VIII) [synthesis].

2. Framework

Automatic writing is a practice, not a psychotherapy; there is no treatment manual. The framework below organises the therapist's work with a client who practises it or has experienced it [synthesis]. No source gives session counts; pace is set by risk and by the client's goals.

Phase A: Engagement and description. Goal: a full, non-judgemental description of the practice in the client's own words (what tradition, how often, with whom, at what cost, what the writing says, how the client feels before, during and after). Move on when the client feels understood and the practice history is clear [synthesis].

Phase B: Cultural and meaning formulation. Goal: understand the practice inside the client's religious or spiritual framework and community, using the DSM-5-TR Cultural Formulation Interview and its spirituality, religion and moral traditions supplementary module [uncertain: not verified]. Move on when you and the client can state what the practice is for and whether it is a resource, a problem, or both [synthesis].

Phase C: Differential assessment and risk. Goal: distinguish a culturally congruent, controllable spiritual practice from dissociative disorder, psychosis, mania, OCD or complicated grief, and screen for risk (commanding or hostile content, self-harm, sleep loss, impaired functioning). Proposed distinguishing features include little distress, no impairment, brief duration, a questioning stance about objective reality, consistency with the client's community, absence of other disorders, control over when the experience occurs, personal growth and an orientation to helping others; these reflect expert consensus and have not been empirically validated [source: Menezes Júnior & Moreira-Almeida 2009]. Move on when you have a working formulation; if acute risk appears, go straight to Phase E.

Phase D: Collaborative plan. Goal: agree what, if anything, the client wants to change (continue unchanged, reduce, set limits, pause, stop, or replace with self-authored writing), and treat any identified disorder with the appropriate evidence-based approach. The decision about the practice belongs to the client unless safety requires otherwise [synthesis].

Phase E: Referral and coordination. Goal: involve psychiatry (psychosis, mania, risk), dissociation specialists (see Domain VI on dissociative disorders), bereavement services, and, if the client wishes, the client's own religious community or teachers [synthesis].

3. Guiding principles

  • The therapist is not a medium, reader or teacher. Do not induce, demonstrate, coach or practise automatic writing in session, and do not read scripts as messages for the client [synthesis].
  • Attribute, do not adjudicate. Describe beliefs about the source of the writing in the client's terms ("your guide", "your grandmother", "your higher self") without affirming or refuting them; Myers's own five-source list shows that even its early researchers held several explanations open [source: Hamilton, Psi Encyclopedia, Myers].
  • Function over content. Ask what the practice does (comfort, guidance, creativity, control, contact) and what it costs, rather than debating whether it is real [synthesis].
  • Do not pathologise belief or practice. Automatic writing within a supportive tradition, with control, without impairment, is not in itself a symptom [source: Menezes Júnior & Moreira-Almeida 2009; Hamilton on Myers].
  • Do not miss illness either. Loss of control, distress, impairment, other symptoms or a change from the client's usual practice call for full assessment [source: Menezes Júnior & Moreira-Almeida 2009].
  • Dissociation-informed. The phenomenon has been understood clinically as dissociative since Janet; watch for spread into daily life, amnesia, identity disturbance and trauma links [source: van der Hart & Horst 1989].
  • Grief-informed. Many clients use scripts to stay in contact with the dead; respect continuing bonds while watching for dependency and avoidance [synthesis].
  • Keep therapeutic writing separate. Expressive writing is conscious, self-authored and owned by the client; never blend it with techniques meant to produce writing that feels unwilled [synthesis; source: Rude et al. 2023 on expressive writing].
  • Client autonomy and consent. Explore scripts only with consent and only as far as the client wants [synthesis].
  • Cultural humility. Know the tradition (Spiritualist, Spiritist, New Age) and its own norms for safe practice before judging the client's practice against them [synthesis].
  • Protect against exploitation. Ask about costs, teachers and pressure without assuming wrongdoing [synthesis].
  • Safety overrides neutrality. Content commanding harm, or a client unable to stop, is a clinical emergency regardless of attributed source [synthesis].

4. Intervention inventory

These are the therapist's interventions with a client who practises or has experienced automatic writing. None involves producing automatic writing. Except where a source is named, the procedures are [synthesis] built from the sources in section 1 and general clinical practice.

4.1 Practice history interview

  • Purpose / when: First sessions with any client who mentions automatic writing, psychography, "channelled" writing or spirit messages on paper; also when a referral letter raises it.
  • Steps: (1) Ask permission to talk about it and say you are not there to judge whether it is real. (2) Map the tradition: Spiritualist church or circle, Spiritist centre, psychic-studies workshops, online teachers, solitary practice. (3) Map onset and course: when it began, triggers (bereavement, crisis, a course), frequency, whether it is chosen or comes unbidden (Moses reported both [source: Tymn, Psi Encyclopedia]). (4) Map state: alert or trance, awareness during writing, memory afterwards, sense of control and ability to stop. (5) Map content and attributed source. (6) Map consequences: mood after sessions, sleep, decisions taken on the basis of scripts, money spent, relationships. (7) Summarise back in the client's words.
  • Example language (illustrative): "I'd like to understand this the way you experience it, not decide what it is. When did the writing first start, and what was happening in your life then?" / "When the writing stops, how do you feel, and how long does that last?"
  • Watch for: Writing that now arrives unbidden outside the chosen setting; gaps in memory; growing frequency; scripts driving major decisions; secrecy. It is working when the client gives a detailed, unguarded account and you can see both the resource and the risk.

4.2 Cultural Formulation Interview with the spirituality module

  • Purpose / when: Early, to place the practice inside the client's culture and community before any diagnostic judgement.
  • Steps: Use the DSM-5-TR Cultural Formulation Interview core questions (the problem in the client's own words, cultural perceptions of cause, supports and stressors, cultural identity, help-seeking) and the supplementary module on spirituality, religion and moral traditions [uncertain: not verified]. Add practice-specific prompts: how the client's tradition views automatic writing, who in that tradition would regard the client's current experience as normal or as a problem, and what that tradition advises when it goes wrong.
  • Example language (illustrative): "In your circle, how would people understand what's been happening with the writing lately? Would anyone there be worried, or would they see it as normal development?"
  • Watch for: Mismatch between the client's experience and their own community's norms (a key distinguishing feature [source: Menezes Júnior & Moreira-Almeida 2009]); isolation from any community. Working when the client can describe the practice in both personal and communal terms.

4.3 Exploring the meaning of scripts (client-led)

  • Purpose / when: When the client wants to bring scripts into therapy, or the content clearly matters to them (comfort from a dead parent, guidance, warnings).
  • Steps: (1) Ask whether the client wants to share content, and how much. (2) Let the client read or paraphrase; do not take the paper and read it as an oracle. (3) Explore what the message means to them, what it asks of them, and how it fits their own values. (4) Explore the relationship with the attributed source (trust, fear, longing). (5) If the client is curious about where the writing comes from, lay out the range of views neutrally, including the practitioners' view and Myers's list of possible sources, and let the client hold their own view [source: Hamilton, Psi Encyclopedia, Myers]. (6) Return to the client's own agency: what they want to do with the message.
  • Example language (illustrative): "What did it mean to you to read those words?" / "Setting aside where the message came from, does what it says fit with what you want for yourself?"
  • Watch for: Content that is hostile, commanding, sexualised, persecutory or grandiose (go to 4.4 and 4.11); the therapist being drawn into interpreting messages. Working when the client relates to the content reflectively rather than obeying it.

4.4 Differential assessment without pathologising belief

  • Purpose / when: Whenever there is distress, impairment, loss of control, new symptoms, or a change in the practice; routinely after 4.1–4.2.
  • Steps: (1) Score the experience informally against the nine proposed features (distress, impairment, duration, critical attitude, cultural congruence, other disorders, control, growth, other-centredness) [source: Menezes Júnior & Moreira-Almeida 2009]; treat them as a guide, not a test, since they are unvalidated. (2) Psychosis: assess for experiences outside the writing session: voices, thought insertion or broadcasting, feelings that actions or thoughts are controlled by outside forces in daily life, delusions of reference or persecution, disorganisation, functional decline; a culturally shared belief in spirit communication is not itself a delusion [synthesis]. (3) Mania/hypomania: decreased need for sleep, pressured or prolific writing at night, grandiose mission content, spending [synthesis]. (4) Dissociation: amnesia for writing or other periods, identity alteration or named "parts" outside the practice, depersonalisation or derealisation, trauma history; Janet's work links automatic writing to split-off traumatic material [source: van der Hart & Horst 1989]; use a structured dissociation screen and see Domain VI on dissociative disorders [synthesis]. (5) OCD: compulsive consulting of scripts for reassurance, fear of disobeying messages, scrupulosity; ERP as clinical sources describe it [uncertain: not verified]. (6) Grief: whether the practice began after a death and whether it sustains or blocks mourning (4.6). (7) Medical: new-onset automatisms with confusion, neurological signs or substance use warrant medical review [synthesis].
  • Example language (illustrative): "Outside the times you sit down to write, do you ever feel your thoughts or actions aren't your own?" / "Are there times you can't remember what you've written, or what you've been doing?"
  • Watch for: Experiences that spill out of the chosen setting, loss of control, sleep loss, escalating certainty, commands. Working when you can state a formulation the client recognises and that does not depend on whether their beliefs are true.

4.5 Dissociation-informed stabilisation

  • Purpose / when: When writing sessions, or recollection of them, trigger depersonalisation, derealisation, time loss or overwhelming affect, or when trauma material surfaces in scripts.
  • Steps: (1) Agree not to practise automatic writing in session and to keep session content in present, conscious awareness. (2) Teach orienting and grounding (naming the date, place and surroundings; sensory anchors; feet on the floor). (3) Build a written safety and coping plan. (4) Discuss with the client whether to pause the practice while dissociative symptoms are assessed, leaving the decision with them unless risk requires otherwise. (5) Where trauma is suspected, follow a phase-oriented trauma approach (stabilisation before processing) and refer to Domain VI [synthesis; phase orientation as in the Janet tradition, source: van der Hart & Horst 1989].
  • Example language (illustrative): "Let's stay with what's here in the room right now. Can you tell me three things you can see?" / "Would it feel all right to set the writing aside while we understand these blank spells better?"
  • Watch for: Growing spacing-out in sessions, switching or a change of voice, self-harm. Working when the client can notice and reverse early signs and time loss decreases.

4.6 Grief work: continuing bonds versus dependency

  • Purpose / when: When scripts are attributed to a dead person, or practice started after a loss; cross-refer 098 and 099 on mediumship and bereavement.
  • Steps: (1) Validate the wish for contact and ask what the messages give the client. (2) Explore whether the practice helps the client carry the relationship forward (continuing bond) or keeps them from accepting the loss (daily consulting, inability to make decisions without the deceased's "approval"). (3) Screen for prolonged grief and depression. (4) Offer grief-focused work that includes the relationship with the deceased in conscious form, for example an unsent letter written by the client in their own voice (4.10). (5) Agree, if the client wishes, on limits that protect daily life.
  • Example language (illustrative): "It sounds like the writing brings your father close. Are there things you'd want to say to him in your own words?"
  • Watch for: Escalating frequency, distress when the writing "doesn't come", paid sessions with others to obtain messages, withdrawal from the living. Working when the bond feels sustaining rather than compulsory and daily functioning improves [synthesis].

4.7 Decision dependency and compulsive consulting

  • Purpose / when: When the client cannot act without consulting scripts, repeats sessions until the "right" answer appears, or feels anxious or guilty about disobeying messages.
  • Steps: (1) Map the cycle together: trigger (uncertainty), consulting, short-term relief, renewed doubt. (2) Identify decisions the client would like to own again. (3) If the pattern is OCD-like (reassurance-seeking, scrupulosity about obeying), offer exposure and response prevention in the form clinical sources describe, built from client-chosen steps such as delaying or skipping consultation for low-stakes decisions [uncertain: not verified]. (4) Strengthen the client's own decision-making (values clarification, weighing options aloud). (5) Keep the client's faith intact: the goal is choice, not giving up the practice unless the client wants to.
  • Example language (illustrative): "What would it be like to make this small choice yourself first, and only afterwards see what the writing says?"
  • Watch for: Rising anxiety when consulting is delayed (expected early in ERP), the therapist becoming a substitute oracle. Working when the client makes everyday decisions without consulting and reports less doubt.

4.8 Screening for financial exploitation and group pressure

  • Purpose / when: When the client attends paid workshops, sessions or online programmes, or describes a teacher who interprets their scripts.
  • Steps: (1) Ask what the client has spent and whether spending is rising. (2) Ask whether teachers promise development only through further paid levels, discourage outside advice, or claim exclusive access to the client's guides. (3) Ask whether the client feels free to stop. (4) Support the client to set limits; give information on consumer and complaints routes if the client wishes. Describe concerns in terms of behaviour, not labels for the group [synthesis].
  • Example language (illustrative): "Some people find these courses really valuable and some find they cost more than they expected. How has it been for you?"
  • Watch for: Debt, secrecy from family, isolation, sexual or financial pressure from a teacher (follow safeguarding and reporting routes). Working when spending is chosen and affordable and the client feels free to leave.

4.9 Neutral information about authorship (only on request)

  • Purpose / when: When the client asks the therapist's view on where the writing comes from, or is frightened by the sense that something else controls the hand.
  • Steps: (1) Ask what the client already believes and what they hope to hear. (2) Offer the range of explanations as their proponents hold them: practitioners' spirit hypothesis; Myers's five possible sources, from conscious will to discarnate agents [source: Hamilton, Psi Encyclopedia, Myers]; Janet's dissociative automatism [source: van der Hart & Horst 1989]; experimental findings that people's own knowledge shapes guided movements and that the sense of authorship can shift to another plausible agent [source: Wegner et al. 2003]. (3) State that the therapist does not need to settle the question to help. (4) For a frightened client, emphasise that the experience is well described and understood in several frameworks, which often reduces fear [synthesis].
  • Example language (illustrative): "People have explained this in quite different ways: some as spirit contact, some as a deeper part of your own mind. We don't have to decide which is right to work out what's best for you."
  • Watch for: The client hearing information as dismissal (repair, 5.3); using the information to argue with family. Working when fear falls and the client's own view feels respected.

4.10 Self-authored therapeutic writing as a distinct method

  • Purpose / when: When writing is meaningful to the client and a conscious, self-authored alternative could help with grief, trauma-related feelings or emotional processing; see Domain VIII for full guidance on therapeutic writing.
  • What it is: Pennebaker's expressive writing, first reported by Pennebaker and Beall (1986), typically asks people to write for 15–20 minutes on each of three consecutive days about their deepest thoughts and feelings concerning an important emotional experience, without concern for grammar or spelling [source: Rude et al. 2023]. Unlike automatic writing, the writer is fully aware, writes in their own voice and owns the content.
  • Steps: (1) Explain the difference from automatic writing plainly. (2) Agree the topic and frequency with the client, following the published format as a starting point. (3) Agree that the client can stop at any point and keeps the writing private unless they choose to share it. (4) Plan a short grounding activity afterwards. (5) Review in session: what the client noticed, not the quality of the text. (6) For grief, variants such as an unsent letter in the client's own voice are often used [synthesis].
  • Example language (illustrative): "This is different from the writing you do in your circle: here you're the author, you know what you're writing, and you can stop whenever you like."
  • Watch for: Writers often feel worse immediately after writing; clients who strongly avoid painful content may find deep engagement overwhelming; findings across meta-analyses are mixed [source: Rude et al. 2023]. For PTSD, use an established trauma-focused treatment rather than unstructured writing [synthesis]. Stop if the client begins to feel the writing is "coming through" them or loses awareness. Working when the client reports clarity or relief over days, not only in the moment.

4.11 Risk response to commanding or hostile content

  • Purpose / when: When scripts instruct self-harm, harm to others, stopping medical treatment, giving away money, or contain persecutory threats; or when the client cannot stop writing.
  • Steps: (1) Ask directly about the content and whether the client feels compelled to act on it. (2) Complete a standard suicide and harm risk assessment and safety plan. (3) Arrange urgent psychiatric assessment if there is intent, command compliance, psychotic or manic features, or inability to stop. (4) Involve supports the client agrees to. (5) Document. Do not argue about the source of the commands; address the safety of the person [synthesis].
  • Example language (illustrative): "Whatever is behind these words, I'm concerned about your safety. Do you feel you have to do what the writing says?"
  • Watch for: Escalation, insomnia, isolation, disclosure only in fragments. Working when the client is safe and engaged with the right level of care.

4.12 Referral, community involvement and safeguarding

  • Purpose / when: When assessment points to psychosis, bipolar disorder, a dissociative disorder, complicated grief or a medical cause; when the client wants their tradition's guidance; when children are involved.
  • Steps: (1) Refer to psychiatry, dissociation-specialist services (Domain VI) or bereavement services as indicated, explaining the reason in non-pathologising language. (2) If the client wishes, and with consent, involve a trusted teacher or leader from the client's tradition, who may advise rest from practice. (3) Where children or adolescents practise or are encouraged to practise, assess age-appropriate understanding, distress and adult influence; follow local safeguarding procedures if a child is pressured, frightened, or used to produce messages [synthesis].
  • Example language (illustrative): "Would it help to talk this over with someone from your centre whom you trust? I'm happy to think with you about how to do that."
  • Watch for: Referral felt as rejection; family conflict over the practice. Working when the client takes up the referral and feels supported by both clinical and religious networks.

4.13 Boundaries and therapist role

  • Purpose / when: Throughout; especially when the therapist has personal involvement in esoteric practice or the client invites it.
  • Steps: (1) Do not practise, demonstrate, teach or interpret automatic writing with clients. (2) Keep any personal practice separate from clinical work and avoid dual relationships (e.g. attending the same circle) [synthesis]. (3) Use self-disclosure about personal beliefs sparingly and only for the client's benefit. (4) Seek supervision and consultation on spiritual and religious competence (Vieten et al. 2013) [uncertain: not verified].
  • Example language (illustrative): "My role here is to help you understand what this means for you and how it's affecting your life, not to read the messages myself."
  • Watch for: Requests to confirm messages, to join a circle, to receive scripts addressed to the therapist. Working when the frame stays clear and the client experiences it as respect.

5. Handling problems

All guidance in this section is [synthesis] unless a source is named.

5.1 The client asks the therapist to try it, or to read the scripts as messages. Decline warmly and explain the role (4.13); offer to explore what the client hopes the therapist would find. (illustrative) "I can see why you'd want a second view. My job is to help with what the messages mean for you, not to receive or check them."

5.2 The client wants the therapist to confirm or deny that spirits are writing. Name that people hold different views and that therapy does not depend on settling it (4.9). If the client presses, a brief honest statement that you hold the question open, without argument, is usually enough.

5.3 Rupture: the client feels pathologised. Acknowledge it directly, separate the practice from the concern ("it's not the writing I'm worried about, it's the sleepless nights"), and return to the nine features as shared criteria the client can apply themselves [source for the criteria: Menezes Júnior & Moreira-Almeida 2009].

5.4 Writing has become involuntary or intrusive. If the hand writes outside the chosen setting, the client cannot stop, or automatisms appear in other forms, treat this as a clinical change: full assessment for dissociative disorder, psychosis, mania and medical causes (4.4), stabilisation (4.5), and referral (4.12). Ask the client's tradition, if they wish, what it advises; many traditions also advise rest when practice becomes uncontrolled [uncertain: not verified].

5.5 Scripts contain commands, threats or persecutory content. Follow 4.11. Do not engage with the content as if negotiating with an entity; speak to the client about their safety and choices.

5.6 The client is "stuck": no wish to change the practice despite clear costs. Use motivational exploration of the costs the client names (money, sleep, relationships), not those the therapist names; accept that the practice may continue and set safety limits together.

5.7 Non-adherence to agreed limits. Treat lapses as information about the function of the practice (loneliness at night, anniversary of a death) and adjust the plan; avoid moral framing.

5.8 Overwhelm in session. Pause, ground (4.5), reduce emotional intensity, and return to stabilisation before any further exploration of scripts or trauma material.

5.9 "Recovered" memories in scripts. Where scripts appear to reveal past abuse, past lives or hidden events, do not treat them as memory evidence; content produced in altered states is open to suggestion and confabulation. Explore the client's distress, avoid leading questions, and see Domain VI 110 on suggestion, false memory and regression harms.

5.10 A teacher or group discourages therapy. Respect the client's membership, explore what the client is told and how free they feel, and screen for financial or sexual pressure (4.8). Use behavioural descriptions, not labels for the group.

5.11 Family members are alarmed. With consent, offer a joint session focused on safety and functioning rather than on whether the practice is valid; give the family accurate information about when concern is warranted (loss of control, impairment, commands, risk).

5.12 Children or adolescents experimenting (e.g. after online videos). Assess fear, sleep and pressure from others; give calm, age-appropriate information; involve carers; follow safeguarding procedures if a child is coerced or used to produce messages for adults.

5.13 The therapist's own reactions. Fascination, scepticism or personal belief can all distort assessment. Take them to supervision; avoid both enthusiasm and debunking in session.

5.14 Framing serious distress. Some clinicians use the "spiritual emergency" framing (Grof; Lukoff) for crises arising in spiritual practice; the DSM-5-TR category Religious or Spiritual Problem (Z65.8) can record a spiritual problem that is the focus of care without implying a mental disorder [source: ICD-10-CM Z65.8 (Unbound Medicine); DSM-5-TR wording uncertain: not verified]. Neither replaces assessment for psychosis, mania or dissociative disorder.

Sources

Sources consulted:

Works cited as described in the sources above:

  • Janet, P. (1889). L'automatisme psychologique (as described by van der Hart & Horst 1989).
  • Myers, F. W. H. (1903). Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death (as described by Hamilton).
  • Moses, W. S. (1883). Spirit Teachings (as described by Tymn).
  • Pennebaker, J. W., & Beall, S. K. (1986), original expressive writing study (as cited by Rude et al. 2023).

Cross-references: Domain XIV 094 (Spiritualism), 098 (mediumship development circles), 099 (stage and television mediumship), 100 (Kardecist Spiritism); Domain VI (dissociative disorders; 110 regression and false memory); Domain VIII (therapeutic and expressive writing).

Further references [uncertain: not verified]: DSM-5-TR Cultural Formulation Interview and its supplementary modules; DSM-5-TR "Religious or Spiritual Problem" wording; Grof and Lukoff on spiritual emergency; Vieten et al. (2013) spiritual and religious competencies; IOCDF guidance on ERP.

← Previous · XIV-105Cerchio Firenze 77Next · XIV-107 →Ouija and planchette