Should family therapy include your deceased great-great-grandmother? Epigenetics meets after-death c

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Should family therapy include your deceased great-great-grandmother? Epigenetics meets after-death communication |302|
by Alex Tsakiris | Jan 21 | Consciousness Science

Dr. Dan Booth Cohen and Emily Volden merge extended consciousness and after-death communication into psychotherapy.

photo by: Pip R Lagenta

Welcome to Skeptiko where we explore controversial science with leading researchers, thinkers, and their critics. Today we talk about families… and what a pain in the neck they can be. Don’t get me wrong, I treasure my family. I treasure my relationship with my wife, but it’s difficult at times. My kids? They’re awesome; except when they’re not. My brother, sisters, aunts, uncles, brother-in-laws, all that extended family I don’t see much, they’re great too. But like the rest of my family their problems can become my problems. Families issues can become overwhelming. They can send us look for help.

Today’s guests (Dan Booth Cohen and Emily Blefeld Volden) are two psychotherapists who help individuals and family systems get back on track. But what makes them interesting, and relevant Skeptiko listeners, is they’ve shattered the traditional family therapy model by incorporating in the growing, inescapable body of evidence suggesting consciousness extends beyond death and that those who are deceased may still be among us. So, if you thought you had problems with your family — stick around — you’re liable to find out you have a lot more folks in your lineage to worry about:
 
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"Given that after-death communication in every way that we've tried to measure it is a reality, might we expect psychotherapy to change and adapt to incorporate in this new understanding?"

Yes, mainstream psychotherapy can adopt several practices that are already extant:
  1. So, if you thought you had problems with your family — stick around — you’re liable to find out you have a lot more folks in your lineage to worry about:

    This is not news to Spiritualists. Tying up unfinished business is one of the uses of evidential mediumship along with easing grief and demonstrating survival after death which can ease fear of death.

  2. Alex mentioned past life regression in the transcript so we know some other psychotherapists are already incorporating after death communication.

  3. There is also IADC: Induced After Death Communication.
    http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2009/06/induced-after-death-communication.html
    Induced after-death communication (IADC) is a therapy developed by a Veteran's Administration psychologist that helps patients with post traumatic stress syndrome. The therapy allows the patient to communicate with the spirits of those who's death was involved in the traumatic experience of the patient.

  4. The pastor of my Spiritualist church, and the president of the organization of churches our church belonged to were both psychotherapists. Both were evidential mediums. There are at least two other evidential mediums I know of who are also psychotherapists who are leading members of the Spiritualist community in my area. If you go to any of these people with issues about deceased relatives, you can get "unconventional" treatments. (If the only thing you know about Spiritualism is what you read in the mainstream media, you might not know that many Spiritualists are highly educated people like psychologists, lawyers, nurses, engineers etc.)

  5. Dr. Edith Fiore uses hypnosis to contact the spirits that are causing her patient's psychological difficulties. For more information see the book "The Unquiet Dead" by Dr. Edith Fiore.
    Video at:www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvGSDUFv4dk

  6. Spiritual healing can produce psychological healing as well as physical healing. I've experienced psychological benefits with self healing and I've been told by people whom I have given healing to that they experienced psychological healing as well.
Spiritualists have been years ahead of the rest of society in using psychic talents for practical purposes.
https://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/psi_experience
It's sort of odd that in the mainstream culture of the US, psychic abilities are considered either non-existent or rare and unusual, while at the same time Spiritualists have been quietly going about their daily lives living with and experiencing psychic phenomena as a normal everyday thing as certain and natural as the sunrise or the changing seasons.

From the transcript:
Dr. Dan Booth Cohen: But it’s not collapsing and it depends on consciousness being located in the brain. No one’s going to take that pill unless they believe that their consciousness is in their brain; and that the problems they have regarding their emotions, their behaviors, their relationships, their mind–[all of] that is brain-based. And then the pill. But if you think that consciousness is a phenomenon that we’re immersed in, why would you take a pill? Why would anybody take a pill for it? It’s ridiculous.
I believe in the afterlife. I believe the brain is a filter of consciousness. But I also know from experience that physical things influence my moods and I consider diet and lifestyle important adjuncts to meditation in developing my consciousness. The effects of lifestyle is one reason Buddhism includes rules for ethical conduct, and meditation retreats usually enforce strict discipline. For me, meditation is much more effective with the right diet and lifestyle. I suspect there are people on pills who would get more benefit from a change in diet than they get from pills (ditto for lifestyle changes), but there is no money in that for pharmaceutical corporations.
 
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We choose the elements of the experiences that we desire. If we desire to be influenced by those who are living in the Now with us (in a time linear sense this is 'across generations'), then so be it. Nothing particularly unusual about this. MOF, in a way, it is more easily understandable than the reality that we access information fields across our parallel lives including the other souls of which we have agreed to cooperate in this exchange.
 
We choose the elements of the experiences that we desire. If we desire to be influenced by those who are living in the Now with us (in a time linear sense this is 'across generations'), then so be it. Nothing particularly unusual about this. MOF, in a way, it is more easily understandable than the reality that we access information fields across our parallel lives including the other souls of which we have agreed to cooperate in this exchange.
good point... I mean, it can get really crazy when we try to deal with all the possibilities (e.g. parallel lives, reincarnation, soul groups). then again, hats off to those who are trying to help.

(btw... wow... that avatar is kinda hard to look at... would you consider a redo?)
 
First thought is sure whatever works and isn't shown to have a high probability of harm. (Even then it seems to me the individual should decide the level of risk they're willing to accept.) For example friends of mine - both getting PhDs in psychology from top unis - have used shamanic ceremonies and past life regression respectively to heal themselves.

Seems to me those against the healing of others through immaterialist options are more interested in perpetuating their metaphysics rather than patient care.

But then there's a lot of money to be made in treating humans like machines ->

The War Inside Your Head: Researchers are battling over how to identify and treat mental illness — but the changes may help pharmaceutical companies more than patients.

....As anyone who has taken Intro to Psych knows, the DSM has been controversial from the start. Supporters argue that the medicalization of mental illness, as embodied by the DSM, is beneficial for those suffering from mental illness and their loved ones. It legitimates mental illness in the public discourse and undermines pervasive ideas that mental illness is not real or is exaggerated by patients — or that mental illness reflects a defect of moral character or a “weakness of will.”

Critics of the DSM have long argued that the medical model divorces mental illnesses from the social and historical conditions in which they arise. By assuming that the cause of mental illness lies entirely within the person and not in society, the medical model and the DSM depoliticize the distress of the disadvantaged and marginalized. At the same time, the business of codifying, and treating, mental illnesses is also quite lucrative, sparking concerns that the needs of those suffering often come second to the needs of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries.

Recently, however, the loudest critiques of the DSM have come not from the Left, or the anti-psychiatric movements, but from the major players in the mental health field itself. The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) — the largest funder of mental health research and a longtime stalwart of the DSM — has dramatically changed its position on the diagnostic manual over the past few years. Now sharply critical of the manual’s validity, the NIMH is calling for the field to move away from the diagnostic manual altogether and towards a new paradigm of mental illness....
 
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good point... I mean, it can get really crazy when we try to deal with all the possibilities (e.g. parallel lives, reincarnation, soul groups). then again, hats off to those who are trying to help.

(btw... wow... that avatar is kinda hard to look at... would you consider a redo?)

I'll do my best but what can you expect from rotting flesh (Rotting Flesh)?
 
Should family therapy include your deceased great-great-grandmother? Epigenetics meets after-death communication |302|
by Alex Tsakiris | Jan 21 | Consciousness Science

Dr. Dan Booth Cohen and Emily Volden merge extended consciousness and after-death communication into psychotherapy.

photo by: Pip R Lagenta

Welcome to Skeptiko where we explore controversial science with leading researchers, thinkers, and their critics. Today we talk about families… and what a pain in the neck they can be. Don’t get me wrong, I treasure my family. I treasure my relationship with my wife, but it’s difficult at times. My kids? They’re awesome; except when they’re not. My brother, sisters, aunts, uncles, brother-in-laws, all that extended family I don’t see much, they’re great too. But like the rest of my family their problems can become my problems. Families issues can become overwhelming. They can send us look for help.

Today’s guests (Dan Booth Cohen and Emily Blefeld Volden) are two psychotherapists who help individuals and family systems get back on track. But what makes them interesting, and relevant Skeptiko listeners, is they’ve shattered the traditional family therapy model by incorporating in the growing, inescapable body of evidence suggesting consciousness extends beyond death and that those who are deceased may still be among us. So, if you thought you had problems with your family — stick around — you’re liable to find out you have a lot more folks in your lineage to worry about:

Nice, I'm really pleased you've covered this area. I also think you hit the main point right at the end, that many psychotherapists already incorporate this sort of ancestor stuff, because they often begin to notice patterns which point to this stuff as being important in helping their clients... amongst other odd things.

Anne Ancelin Schutzenberger book The Ancestor Syndrome was my first introduction to it about 10 years ago - whilst a mate was exploring very old family photos of great great grand parents etc in his therapy sessions, and what a lot of information they contained!

Now that epigenetic inheritance is hot, we can see this approach by therapists was absolutely right. Their gut feelings we're right all along, and many issues we suffer with, may not be ours at all. And it's lovely to hand them back to where - we believe - they belong.

That said, there's all sorts of ways to do this sort of stuff, and most seem to come down to two people in a room, and the relationship that exists between them.

Of everything I have come across, psychotherapy is the one thing I have some real hope in, that it has within it the potential to change the world in the fullness of time.

I've got a few reservations about all the after death stuff brought up here etc, and some of the epigenetic stuff wasn't quite fleshed out properly, but other than that, it was a sensible exploration of some of these ancestor/inheritance issues.
 
I've got a few reservations about all the after death stuff brought up here etc, and some of the epigenetic stuff wasn't quite fleshed out properly, but other than that, it was a sensible exploration of some of these ancestor/inheritance issues.

sure, but I (and I'm sure you do as well) have a lot more reservations about a system built on the idea that consciousness is some kind of trick of the brain.
 
sure, but I (and I'm sure you do as well) have a lot more reservations about a system built on the idea that consciousness is some kind of trick of the brain.

Well, I certainly think that the general acceptance in the scientific community, that the brain itself is somehow isolated from the environment within which it is embedded, is delusional.

Especially so, because even a cursory glance tells one that fields from the brain leave the skull, otherwise we wouldn't pick them up by EEG, MEG etc, and thus they must travel in the opposite direction just as easily.

The argument goes that such fields going into the brain are just too weak, or smeared out. But we've now got a good number of behavioural studies which show real reproducible behavioural effects caused by oscillating hyper-weak fields, (some at intensities 40,000 times weaker than the earths local magnetic field) and nobody can explain them.

Obviously I accept that things probably go a lot deeper than that. But that argument on it's own is more than enough to cause problems.
 
Well, I certainly think that the general acceptance in the scientific community, that the brain itself is somehow isolated from the environment within which it is embedded, is delusional.
nice way of putting it.
 
Alex's questions at the end of the podcast:

Given that after death communication, in every way we've tried to measure it, is reality, how might we expect psychotherapy to change and adapt to incorporate in this new understanding (of family therapy)?

Is Dan's and Emily's work a step in the right direction, or might there be better and more effective ways of exploiting this territory?
 
Alex's questions at the end of the podcast:

Given that after death communication, in every way we've tried to measure it, is reality, how might we expect psychotherapy to change and adapt to incorporate in this new understanding (of family therapy)?

Is Dan's and Emily's work a step in the right direction, or might there be better and more effective ways of exploiting this territory?

That avatar? It's reminiscent of pedophilia. Could you change it?
lol
 
I really enjoyed the interview!

When Dan and Emily join the discussion, I have a few questions... Or for anyone else who cares to answer.

1) Under what circumstances have you seen an issue (schizophrenia was mentioned) that is being treated successfully or unsuccessfully migrate to another family member? Traditional (drugs) or non-traditional treatment? Is this pretty common? How do you avoid playing whacka-mole with the issue? Are dark spiritual entities sometimes involved?

2) what can be done to bring harmony to relationships/family if the affected individuals are not willing to participate in your spiritualist type of therapy? Is there a DIY version we can try at home?

3) Grandparents... My Dad's Dad passed away about a month before I was born and I've always been told I would have loved to meet him because I'm a lot like him. What's going on there? Influence? Reincarnation? Epigenetics? Two other grandparents of mine recently passed away. I've been wondering if my life would change in any way now that perhaps they can pull some strings behind the veil. Does it happen that way that recently deceased grandparents bring about distinct changes in the lives of still living loved ones? Should I ask them for anything?

4) What are the effects of breakup or divorce? To what extent and effect are these ethereal ties maintained or broken afterwards? If a person breaks off a difficult relationship, is he or she missing out on something? Will that person's karmic debt merely find another avenue by which to torture them?
 
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