Clinical Parapsychology and Parapsychological Counseling in Psychiatric Practice

– This paper examines the implications of parapsychological counseling in psychiatric practice. The author reviews the major clinical and historical issues of the relationship between the occurrence of paranormal phenomena and psychiatric practice, and he emphasizes the existence of an important link between these two fields of inquiry and the relevance in an individual’s life of the occurrence of psi phenomena––deeply personal experiences. He also analyses the variables that seem to influence both psi phenomena and mental illness; he mainly examines the psychological need of patients, who, without being suffering from any mental illness, may feel the necessity of a psychiatric consultation concerning presumed psi events that seem incomprehensible to them. Using the description of a clinical case that occurred in a general hospital psychiatric division, the author demonstrates some psychological variables in the behavior of subjects who experience paranormal phenomena, their feelings and their psychological and psychopathological reactions. Based on his clinical experience, he also suggests a possible therapeutic strategy. Several psychiatric and clinical-psychological consequences of individual psi experiences are pointed out and contrasted with some consequences of common psychiatric practice with regard to the common clinical evaluation of subjects experiencing paranormal phenomena. He argues that individuals might demand different degrees of clinical help for accepting their beliefs and feelings about psi. Therefore, the development of a clinical parapsychological perspective that may be fully integrated into the field of psychiatry is as important as it is overdue.