Between the material and the supernatural: Therapeutic implications of of bereaved individuals' experiences of contact with the deceased person. by Hugh Palmer | Papers by Hugh

Between the material and the supernatural: Therapeutic implications of bereaved individuals’ experience of contact with the deceased person between the material and the supernatural hugh palmer experienced in palliative care) having developed metastases in his bones. I remember just before he died, he told me about his past, especially his childhood and how he and his younger sister were evacuees and shunted all over during the war. I’d heard these stories before and had a feeling that there introduction was something else he wanted to tell me, but he was holding Recent texts on bereavement (for example, Worden back. I didn’t press him though. There was one thing I 2003), can be seen to treat grief as if it were an illness, with did know about his past, but it was unspoken between us; therapeutic models constructed to provide a path to recovery; one particular event that had taken place around ten years identifying stages of grief before a resolution that culminates previously which I had put down to an aberration on his in the redirection of emotional energy elsewhere. More part. I had seen him in a bar in our home town which recently, the idea of ‘continuing bonds’ (Klass, Silverman & was commonly known to be a gay venue. I knew from his Nickman, 1996) and some social constructionist, narrative response at the time that he was terribly embarrassed that I therapists (for example, Michael White, 1989; Hedtke & had seen him there. Winslade, 2004), offer ways for the bereaved individual to Later that evening, following out conversation, Dad maintain a relationship with the dead person. slipped into unconsciousness and he died two days later. Both Many bereaved people report sensing the presence I and my mother were with him as he died, and we both of a deceased relative or friend and most commonly this commented on the sensation of something filling the room occurs in dreams. Traditional grief literature describes these and then moving off away and out of the house. Looking at experiences as symptoms of grief or even ‘hallucinations’. his body, I felt that it was simply a shell; ‘Dad’ was no longer However, in popular literature they are attributed to ‘after life there. His body looked like a younger, more peaceful version communication’ or sometimes ‘after death communication’ of him. (for example, Newcomb 2007). A few months later, I began to dream of him. He would The dichotomy between ‘material’ and ‘supernatural’ appear in my dreams, where typically it would be a family (Bennett & Bennett 2000) explanations for this type of occasion and he would be there, usually smiling, but never experience may hamper useful conversations between saying anything. In these dreams, rather surreally, we all therapists and clients. Discussing what might be considered knew he was dead, but accepted and enjoyed his presence. as paranormal or hallucinatory experiences may be avoided On several occasions, it was apparent that he wanted to (by both therapist and client) in therapy and clients may communicate with me, but when he tried, his mouth was not bring these issues for fear of being judged as crazy. lined with what looked like black velvet, and no sounds could However, these experiences can have very healing effects, emerge. occasionally radically transforming views about life, death These dreams went on for some time, and I figured it was and spirituality, so that discussing them in a therapeutic part of the grieving process, maybe something to do with climate may be helpful in the grieving process. Therapeutic ‘unfinished business’. However, an opportunity presented conversations that are supportive of maintaining and itself when I was staying with my aunt and I asked her if developing a relationship with the deceased person need to there was a secret aspect to my father. Eventually, after a lot incorporate discussion about client’s experiences of sensing of thought, she admitted there was, that she knew about it, their presence. and wondered what had made me ask. I told her about the event I knew about, but not the dreams. She told me that my my own narrative father was gay, and this had caused a lot of problems for him, Up until 1995, I had developed an epistemology that as during the 1950’s and 1960’s homosexuality was viewed pretty much was in line with Bateson’s idea of immanence. very negatively. The following weekend, I asked my mother It seemed to me that mind was located in the relationship about this and, while she needed to be certain what I was between body and environment, and there was nothing more talking about before admitting anything, when she realised than that. No spirit, nothing transcendent. what I now understood about my father, the floodgates Then my father died. He’d had surgery three years opened. I heard about the terrible difficulties they’d had, previously for a melanoma which had required considerable the struggles, and how they loved each other despite some plastic reconstruction and, whilst never as able to get around considerable problems. She told me that, although Dad knew as much, for three years had been reasonably happy. Then I was involved in teaching on HIV and AIDS and clearly not he began to get back pain and, in a matter of weeks, was homophobic, nevertheless he couldn’t risk my knowing and very ill, being cared for at home (luckily the local GP was was scared that I would reject him. “If you listen long enough and are open and non-judgemental you will hear at least one story from each person about something ‘weird’ and unexplainable that connects them with the one who died. It’s there. They may not choose to disclose it for fear of ridicule.” (Mother, aged 33, cited in Sormanti & August, 1997) 40 Context February 2009 I appreciated that my father was a lot more complex than I’d thought and also a lot stronger than I ever could imagine. I now had a sense that the things he’d been trying to tell me in my dreams had, at last, been said. At this point, I suppose it was convenient (and reasonable) for me to assume that the dreams were simply part of my grieving and based in part on the event that had happened many years ago. This assumption, however, was about to change along with my thinking about life after death when, a few weeks later, we went for a meal with some friends and were happily enjoying a post meal glass of wine when I became aware of a presence in the room. I remember thinking ‘It feels like Dad is here’ and saying so. The others laughed, but then I distinctly saw my father, sitting in an armchair, grinning from ear to ear! Whilst appearing transparent, he was wearing a familiar tweed jacket, and looked surprisingly well for a ghost. I told the others that I could actually see him, and pointed to the chair he was in. The others thought this was a hoot and that clearly I was off my trolley. My friend’s wife went and sat on the chair, as if to say there was nothing there. I was laughing by now, because my father’s grin was even wider, and he evidently found the situation funny. I could still see him superimposed over her, still grinning. Then he faded, and I became aware that he was in front of me, and slightly above my head height. Rather than being able to see him, I had a sensation of him being right in front of me, that he was aware of my life; the mistakes I had made, the good things I had done and, above all, an overwhelming sense of love. It was as if he could see right into my life and accepted and loved me for who I was. And I sensed that he knew that the love was reciprocated and he was glad that I now knew the story he had been unable to tell me when he was alive. I tried to explain what was going on to the others who by now were feeling a little unsettled and wondering if I was completely mad. My friend asked out aloud if my Dad would let them know he was there. I remember the look on their faces when, seconds later, there was an extremely loud rapping on their back door. They were mortified, and scared. I was still laughing, still feeling bathed in the incredible sense of love and acceptance I had been shown. We opened the back door and peered outside. On their lawn, several of their children’s toys and balls had been laid out in a perfectly straight line. I tried to reassure the others that everything was fine, but they were pretty shaken. They still talk about that night! Following that evening, my dreams subsided and I felt that my father was moving on. I recalled as a child I once asked him to let me know he was alright after he died. He had kept to his word. And I no longer believed that once we died that it was over. I became convinced that there is something about us that is transcendent, and I had direct experience of it. Since then, nearly 12 years later, I have heard many similar stories to my own; most notably recently when one of my friends told me about the dreams she had of her son who died unexpectedly in February 2007. In one dream, she saw him as if he was outside their house and, although he did not speak to her, he smiled and waved through the window, which she found very comforting. From anecdotal evidence, it would appear that there are certain patterns common to these dreams; often there is a metaphorical barrier between the dreamer and the departed person, for example a window is between them, or the communication takes place over a dreamed telephone conversation. Another pattern seems to be the sense that the dream is somehow different to normal dreams, often accompanied by a powerful sense of love or connection with the departed person. material or supernatural? There are two rival discourses about this type of experience, and possibly the predominant view is that they are a subjective psychological or even medical phenomenon; they are simply hallucinations or fantasies resulting from grief. Bowlby-West (1984) in writing from a family systems perspective identifies the ‘phases of grief ’ that she combined from Bowlby (1979) and Parkes (1972). Implicit within these phases is the assumption that bereavement is understood in terms of the loss of an attachment. These stages are still representative of the widely held view that grief is a process with identifiable stages. These phases include a numbness phase that may last from a few hours to a week and may be interrupted by outbursts of extreme anger or distress, a phase of yearning and searching for the lost figure which can last months or years, a phase of disorganisation and despair and, finally, a phase of reorganisation which includes finding a new personal identity. Experiences such as dreams of the deceased person can be located in the phase linked to yearning and searching. Parkes (1972), in describing a dream reported by a widow in his study, went so far as to describe it as wish-fulfilment, whereas Kast (1982), writing from a more psychoanalytical perspective, acknowledges that this type of dream marks a turning point in the experience of death; the dreamer establishes a different relationship with the deceased person, what was experienced ‘outside’ in terms of relationship now can be ‘internalised’. The material discourse can be summarised as locating these experiences as something ‘inside’ the bereaved person; at best fantasy, at worst a hallucination and symptom of illness. The opposing discourse is one of the supernatural: that these experiences are objective evidence of after death communication and, by definition, of survival after death. Sometimes, the experience has an ineffable quality that the dreamer simply ‘knows’ to be real and is unlike other dreams. Writing from this perspective tends to be in the realm of popular media, and currently there certainly seems to be a high level of public interest in after death communication, be it television mediums such as Colin Fry and Derek Acorah or popular dramas like ‘Afterlife’ and ‘Medium’. Both discourses (described respectively as ‘materialist’ and ‘supernaturalist’ by Bennett & Bennett 2000) are commonly known, although the latter rarely finds its way into professional literature. As Bennett & Bennett (2000) note, many people who have had these experiences themselves may choose between one explanatory discourse or another and this choice may even vary from one sentence to another, although they suggest that, generally, people reporting such incidents may well describe them in ‘materialistic’ terms, simply because they expect that description would meet the interviewers expectations. Neither of the two discourses is definitive, and very little research has been conducted into people’s experiences of feeling they have had contact with a deceased friend or relative. Bennett & Bennett (2000) present a view that these experiences are not uncommon, but avoid committing themselves on what they mean, whereas Newcomb (2007) has written several books on what is popularly known as after life communication; however, these reports are anecdotal and not research based. Sormanti and August (1997) appear to be the only researchers who have explored this type of phenomenon in any detail, and they identified that most parents in their study benefited from such experiences following the death of a child. What is apparent is that these experiences are common. For example Costello and Kendrick (2000) in between the material and the supernatural Context February 2009 41 between the material and the supernatural an ethnographic study that retrospectively explored the grief experiences of 12 older people whose partners had recently died in hospital noted that, in all but one case, the respondents reported having dreams about their partners. This was framed by the authors as being useful to mourners in enabling “transcendent feelings to develop about the meanings associated with the loss” but not developed any further. Perhaps then, what is required is an alternative to the ‘either/or’ dichotomy of immanence or transcendence discourses; rather a move towards a ‘both/and’ position that is more concerned about the meanings individuals make of these experiences rather than how ‘real’ they are. The possibility to move to this position of ‘both/and’ is largely as a result of narrative and dialogical turns, both within therapeutic and research methodologies. Nell (2004), also inspired by White’s paper, identified several strategies to say hullo again, including writing letters to the deceased, visiting the grave and remembering them with others, but importantly recognises the importance of using dreams as a means to say hullo again, too. According to Nell (2004, p. 8) “Dreams of the deceased have an immense, yet mostly underutilised potential for assisting clients in dealing with their grief. Such dreams can powerfully instigate a saying hallo process in therapy which can be built upon by other methods in order to aid the client in reincorporating the lost relationship back into his or her life. Ignoring such dreams would be to unnecessarily deprive the client of a valuable connection with the deceased, and a powerful opportunity for healing.” Therapists who engage in work with bereaved people might wish to consider introducing the possibility of bringing experiences of contact with the dead person into making meaning of these the discussion. This may be complicated by the therapists’ experiences: continuing bonds and clients’ personal beliefs and, as identified earlier, some Klass, Silverman and Nickman (1996) used the bereaved people may wish to couch such experiences expression ‘continuing bonds’ as an alternative to the familiar as fantasy ( in other words presenting them as material model of grief that requires the bereaved to ‘let go’ from explanations) in the belief that the therapist may hold that the deceased. They argued that the bereaved maintain a view. link with the deceased, which leads to the construction of a A dialogical approach may be useful in incorporating talk new relationship. This relationship continues and changes about these experiences. Seikkula and Arnkil (2006) state that over time, typically providing the bereaved with comfort dialogue is open; meanings are generated and transformed and solace. According to Normand, Silverman & Nickman from response to response. It is a way of thinking together (1996), ways in which the bereaved person can build a ‘new’ and, as in Anderson’s (2005) ‘not-knowing’, the therapist relationship with the deceased would include talking to suspends judgement and actively listens to the client. them, locating them (often in heaven), experiencing them in However, it seems to me that by adopting a purist ‘nottheir dreams, visiting the grave, feeling the presence of the knowing’ approach, therapists may not enquire about topics deceased, and by participating in mourning rituals. that clients may feel embarrassed to instigate themselves. Fraley and Shaver (1999) suggested that some forms It is possible to engage in a dialogical approach without of continuing bonds may be ‘healthier’ than others, and adopting a naive not knowing position, as Bertrando and Epstein, Kalus and Berger (2006), in a study that conflates Arcelloni (2006. p. 377) put it: dreaming and yearning, found that those who looked for “…therapy is an encounter of frames, the one brought by the their deceased partner in a crowd would also tend to dream therapist and the one brought by the client, because all human beings of them still being alive. They concluded that: live in a world made predictable by the rules defined by a frame, but “this may imply a conscious wish for the deceased to be alive creativity and novelty may emerge only by going outside of the known again, a process reflected in, and occurring in parallel with, dreams frames.” of the deceased, and may constitute a lack of willingness to accept the I now ask clients who are bereaved if they have had death of their spouse.” (Epstein, Kalus & Berger, 2006, p. 264). any sense of contact with the departed person and, if the It seems that incorporating the idea of continuing bonds response is affirmative, it is usually accompanied by the with the traditional model still leaves considerable room to client feeling relieved that they are able to talk about the find pathology; especially if the overriding discourse is one of topic without being judged as crazy. Once the subject has immanence. been opened up, the client may wish to continue to explore If we can accept the view that maintaining a relationship the meaning that they make regarding this experience. with the deceased rather than ‘letting go’ might be a helpful When working with more than one person, it also opens up approach to working with the bereaved, then it does not matter the possibility of exploring differences in family members’ whether experiences of contact with the deceased person are experiences, and the meanings that can be made of these imagined or real; we can simply consider these experiences as differences. means to continue bonds with the deceased person. I am certain that my openness to discussing such White (1989), in a brief article entitled “Saying hullo experiences is related to my own experience; however, there again”, offered an alternative to the predominant ‘saying is no reason that therapists who might be more inclined to goodbye’ metaphor characterised by ‘letting go’ in traditional the material view could not equally be open to this type of approaches to bereavement, and following on from his conversation. work, Hedke and Winslade (2005) describe a focus of ‘reIt must be borne in mind that not all experiences or membering’, a process that re-directs the focus of grieving dreams that bereaved people have are pleasant, and that toward maintaining an ongoing relationship with the dead sensitivity to the client’s wishes to discuss them or not is person. Here, the bereaved can seek comfort in keeping paramount, as would be the case with any such issues in the deceased person’s membership current in their own ethical systemic practice. “membership club” of life. They utilise the subjunctive conclusion as a means to open up new possibilities and new ways of In a recent study of 79 people attending a mental health understanding situations; in terms of bereavement moving service (D’Souza, 2002), 82% of respondents thought their away from talking about the dead person in the past (she or he was a keen reader of Context) to ways of including the dead mental health worker should be aware of their spiritual beliefs and needs, and 67% reported that spirituality helped person in the present (she or he would enjoy this edition of them cope with their psychological pain, yet issues to do Context). 42 Context February 2009 with spirituality are often disregarded by mental health practitioners, including family therapists. Perhaps approaches to bereavement that are informed by social constructionist, meaning-making views rather than either ‘materialistic’ or ‘supernatural’ views may be more helpful for both clients and therapists, especially in considering phenomenon that might otherwise be considered at best as anomalous or at worst as symptoms of illness. Jung (1963, p. 343) wrote of his own dream experience following the death of a neighbour and concluded that there is ‘no way to marshal valid proof of the continuance of the soul after death, there are nevertheless experiences which make us thoughtful’. Perhaps as therapists, we can be thoughtful together with our clients about these experiences. References Anderson, H. (2005) The myth of not-knowing. Family Process. 44(4): 497-504 Bennett, G. & Bennett, K.M. (2000). The presence of the dead: an empirical study. Mortality, 5, 139-157. Bertrando, P. & Arcelloni, T. (2006) Hypotheses are dialogues: sharing hypotheses with clients. Journal of Family Therapy. 28, 370-387 Bowlby, J. (1979) The Making and Breaking of Affectional Bonds. Tavistock, London. Bowlby-West, L. (1983) The impact of death on the family system. Journal of Family Therapy, 5, 279 294. Costello, J. & Kendrick, K. (2000) Grief and older people: the making or breaking of emotional bonds following partner loss in later life, Journal of Advanced Nursing, 32(6): 1374-1382. D’Souza, R. (2002) Do patients expect psychiatrists to be interested in spiritual issues? Australasian Psychiatry, 10, 1: 44-47. Epstein, R., Kalus, C. & Berger, M. (2006) The continuing bond of the bereaved towards the deceased and adjustment to loss. Mortality, 11, 3. Fraley, R.C., & Shaver, P.R. (1999) Loss and bereavement: Attachment theory and recent controversies concerning ‘grief work’ and the nature of detachment. In R.C. Fraley & P.R. Shaver (Eds) Handbook of Attachment Theory and Research. Guilford, New York. Hedtke, L. & Winslade, J. (2004) Re-Rembering Lives: Conversations with the Dying and the Bereaved. Baywood Publishers, Amityville. Hedtke, L & Winslade, J. (2005) The use of the subjunctive in remembering conversations with those who are grieving. Omega, Vol. 50(3) 197-215. Jung, C. G. (1963) Memories, dreams, reflections. Collins, London. Kast, V. (1993) A Time to Mourn: Growing through the Grief Process. (2nd Edn.) Daimon Verlag, Einsiedeln, Swizerland. Klass, D., Silverman, P. & Nickman, S. (Eds) (1996) Continuing Bonds. Routledge, New York. Nell, H.W. (2004) The saying hallo metaphor as alternative approach to death-related counselling. Paper presented at 3rd Global conference, Making sense of Dying and Death. Vienna, Austria. Available from: http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/mso/ dd/dd3/nell%20paper.pdf, Accessed 20/03/08. Newcomb, J. (2007) Angels Watching Over Me. Hay House, London. Normand, C., Silverman, P. & Nickman, S. (1996) Bereaved children’s changing relationship with the deceased. In D. Klass, P. Silverman & S. Nickman (Eds), Continuing Bonds. Routledge, New York. Parkes, C.M. (1972) Bereavement: Studies of Grief in Adult Life. Tavistock, London. Seikkula, J. & Arnkil, T. (2006) Dialogical Meetings in Social Networks. Karnac, London. Sormanti, M. & August, J. (1997) Parental bereavement: Spiritual connections with deceased children, American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 67(3) 460-469. White, M. (1989) Saying hullo again. In M. White, Selected Papers. Dulwich Centre Publications, Adelaide, Australia. Worden, W. (2003) Grief Counselling and Grief Therapy: A Handbook for the Mental Health Practitioner (3rd Edition). Routledge, London. between the material and the supernatural Hugh Palmer is a systemic psychotherapist and lecturer at Hull University (h.palmer@hull.ac.uk) We all know that humour can help us deal with the various crises and transitions in life. While Eleanor Anderson waited with her Scots brother-in-law in Accident and Emergency when he was being investigated for a suspected heart attack after a collapse in a restaurant, he entertained her with Scottish ‘dying’ jokes. Willy was on his death bed. “Willy, wha would you like for your last meal?”, asked his wife. “Some of that nice ham on the sideboard” he replied. “Wheesh Willy, you know that’s for your funeral.” A man is lying dying in the Western Infirmary in Glasgow with his wife at his bedside. He hasn’t moved for some hours. The doctor comes along and examines him and then turns to his wife and says “I’m awfully sorry Mrs.McPherson, but I’m afraid that your husband has passed away.” At this the man sits up in bed and says: “I’m no deed at all!” His wife turns to him and says “Oh wheesht, Willie, the doctor knows best!” The doctor tells Willy that he has the results of the tests and Willy only has three minutes to live. “Oh doctor, can’t you do anything for me?”, says Willy. “How about a soft boiled egg?”, says the doctor. Context February 2009 43