THERAPIST SHARES IN ADCs

       Hania Stromberg, an Albuquerque, NM psychotherapist, has never thought of herself as being clairvoyant or clairaudient.  But recent experiences with clients undergoing Induced After Death Communication (IADC) therapy suggest that she has some kind of gift, as she reports being able to share in the contact her clients seem to be having with deceased loved ones.

      “Occasionally I get visual impressions or pictures, but it is not always visual,” she explains.  “I always have a strong sense of the presence of the deceased, often hear something they try to convey.  It is either an auditory experience or sort of an auditory thought impression that I know is not mine.”

      In one such shared experience, a client was grieving the death of his mother and felt much guilt about having not fulfilled certain obligations. As Stromberg was administering the eye movements which are part of the induction process, she felt a “presence” entering the room and then saw a woman in colorful dress and high heels.    The woman, the client’s deceased mother, addressed the client by a special name of endearment and began discussing problems the client was having.  After the session, Stromberg compared her notes with what the client related and all were confirmed – the colorful dress, the high heels, the special term of endearment, the subject of the conversation.  

     “Every time I induce an ADC I feel an invisible portal opening up and a Divine energy pouring into my office,” Stromberg continues.  “It is difficult to explain, but I would describe the energy as that of a palpable peace and exhilaration at the same time, and I suspect it is probably the essential healing factor in these experiences.”   

      IADC is a revolutionary new form of grief therapy discovered in 1995 by Dr. Allan Botkin, a clinical psychologist practicing in Libertyville, Illinois.  It results in patients      (i.e., clients) experiencing the presence of deceased loved ones, occasionally with deceased enemies. There is often communication between the deceased and the patient.

‘My clients have experienced it in a variety of forms – auditory, sentient, olfactory, not always visual, sometimes a combination of different sensory perceptions,” says Stromberg. 

      IADC is an offshoot of EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) therapy, which was discovered by Dr. Francine Shapiro of California in 1987.  While focusing on the therapist’s hand, the patient is asked to move the eyes left or right rhythmically and focus on a disturbing thought, feeling, image, or sensation.   In IADC therapy, people grieving the death of someone, or otherwise disturbed by someone’s death, are asked to focus directly on their sadness during the eye movements.

      The typical IADC involves the patient having seen or heard a deceased person and that deceased person having told him or her that everything is okay and not to grieve. In a number of cases, the deceased person has related information previously unknown to the patient.  The therapy works with people of all beliefs, including atheists and skeptics. The end result is that the majority of patients (roughly 70 percent) overcome the grief.

     Since being trained in IADC by Botkin in 2004, Stromberg, who received her Master of Arts degree from the University of New Mexico and her Master of Clinical Social Work from the University of Kansas, has done around 40 IADC sessions with about 30 of them successes.  “Some didn’t really want to apply themselves,” she explains the failures.  “I guess their fears got in the way, even though they made the initial decision to give it a try, and others tried perhaps too hard, and that was blocking their experience.  And still some just would not have it, for reasons not clear to me at all.” 

      She adds that among the 10 or so who did not perceive the deceased or got only a vague awareness of the entity, she experienced the presence of the entity as vividly as she has with the 30 successful cases.  Botkin points out that among those who don’t report contact with the deceased, many still experience a high reduction in grief.

     While Stromberg speaks of entities and alludes to spirits, she prefers not to take a position relative to the phenomenon, leaving it to the client’s own interpretation.  “I talk about it as an experience,” she explains.  “My position is that it is an unknown and the significance of it is that those who experience it obtain a degree of peace and happiness, and very often people who are deep in grief leave with joy.”

      Stromberg states that prior to her IADC experiences she had no specific belief about the survival of consciousness at death.  At the same time, she admits to having a long-standing interest in spiritual matters.  “But I was never particularly interested in mediumship, after-death communication, that type of thing,” she clarifies.  “In fact, I always shied away from people who had had such experiences.  It just didn’t appeal to me.  It has come as a surprise to me that I am sensitive to experiencing the deceased during the sessions.”

     When there is very personal information coming through to the client, Stromberg does not hear it. “I am not privy to that and I do not pick up on it.”

     Botkin states that he has had a few other therapists report shared experiences, but Stromberg has reported them more frequently and consistently than anyone else. “On the more professional and technical side of things, Hania is an astute clinician and has been one of the most skilled therapists I have trained with,” Botkin adds.

      Stromberg laments the fact that many grieving people are not availing themselves of this dynamic therapy.  “There are many people I know for whom it would be so appropriate, and I would imagine they would jump at it, but they don’t,” she says.  “Mainstream thought is just not really open to it, and the facilitators of various support groups for grieving persons usually reject my offers to discuss IADC therapy in their groups.”   As she sees it, this rejection is either the result of the facilitators not believing the dead are still around us and have an impact on us, or they fear being criticized and scorned by their peers.  “I also have attempted to interest some of my therapist friends, but I get only silence from them when I bring it up. The scientific mind is very much closed when it comes to this type of thing.”

      Could it be one big shared hallucination?  “If the client and I are both hallucinating, then maybe all life is one big hallucination,” she responds, concluding with the comment that she does not see her ability to share in the IADC experiences as anything special on her part but as “a gift from God.”   – Michael E. Tymn