The late, renowned psychiatrist Elizabeth Kübler-Ross identified five stages of the grieving process: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and finally, acceptance. Psychotherapists around the world who are providing a therapy called Induced After Death Communication (IADC) are finding that there is actually a sixth stage possible.
IADC was inadvertently discovered in 1995 by psychologist, Dr. Allan Botkin, while he was working with severely traumatized combat veterans at the Chicago-area VA Hospital. Dr. Botkin later wrote a book about his discovery, called Induced After Death Communication: A Miraculous Therapy for Grief and Loss.
IADC is conducted in two sessions and employs a modified version of Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), which is widely recognized as a highly effective treatment for psychological trauma and a variety of other conditions. In the first session, this streamlined form of EMDR is used to clear the person’s sadness. In the second session, the eye movements are continued to help create the conditions in which an after-death communication is likely to occur.
During this second session, 75-80 percent of participants will have an experience that they nearly always consider to be an authentic after-death communication with a loved one. This is a direct communication between the living person and their deceased loved one and, unlike mediumship, this process is neither mediated nor interpreted by the IADC therapist.
The IADC process can heal prolonged grief and trauma to a degree that has never before been possible with any other form of grief therapy. As a result of the IADC process, the crushing, paralyzing sadness that can plague many people after a loved one’s death will have been eliminated, and that sadness often is replaced by a sense of deep peace and joy.
This state goes far beyond Kübler-Ross’s acceptance stage and into what my friend and colleague Graham Maxey has called the sixth stage of grieving: an actual embracing of death.
When a person arrives at this stage, he or she no longer finds death to be the unbearable separation from one’s loved one. Instead, the illusion of separation will have been shattered and the person will have realized that their loved one continues to exist and is still with them in a very real way.
All indications are that these incredible benefits of IADC are enduring.
