Are children more in tune with the paranormal? Popular shows like Psychic Kids have cornered the market on attempting to differentiate between children who have extra-sensory perception/medium-like abilities and mental illness.
The possibility of mental illness is always a difficult subject to broach with a client. No matter how many experts they have been to either for themselves or their children, there is apprehension. Will they be insulted? Will I touch on something sensitive within the family that may create further tension in an already difficult situation? Will they refuse to allow the team to continue investigating?
As a professional counselor, I am trained to identify and treat a myriad of psychiatric disturbances. However, on an investigation I am not at work so to speak. There is a fine line that must be walked. My primary goal is to, in my own way, eliminate the possibility of emotional or behavioral disturbances in children before suggesting paranormal activity might exist within the home. How, then, does one go about differentiating between the two?
Joseph Banks Rhine, the father of parapsychology and personal hero, defined extra sensory perception, or ESP, as the general ability to perceive an object or event outside the basic five senses. This “sixth sense” is broken up into clairvoyance, telepathy, precognition, and psychokinesis. The ability to see and attune oneself to spirits (or ghosts if you like) tends to fall loosely under clairvoyance, although admittedly they are not entirely related.
ESP and children I tend to look at through the lens of what I personally call the Santa Claus Theory. Children believe in Santa Claus because no one has told them otherwise, and typically adults reinforce his existence to them despite not believing in it themselves. Because children are not yet exposed to adult “rational” thought, which usually consists of a narrowing viewpoint on what is possible, they are able to continue believing in Santa Claus. Their perception is just fine.
Children who have the ability to see or perceive beyond what is normal are still holding onto their “Santa Claus.” Children learn through reinforcement and modeling; if adults tell them what they see or hear is “bad” or “not there,” through those experiences that child will eventually block it all out to fit into the norm. However, if a child is positively reinforced, the likelihood of them maintaining the ability increases.
An interesting study released by the British Journal of Psychiatry cites that approximately 1 out of 10 children who participated in the research heard “ghostly voices.” Most had no evidence of a budding psychological disorder. The journal suggests that up to 16% of mentally healthy children and adolescents hear disembodied voices.
The study, published January 2010, also examined how hearing these voices impacted the children. Seen as a significant indicator of possible mental illness, this step was imperative in ruling out psychotic features or disorders. What readers are left with a huge portion of children who are mentally healthy and still hearing disembodied voices. While I won’t claim this points directly to ghosts, it does suggest that children are perhaps more in tune with paranormal activity and abilities than adults.
How this plays out during an investigation is a delicate process. As the group compiles our findings on our most recent investigation, I will discuss the steps and precautions advised when children are involved.
For more information on the British Journal of Psychiatry’s published research, check out: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100125/hl_nm/us_children_voices
