A person books a sitting after losing someone they love. They may arrive with questions that have stayed unanswered since the death: something they wish they had said, guilt about a final conversation, or simply the ache of missing a presence that was central to their life.
They may be hoping for a particular name, a shared memory, or some reassurance that the person they loved continues to exist. There is a great deal of emotion behind such a sitting, even when the person appears calm.
For anyone practising evidential mediumship, this creates a profound responsibility. Within the Spiritualist tradition, the purpose of a sitting is to attempt communication with someone understood to be in the spirit world, and to offer information the sitter can recognise. But the quality of a sitting cannot be judged only by whether the information seems accurate or extraordinary. The medium must also consider the person who has come to receive it.
Some people describe comfort, reassurance or a renewed sense of connection after a sitting. Others feel disappointed, unsettled or uncertain. No ethical practitioner can guarantee an emotional outcome. This article looks at what grief research tells us, what responsible mediumship requires when the sitter is grieving, and why care for the sitter belongs in mediumship training from the very beginning.
A bereaved sitter should never be pressured to believe, frightened by a message, promised contact with a particular person, or made to feel that their relationship with someone who has died depends on returning for another reading.
1. Why Do People Seek Mediumship After Losing Someone?
Grief is not simply sadness about someone's absence. A death can change a person's routines, identity, relationships and sense of the future. Ordinary things become reminders: an empty chair at the table, an unfinished conversation, a birthday, an unexpected memory. Some people find support through family and friends, faith, counselling or rituals of remembrance. Others become interested in mediumship, perhaps to explore whether consciousness continues after death, or in the hope of hearing something associated with the person they lost.
For some the motivation is curiosity; for others it is a deeply personal search. It is important not to assume that everyone who seeks a medium is unable to cope, or that every bereaved person wants to explore spirit communication. People have different beliefs, cultures and ways of understanding death. The decision to seek a sitting belongs to the individual. The medium's responsibility is to make sure the nature and limits of the sitting are clearly understood.
2. What Does Grief Research Tell Us About Continuing Bonds?
For many years, popular accounts of grief emphasised “letting go” and “moving on”. Contemporary bereavement research is more nuanced. In 1996, Dennis Klass, Phyllis Silverman and Steven Nickman edited Continuing Bonds: New Understandings of Grief, which challenged the idea that adapting to loss means giving up one's relationship with the person who died1. Another influential model describes healthy grieving as a natural movement back and forth: between attending to the loss itself and attending to rebuilding daily life, rather than a single straight line towards “recovery”2.
A continuing bond takes many forms: remembering a parent's advice at a difficult moment, keeping a family tradition, visiting a meaningful place, telling stories, speaking privately to a partner who has died. In India, rituals of remembrance such as shraddha have long kept relationships with those who have died woven into family life. The relationship changes, but its significance does not disappear.
Continuing bonds are not always comforting. Unresolved conflict, the nature of the relationship before death, and cultural expectations can make a bond feel supportive or painful. And, importantly, a continuing bond does not require mediumship. A relationship with someone who has died can remain meaningful through memory, love, ritual and the influence that person still has on a life. No medium should ever imply that this relationship depends on receiving messages through them.
Sensing a loved one is common. Across several studies reviewed in Schizophrenia Bulletin, between 47% and 82% of bereaved people reported at least one experience of the person who had died, most often a sense of their presence, and most described these experiences as benign or comforting3. The UK bereavement charity Cruse describes seeing, hearing or sensing someone who has died as a normal part of grief, not a sign of mental illness4. These findings document what bereaved people experience; they do not establish that the person was objectively present. Our article Signs You May Be Sensitive to Spirit explores this further.
3. Can a Mediumship Sitting Help Someone Who Is Grieving?
Some people find a sitting comforting: a detail reminds them of the person they loved, a description of familiar behaviour feels deeply personal, or the experience opens space for reflection and meaning. Others leave disappointed, uncertain or distressed. Research is beginning to explore these differences:
Comfort and conflict. A 2026 systematic review in Death Studies brought together 14 qualitative studies involving 1,971 bereaved people who reported experiences of perceived contact with someone who had died. These experiences often supported continuing bonds and meaning-making, but the authors also described their “dual-edged nature”, balancing comfort and conflict, with responses shaped by belief, culture and the reactions of others5.
Sittings specifically. Small qualitative studies of people who consulted a medium after a bereavement describe comfort, a sense of continuing bond, and opportunities to address unfinished business6. A study of working mediums examined how they understand their role as a support for the bereaved7. These studies are small, and they cannot show how typical such experiences are.
What the research does not show. None of this establishes that mediumship is an effective treatment for grief, or that everyone who receives a sitting will benefit.
A sitting may be meaningful to a bereaved person. That is very different from promising that it will heal their grief.
4. The Difference Between Mediumship and Bereavement Counselling
Evidential mediumship
A spiritual practice. The medium attempts communication attributed to someone who has died, offering information the sitter may recognise.
Bereavement counselling
Provided by trained professionals, who help people work with the emotional, psychological and practical consequences of loss, within clinical boundaries.
A medium's spiritual experience does not qualify them to do the work of a counsellor, and a sitting should never be advertised as an alternative to grief therapy. Someone may feel lighter immediately after a sitting and still experience sadness, longing and difficult emotions for a long time afterwards. That is not evidence that the sitting failed. Grief is an ongoing human experience, not a problem guaranteed to disappear in one encounter.
When a medium is also a qualified therapist
Some practitioners are trained in both mediumship and a therapeutic discipline. Then it matters even more to keep the roles distinct. A mediumship sitting should be named as mediumship; a therapeutic session should be conducted within the practitioner's qualifications, consent arrangements and professional responsibilities. A spiritual impression should never be presented as a clinical assessment, and therapeutic authority should never be used to lend scientific certainty to a claim of spirit communication. Clear boundaries protect the person receiving the service.
5. Why Evidential Responsibility Matters More in Grief
In evidential mediumship, the medium develops information about a communicator, such as personality, relationships, memories and distinctive experiences, and the sitter decides whether it describes someone they knew. That responsibility becomes sharper when the sitter longs to hear from one particular person.
In grief, a person may be especially eager to find meaning in an uncertain detail. That is exactly why a medium must communicate carefully and never press for agreement. When information is not recognised, it should be acknowledged without making the sitter feel responsible. Honesty about evidence is itself a form of care. Our article What Counts as Evidence? sets out how information can be weighed fairly.
6. What Should a Medium Never Promise a Bereaved Person?
These boundaries are not limits imposed to weaken mediumship. They reflect the responsibility of working with another person's hope and trust.
7. Sensitive Questions: Guilt, Forgiveness and the Circumstances of Death
Some of the hardest moments in a sitting come when a sitter asks the questions grief has been carrying, often after a sudden death, an accident, a suicide or a long illness. They deserve compassion, and they also require restraint.
8. Recent Loss, Consent and Repeated Readings
Is there a right time after a death?
There is no universal waiting period. People grieve differently: some want to explore a sitting quite soon, others wait months or years, and some never will. Time alone does not establish readiness. Someone recently bereaved may choose a sitting thoughtfully; someone else, years later, may be in severe distress and seeking reassurance no medium can give. Before proceeding, a responsible medium considers:
- Does this person understand what a sitting is, and what it cannot promise?
- Are they expecting it to resolve a crisis, or to provide medical or factual answers?
- Is a sitting being sought in place of support they urgently need?
Sometimes postponing or gently declining is the more responsible choice, made with care, and without assuming that a grieving person lacks judgement. The question is not simply how much time has passed, but whether this sitting is right for this person, now.
Consent continues throughout
Consent is more than agreeing to an appointment. The sitter should understand what is involved, what cannot be guaranteed, the cost, and what happens to anything personal they share. And consent continues: a sitter who agreed at the start may find a subject too painful and should be free to decline it, pause or end. They should never need to reveal private information to help the medium, and they do not owe an explanation when something is not recognised. Recordings, photographs and testimonials need permission; someone's grief should never become public content without their informed consent. Public demonstrations carry extra responsibility, since someone in an audience has not agreed to have intimate family matters discussed in front of strangers.
When repeat readings become a concern
There is nothing wrong with someone choosing more than one sitting over time. The concern is dependency: feeling unable to decide or cope without another reading, distress when a particular person is not described, or a compulsion to book again immediately. A medium must never suggest that contact with a loved one depends on repeated paid appointments, that the person who died is waiting or disappointed, or that stopping will cause spiritual harm. Where sittings seem to deepen distress, the responsible step is to consider whether to continue at all, and to point towards other support. Our guide How to Recognise a Responsible Medium lists the warning signs.
A medium's role should never become control over the way someone grieves.
9. What If a Sitting Is Disappointing or Distressing?
Not every sitting unfolds as hoped. Someone may hope for one relative and hear descriptions they cannot recognise, receive details that are partly familiar but inconclusive, or meet a memory they were not ready for. A responsible medium does not insist that the sitter has misunderstood or forgotten, and never claims that the person who died is refusing contact because the sitter is not open enough, “blocked” or unprepared. That places blame on someone who is already grieving.
Acknowledge it. If information is not recognised, that is the outcome. Say so plainly.
Put the person first. If the sitter becomes distressed, the priority shifts to their comfort and their right to stop. Check gently whether they want to continue, and allow a pause.
Do not escalate. Never try to rescue the sitting with increasingly dramatic claims.
Close with care. End respectfully, and leave the sitter free to decide what meaning, if any, to take from it.
A disappointing sitting does not show that the person who died is absent, angry or unwilling. Nor does a sitting that felt successful scientifically prove that contact occurred. Neither conclusion should be imposed on the sitter.
10. When Is Professional Grief Support More Appropriate?
Grief is a natural response to loss. It can bring sadness, anger, guilt, numbness and exhaustion, and these do not mean something is wrong. The NHS notes that there is no right or wrong way to feel, and that for most people grief becomes less intense over time8. For some, though, it stays intensely painful and disrupts daily life for a long time. Clinicians may then consider prolonged grief disorder, recognised in both the WHO's ICD-11 and the American Psychiatric Association's DSM-5-TR, which require grief to persist for at least six and twelve months respectively, well beyond cultural and religious norms, and to cause significant impairment. In a large representative study, around 5% of bereaved adults met the criteria9. This is never something a medium should diagnose.
A responsible medium knows the limits of their role, and gently suggests other support when someone's needs go beyond a sitting, for example:
- low mood or anxiety that is persistent or getting worse;
- grief that is making daily life, work or relationships very hard to manage;
- a death involving trauma, suicide or violence that continues to cause severe distress;
- experiences of the person who died that are frightening, persistent or confusing;
- any sign that someone may harm themselves.
There is no need to wait for a particular length of time before asking for help8. If someone is in immediate danger or expresses an intention to harm themselves, the sitting stops: the priority is emergency help. In India, Tele-MANAS offers free 24-hour mental-health support on 1441610; elsewhere, contact local emergency services or a doctor. Mediumship should never be a reason to delay professional care.
11. A Practical Framework for Mediumship with Bereaved Sitters
Ethical responsibility is easiest to understand when it becomes part of the structure of a sitting. These six stages are an educational guide, not a clinical protocol, and not evidence that communication has occurred.
Before: set expectations. Explain the purpose of evidential mediumship and what cannot be promised. Make the fee, length, privacy and consent clear. Never guarantee a named communicator or an emotional result.
Beginning: respect the person. Do not assume their emotional state or ask unnecessary questions about the death. A medium does not need a detailed account of the bereavement to begin evidential work. Let the sitter set boundaries.
During: let the evidence develop. Describe impressions carefully, separate perception from interpretation, and let the sitter recognise, partly recognise or decline information freely. Do not turn broad reassurance into a claim of established contact.
When difficult material arises: use judgement. Ask whether it serves the sitting or causes unnecessary pain. Never sensationalise a death, introduce blame, or offer medical or psychological conclusions. Recognise what lies beyond your competence.
When the sitter responds: protect their autonomy. They may find meaning, stay uncertain or disagree. Their interpretation belongs to them.
At the close: leave them free. End clearly and kindly. Create no urgency about another appointment, and never suggest that life decisions need further spiritual approval.
12. Why Mediumship Students Need Education in Grief and Sitter Care
A student may be able to offer information a practice partner recognises. That is one part of development. It does not mean they are ready to work with bereaved members of the public. A private sitting asks for far more: explaining expectations, holding boundaries, receiving feedback, responding when the interaction becomes painful, and recognising when their own interpretation is shaping what the sitter understands.
This is increasingly recognised in mediumship research. A 2025 peer-reviewed code of ethics for mediums sets out informed consent, confidentiality, professional boundaries, respect for the client's autonomy, working within one's competence, and the need for delicate handling of clients who come in grief11. Yet a 2026 study of mediumship certification programmes found that none of the six it examined required grief training as part of certification12. These studies do not validate mediumship scientifically. They support a separate conclusion: grief-sensitive practice must be taught explicitly, not assumed, and a certificate alone should not be taken as proof of it.
13. How We Approach Grief and Responsibility at The School of Mediumship
At The School of Mediumship, established by Soul Consciousness Lab®, responsibility towards the sitter is part of the foundation of evidential mediumship, not an optional extra. Our training asks not only whether a student can offer recognisable information, but how they offer it:
- Do they distinguish perception from interpretation?
- Can they acknowledge calmly when information is not recognised?
- Do they respect confidentiality and consent?
- Can they work without creating fear, promising a particular communicator, or pressuring the sitter?
- In Level 1: Evidential Mediumship Level 1, taught by Dr. Rashhi Sharma and Prabhat Sharma, combines the development of evidence with supervised partner practice, observation, feedback, and the responsibilities of private sittings, including sensitivity to bereavement.
- Spiritual education, not treatment: even where faculty have professional experience in therapeutic disciplines, mediumship training remains a distinct pathway with its own scope and limits.
- The same standards for us: our faculty's personal sittings are arranged separately and described on our Private Sittings page, including that no communicator, message or outcome can be promised.
- Honest limits: the programme is a foundation for continued development. It does not guarantee ability, professional readiness, or the capacity to meet every circumstance a grieving sitter may bring.
We want students to learn when to speak, when to listen, when to acknowledge uncertainty, and when not to proceed. Our Ethics & Safety page sets out our standards in full.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can mediumship help with grief?
Some people report comfort, reassurance or a sense of connection after a sitting; others feel disappointed or unsettled. Research documents both, but does not establish mediumship as an effective treatment for grief. A sitting should not replace bereavement counselling or mental-health care when those are needed.
How soon after a death should someone see a medium?
There is no universal waiting period. Readiness depends on the person's circumstances, expectations and wellbeing. A responsible medium explains that contact with a particular person cannot be guaranteed, and may postpone or decline a sitting if it does not seem right at that time.
Can a medium guarantee contact with someone who has died?
No. Within Spiritualist teaching, communication is not something a medium can command on demand. No practitioner should promise that a named person will communicate in a booked sitting.
Can a medium tell me whether my loved one suffered?
A medium should not present spiritual impressions as verified information about the medical or physical circumstances of a death. Such questions are deeply sensitive and should never be answered with speculation or invented detail.
Is it normal to dream about or sense a loved one who has died?
Yes. Many bereaved people report such experiences, and they are usually benign and often comforting. They can carry personal, cultural or spiritual meaning, but do not by themselves prove spirit communication. If they are frightening or disruptive, professional support can help.
Does a comforting message mean my grief is resolved?
Not necessarily. A sitting can feel meaningful while grief continues to change over time; sadness and longing can return. A medium should not promise permanent closure.
What if I don't recognise the person a medium describes?
You are free to say so. A responsible medium acknowledges uncertainty rather than pressuring you to find a connection. Not recognising something is never your fault.
Can mediumship replace grief counselling?
No. Mediumship is a spiritual practice; grief counselling and therapy involve distinct professional training and responsibilities. Some people choose spiritual exploration alongside other support, but a sitting should never be presented as a substitute for needed psychological or medical care.
Should I keep booking readings to stay connected with someone I love?
There is no ethical basis for suggesting that your relationship with someone who has died depends on paid readings. That relationship lives on in memory, love and ritual. Be cautious of anyone who creates urgency or uses fear to encourage return visits.
What should a mediumship student learn about grief?
The emotional reality of bereavement, informed consent, privacy, non-leading feedback, honest handling of uncertainty and professional boundaries, and how to recognise when a sitting should be paused, declined, or when someone should be gently directed to a qualified professional.
The Person Matters More Than the Performance
A sitting may contain a detail the sitter recognises instantly: a memory that brings tears, a familiar expression, a description of someone's personality that feels deeply personal. Such moments can matter enormously. But their significance does not lessen the medium's responsibility. A grieving person is not an audience for extraordinary information. They should never be required to believe, agree, forgive, decide or return, and they should be free to find meaning in an experience without being told what that meaning must be.
Evidence and responsibility cannot be separated. A medium who communicates with apparent accuracy but disregards the sitter's boundaries has not conducted the sitting responsibly.
Let the evidence be offered honestly. Let the sitter decide what they recognise. And let their wellbeing always matter more than the medium's need to be right.
About the authors
Dr. Rashhi Sharma, PhDFounder and Lead Trainer of The School of Mediumship. She studied mediumship with Suzanne Giesemann in the United States and in person at Arthur Findlay College and The College of Psychic Studies in the United Kingdom. Full profile
Prabhat SharmaTrainer at The School of Mediumship. He studied mediumship in person at Arthur Findlay College and The College of Psychic Studies in the United Kingdom, and co-teaches every day of Level 1. Full profile
Continue Exploring
- How to Recognise a Responsible MediumGood signs, red flags, and protecting yourself when booking a sitting.Read the article →
- Ethics & SafetyConsent, confidentiality, sitter care and professional boundaries at the School.Read our standards →
- Evidential Mediumship Level 1Supervised practice, feedback and ethical education in the School's residential foundation.Explore Level 1 →
References
- Klass, D., Silverman, P. R. and Nickman, S. L. (eds) (1996). Continuing Bonds: New Understandings of Grief. Taylor & Francis.
- Stroebe, M. and Schut, H. (1999). The dual process model of coping with bereavement: rationale and description. Death Studies, 23(3), 197–224.
- Kamp, K. S. et al. (2020). Sensory and quasi-sensory experiences of the deceased in bereavement: an interdisciplinary and integrative review. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 46(6), 1367–1381.
- Cruse Bereavement Support. Seeing, hearing or sensing someone who has died.
- Sweeney, S., Ryan, P., Leahy, D. and Deering, H. (2026). The impact of after-death communications on grief and meaning-making among the bereaved: a qualitative systematic review. Death Studies. doi:10.1080/07481187.2026.2626550
- Baillieu, L. (2023). How consulting a medium after bereavement influences the grieving process: an interpretative phenomenological analysis. Doctoral thesis, Middlesex University / NSPC. A small study of six participants.
- Osborne, G. and Bacon, A. M. (2015). The working life of a medium: a qualitative examination of mediumship as a support service for the bereaved. Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 18(4), 286–298. doi:10.1080/13674676.2015.1022520
- NHS. Grief after bereavement or loss. Reviewed 14 July 2026.
- Treml, J., Linde, K., Brähler, E. and Kersting, A. (2024). Prolonged grief disorder in ICD-11 and DSM-5-TR: differences in prevalence and diagnostic criteria. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 15, 1266132. doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1266132
- Government of India, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Tele-MANAS: toll-free national tele-mental health service, 14416.
- Zemel, S. K. and Wahbeh, H. (2025). Code of ethics for mediums and trance channelers. EXPLORE, 21(3), 103159. doi:10.1016/j.explore.2025.103159
- Gallo, J., Wahbeh, H., Zemel, S. and Ruickbie, L. (2026). Evaluation of English-speaking medium and trance channeler certifications. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, 90(3), 164–187. doi:10.63499/dswkb305
This article is educational and is not medical or psychological advice. If you or someone you know is struggling, please contact a doctor, a bereavement service or local emergency services.
