Sue Darroch and Matthew Didier's Paranormal Blog

This past week sparks flew on our paranormal message board in regards to a news item about a Barrie, Ontario, Canada psychic who told a teacher that a child in her class was being sexually abused. The psychic was wrong, and it turned into a big schmmazz so to speak. Here is a snippet from a news report in regards:

No Apology From School Board After Psychic Sex Abuse Report

Wednesday June 18, 2008
CityNews.ca Staff

Colleen Leduc was the unknown Barrie mother of an 11-year-old autistic child who was facing an uncertain future.

All that changed on Monday, when CityNews brought you the exclusive and unbelievable story of the reason her daughter is no longer in school and why she can't work: an education assistant's unsubtantiated claim from a psychic that the little girl was being sexually abused and the School Board interpreting some typical autistic behaviour as a justification to report it to the Children's Aid Society.

The CAS quickly dismissed the allegations, calling them 'ridiculous,' but Leduc is unhappy that the board took the word of a seer who didn't know anything about her daughter.

Since we aired her case, she's been the lead story in her local paper and her phone has been ringing off the hook from media and talk show hosts across Ontario and the GTA, including parents of other autistic children regaling her with similar tales of troubles with other school boards.

She's also received a lot of support from the public, who understand the difficulty she's having raising a child with special needs. "People are very touched by Victoria's story and they think it's incredibly unjust what happened to her," she observes.

Full CityTV News Item Here

While our own discussion on this tragic story got heavy at times we all treated each other and our differing opinions with respect, and I would like to thank all of the participants for that. Not to forget mentioning this discussion provided some great info, and varied views to consider.

Our discussions also got me to thinking about what one of our other message board denizens who is a professional psychic said in regards to charging fees for his services. Brough Perkins (who has been featured by City TV, and Much Music) states that he feels he is providing a therapeutic service, and charges the standard rate if not much less than most therapists. I not only respected, but agreed with his thoughts on this.

Since virtually all therapists in the country must be licensed then, why not license professional psychics? Obviously you cannot license them based on their abilities as a psychic, but you could set a standard based on their skills as a therapist by requiring them to take some courses in counselling, much like a grief counsellor would. This would be far from perfect, but it would attempt to address the issue of ethics, and morality within the profession as well as hopefully preventing possible harm such as the case listed above. And for the record I do not believe the psychic meant to do any harm at all, and that her intention was only to help, but you know the old saying ... "the road to hell is paved with good intentions."

Just a thought, and I would appreciate feedback.

If you are a regular here, and wondering where is Freaky Friday my only defence is that it is a sweltering 35 C with the humidex here in Toronto, and I am just not feeling like digging through our case files....I do promise that that feature will return shortly!