In the case of simple or less developed obsessions 

Allan Kardec writes, in "Genesis" that for the obsessed individual, his own hard work toward self improvement, in the majority of cases, is enough to free him from his obsessor, without the help of others.

This is the case when the process has not become severe and such an individual is able to recognize the possibility of an outside influence. Signals that would indicate such would be those such as strange ideas that he frequently catches himself entertaining, but which are of a disagreeable nature and which are uncharacteristic of his own personality, sudden mood swings and frequent onsets of negative sentiments (sadness, anger, fear, etc.) -and the will to act on them- yet with no reason for their presence, the appearance or sensation of physical ailments with no medical explanation, etc.

Inner Reform

Efforts toward inner-reform, as prescribed by Spiritist teachings, are the key to warding off the harmful influence of unhappy, inferior Spirits. Again, the way to achieve this change and work toward personal growth is through the cultivation of elevated thoughts, the regular dedication of time for moments of study, reflection, and prayer, and the regular practice of kindness and compassion toward others, all the while seeking to diminish the dominance of moral weaknesses.

With regards to prayer, this person (like all of us anyway) should pray to God and to his Spirit guide(s) to help him focus on his efforts to change, asking for strength and protection. At the same time, however, he should not forget to pray for his obsessor, asking that such Spirit may be helped to forgive him for any wrong he may have done, that the Spirit's suffering be alleviated and that he be shown a better way, one that will lead the discarnate companion to find his own peace and tranquility.

In terms of study, Spiritists are educated regarding the importance of time set aside both for individual study of the Doctrine's literary resources, as well as for attendance of public meetings at the Spiritist Center. The philosophical education of the Doctrine will help the individual to understand the reason for his suffering, the need for his compassion and forgiveness, and the importance in the opportunity of his incarnation. Likewise, the moral teachings will serve as both the compass and the nourishment he will need in his journey toward inner-reform, his efforts to strengthen his virtuous qualities and diminish his inferior inclinations.

Additional Resources to Fortify the Soul

Meetings of The Gospel At Home with family members-- This precious time that is dedicated each week for family members to study the Doctrine together is a practice recommended for everyone, which also serves as a helpful resource in both preventing and curing a simple obsession. For the obsessed person, it not only boosts his spiritual defenses, but it also helps to harmonize his relationship with family members, whose participation and assistance is also very important in paralyzing the obsessive process. (see also "Start Your Gospel At Home")

Fluidic Therapy (Passes) and Fluidified Water - A person who undergoes an obsession inevitably experiences a disturbance in his own energies, resulting from the effects of both the perispiritic involvement between him and his obsessor, as well as the poisonous consequences of his own unhealthy thoughts (as influenced and/or exacerbated by his persecutor). The fluidic therapy and fluidified water that he can find at the Spiritist Center will provide him with healthy and curative energies that will help to counteract this energy imbalance to restore his strength, calm his anxieties, and even (with time) can help to improve the condition of physical problems. (see also "Introduction to Fluidic Therapy/ Magnetism")

 When Spiritual Treatment for Disobsession is Needed  

In the case of more severe obsessions, the efforts of the victim alone may not be sufficient to put an end to the tormenting condition. In this case, the obsession is most likely to be a very targeted operation carried out by the obsessing Spirit, usually as a form of revenge (see Causes of Obsession). In this case, as Kardec writes , "the disturbing Spirit must also be persuaded to give up its designs, recognize its error, and desire to change. This can be done through skillful counseling in special (mediumistic) meetings set up for the purpose of raising the Spirit's moral awareness. It's possible, then, to have the double satisfaction in these cases of healing a human being and redeeming a misguided Spirit at the same time."

Such meetings are conducted at Spiritist Centers, where individuals, workers of good will in both the material and Spiritual planes collaborate in an effort to ease the suffering of their brothers and sisters. The meetings (held at a regular time each week) are organized and run by a director from the material plane, as well as a director or instructor who operates from the Spiritual plane. In addition to these directors, other participants include: the counselor(s) who will converse with the communicating Spirits, the mediums who will receive the Spirit communications, pass givers who aid in channeling beneficial energies to the workers and the patients, and additional benefactors from the Spiritual plane. The person who is being treated for the obsession is referred to as the patient.

Counseling the Spirit

Sometimes, an obsessing Spirit arrives at such a meeting on his own as he follows close behind his victim, who goes to the Center at that time to receive passes and participate in edifying studies of the Gospel (though the patient does not normally attend the session with the group that works to counsel the obsessor Spirit). Other times, the Spirit may be brought to the meeting, even against his will, by Superior spirits who are able to exercise their (morally derived) authority over the Spirit in need of treatment. This is evidenced by the common complaints of such Spirits who protest the fact that they have been "imprisoned" in such a place and ask why they must be so restrained and/or made to speak.

The process of such counseling can take several sessions, sometimes even months. If the communicating Spirit is enraged with anger (as can often happen after years of mental fixation on his suffering and desire for revenge), the initial sessions may allow for very little meaningful conversation, and the Spirit may only wish to express his hostility, but he is nonetheless benefited by the good vibrations from the medium who acts as his instrument of communication, as well as the other participants of the session. As time goes on, the Spirit will begin to open up to tell his story and explain the motivation for his actions, to which the counselor can then respond by showing sympathy and, at the same time, by helping the Spirit to see the situation from another point of view.

At times, the Spirit must be shown, or rather convinced that the very event that caused him so much suffering, and which lead him to his present, vengeful state, was only the due consequence of something that he himself had done prior to the situation that is now so fixated in his mind and fresh in his memory. One method that the participants from the Spiritual plane use to achieve this is to place before the communicator a sort of fluidic screen (again, in the spiritual realm) of images that play out for him to see the very immoral acts that he himself once committed against another (in some past existence), the consequences of which later surfaced as the incident for which he now seeks to torment the one whom he has held such contempt for, for so long (and who is often someone who was made to suffer by the Spirit's original crimes). This method of treatment acts as a sort of regression therapy for the Spirit. The counselor knows when this is happening, because the Spirit himself will start to ask why he's being shown "these images" and will eventually recognize himself in them, while the buried memory begins to resurface.

The education and preparation that the Spiritist workers of such meetings receive prepare them with the knowledge that such a Spirit, even one who comes with terrible aggression is actually a victim of yesterday, who is so hurt and consumed by his suffering that he can no longer see any other way of life, reason for which his revenge becomes his only reason for living. At the same time, we recognize that today's victim is actually suffering the consequences of his own past actions. Both of them, then, are seen by Spiritist workers as Spirits on the course of evolution, who've taken a fall and need help in rising again to get back on track. Both are sick and in need of treatment. Both are brothers and sisters, children of God who are in need of loving and compassionate care, and they are both treated with such. Only treatment given with love will be able to cure.

In the case of the Spirit who has become the obsessor of an individual, not for vengeance, but for reasons such as mere moral affinity, the fact that that person represents a past "partner in crime" who the Spirit doesn't want to lose, or out of sheer despite for the good that the individual is practicing, etc (see Causes of Obsession), should such a Spirit communicate in one of these mediumship sessions, he too will be counseled with logic and compassion, so as to help him understand the consequences of his actions and the need to make changes in his behaviors and ways of thinking. He will be told that he can get treatment for his physical and emotional pain (which is taken care of by rescue workers in the Spiritual realm), and lastly, this Spirit will also be shown the love the God has for him and the opportunity for renewal and peace that is his for the taking-- should he make the necessary reform within to change his path and follow a new one that will lead him to a much happier condition.

Orientation of the Patient

The patient's participation in the healing process is essential to the success of everyone's efforts. The efforts that the patient makes toward his own moral elevation are very important in convincing the Spirit to change his ways. However, they're also essential to the patient's ability to build up his spiritual defenses against future attempts to influence him in the way that this obsessor has done. Even if the Spiritist workers were, alone, able to counsel the obsessing Spirit and convince him to take a higher ground and thus abandon his efforts to torment his former enemy, the patient himself, without changing his own ways, would still be susceptible to repeating the whole process again with another Spirit who merely substitutes the first one.

In addition to the work done by others in the mediumship sessions, the patient must do his part by working improving the quality of his thoughts and the choices he makes in his actions. He must also take all the same steps as were mentioned above, in terms of prayer, reflection, study, attending meetings at the Spiritist Center, and receiving fluidic therapy through passes and fluidified water.

The education of the patient will be done through conversations, in appropriate meetings, lectures, and other Spiritist works indicated by the team of workers that are assisting him. Suely Caldas Shubert writes:

"To educate the obsessed individual is to make him feel how essential it is that he participate in his treatment. It is directing him, giving him a gradual and careful vision of what this being, considered as his obsessor, represents in his existence. It is lifting his hopes if he is depressed. It is transmitting to him the certainty that within him are immense resources that must be activated by a firm will so as to bring them to flourish, revealing to him facets of his own personality that were unknown to him until then. It is making him conscious, little by little, of the responsibilities that he took on in the past, and which he is now being charged with, through his unhappy brother that appointed himself judge, collector, or avenger. It is only through intimate reform that the sick will achieve liberation from his thoughts, when restricted by his persecutor. The latter, sensing the modification in the thought waves of his victim, and finding in such, the first signs of forgiveness and love, will progressively become touched by this change. This is why the transformation must be true, whole."

Advice to Family Members

The family members of the patient will also receive counseling from those who are treating the patient. They are educated about the importance of their participation in the healing process, whereby they should be supportive of their loved one and the treatment he is undergoing, help him to keep his thoughts elevated and focused on positive things, and do whatever they can to maintain a harmonious environment in the home (a very helpful resource is the practice of weekly Gospel at Home meetings).

There are two factors involved in the family member's need to be supportive. The first is the mere fact that an attitude of incomprehension and criticism (which is unfortunately common, especially among families who do not know and/or accept the Spiritist Doctrine), will obstruct the effects of the therapeutic work by representing one more problem that the patient must overcome, whereas a genuine acceptance, understanding and encouraging attitude, one that demonstrates a love without prejudices impositions, will do wonders to enhance the success of the patient's recovery.

The second factor are the spiritual ties that the family members often share with the individual undergoing an obsession. The Spirit author, Manoel Philomeno de Miranda writes (in "Obsession", dictated to the medium, Divaldo P. Franco), "Since Spirits are bound together in a family group by their mutual necessity of evolution and reciprocal need for readjustment, those who surround the obsessed patient are strongly connected with the predisposing agent- if not personally responsible for the entity's past failure- and are now summoned to cooperate in the settlement of accounts." He goes on to write, "It is said that the Spirits that live with a psychopath suffer much more than the patient himself. This is not true. They suffer because they need to evolve since they bear a share of responsibility in the problem they are now meeting. They must therefore do their best to help the liberation of the obsessed, liberating themselves consequently…… Many people throw their sick ones- even loved ones- into a sanatorium meaning to get rid of a burden they find too heavy to bear, incurring very serious responsibilities which they will be unable to escape sooner or later…..This is why it is vital in any obsession that the patient's family be strongly advised as to its own responsibilities concerning obsession."

Kardec, Allan. "Obsession." The Mediums' Book. 2nd ed (1st edition FEB). Trans. Anna Blackwell (translated 1876). Ed. Livraria Espírita Allan Kardec. Brasilia-DF, Brazil:  Federação Espírita Brasileira [Brazilian Spiritist Federation}.1986. 285-292.

Kardec, Allan.  The Gospel  Explained By The Spiritist Doctrine.  Trans. Allan Kardec Educational Society (translated from 3rd edition in French). Philadelphia, PA. Allan Kardec Educational Society. 2000. 302-303.

Schubert, Suely Caldas.  Obsessão e Desobsessão. [Obsession and Disobsession]. 14 ed. Rio de Janeiro- RJ, Brazil. 2000. 87-170.

De Miranda, Manoel Philomeno [Spirit Author], Franco, Divaldo P. [Medium]. Obsession. (translation of "Grilhoes Partidos). Trans. Donato Ely J. and Miranda, Herminio C. Salvador, Ba, Brazil. Centro Espirita "Caminho da Redenção". 1980. 9-21.

Peralva, Martins. "Obsessoes" (Obsessions). Estudando A Mediunidade [Studying Mediumship]. Rio de Janeiro-RJ, Brazil: Federação Espírita Brasileira [Brazilian Spiritist Federation]. 1998 (20th ed). 65-71.

Systematized Study published by the Brazilian Spiritist Federation. Program V, Unit 8, Subunit 4 Disobsession: Prevention and Therapy. Published 1996, Brasilia (DF).

Luiz, André (Spirit Author), Xavier, Francisco Cândido (Medium). Nos Dominios Da Mediunidade [In The Domains of Mediumship].  Rio de Janeiro-RJ, Brazil. Brazilian Spiritist Federation. 1945 23, 30,34-36, 42-47.