DB: Most people assume that intuitive gifts are sort of given, but my experience has been that they develop over the years in different ways, and unfold. I’m wondering if you have anything to share about the unfolding of your gifts through the years.

JO: Well, I was kind of born with a certain intuitive sensitivity. Over the years it’s definitely deepened and unfolded. So, the way that it’s deepened and unfolded is working with patients, in that I see so many people – and give workshops. I tune in and develop my intuition in all my workshops, and it’s ongoing practice to do this.

I have a passion for helping people that is very important to me. So my intuition has always been in that perspective. Whenever I’m around people who I can help, in whatever way, small or large, my intuition turns on. It has developed with the work I’ve done with people over the years.

DB: What sort of perceptions do you get when you’re with people?

JO: Well, a lot of it is reading energy. I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to read my latest book, Positive Energy?

DB: No, I haven’t, but certainly look forward to doing so. Tell me about it.

JO: It talks about my process and how I tune in. Basically, I sense an energy that people give off. In the book I talk about positive energy and negative energy which can be felt. But when you dissect it, of course, is when it loses its real essence.

When I tune in, I get a sense of energy, and from that energy I can get either body sensations, intuitive knowing, images, sounds, songs, poetry – whatever comes through. But it comes through the energy. The energy is the vehicle.

DB: And when you have these perceptions, do you get the sense, sometimes, that the message is meant for you, rather than for the person you are reading?

JO: Not very often.

DB: So it’s mainly information that’s coming through for them.

JO: Oh, yes. That’s why I’m working with people. It’s because they’re asking me things because I’m helping them.

I also get intuitions about myself, but not a lot when I do the work, but more often when I’m in meditation myself or quiet alone, or walking by the ocean, or listening to music in the car, that it all comes through. Or in the shower.

DB: And do you have a sense of the source of the information?

JO: Personally, I feel it is God. I feel that the way I tune in, for me. It’s not necessarily for everybody, but the way I tune in is always through the heart, through the heart energy, so I come from that place of the heart which can be extremely expansive. And when I get into that place, that opens up my intuition, and I feel that it is directly related to the Divine.

DB: And so you feel that it is a communication from God.

JO: Yes. I mean, it’s not just me who can do it. Everybody can tune in through the heart and get this. Yes, I feel the Divine communion that happens when you’re just so aligned with the Essence that you are able to transcend the ordinary senses and tune into a different kind of energy.


Using intuition to help people

DB: When you’re doing these readings, do you have a particular range or area of problems that you feel that you’ve been able to help with, perhaps more than others, or particular areas that you are responsive to, or resonate with?

JO: I’m always very, very good at helping people find what they’re meant to do because I can sense that in them. I’m really good on career.

DB: What is that like, that sensing of the ‘meant to do’ awareness?

JO: Well, often they ask, or sometimes I even immediately get that somebody would be an amazing healer and that’s what they have to do. It would serve them to do that. And I ask them, “What do you do?” and they’ll say, “I’m an engineer,” “I’m a bank teller,” or whatever. And I’ll say, “Well, have you thought of going into healing, in whatever capacity?” “Well, as a matter of fact, yes I have, but I haven’t known how to do that.”

And so I nudge people over the edge. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve nudged over the edge of going into healing because I truly feel that gift coming from people. And we are so desperately in need of having good healers out there that I seem to be quite interested in that intuitively, in terms of picking that up in people and encouraging that in them.

DB: And, do you teach opening into this sort of awareness as well?

JO: Oh, yes. That’s what my life is devoted to. I teach patients. I have a private practice in Los Angeles and I give lots and lots of workshops all year round. I travel quite a bit giving workshops around the country. So, yes, I teach it. I’m very passionate about teaching it.

In fact, this January I’m giving a workshop, a four-day course just for health-care professionals, to teach them how to use intuition and energy in patient care.

DB: That’s great! Where?

JO: In LA. But, I’m doing it at the Philosophical Research Society. The room is not big enough to hold everybody. And I don’t want to do it in the auditorium because I don’t think that would be intimate enough for this group. And, so, I have a waiting list of so many people who want to do this. There’s a huge need.

DB: What’s the maximum number that you can work with at a time?

JO: I can work with a thousand people or I can work with five. It’s a different thing. But with this group I wanted it to be intimate enough where I could do hands-on instruction with them.

You know, tell them what to do. Because the way I teach intuition, clinically, is that I bring in patient examples and I help walk people through the process of what goes on in their minds when they’re tuning in. There’s all kinds of things that can happen in terms of projection and fears and lack of belief in themselves about whether they can do it. They don’t know what to trust and what not to trust. So, I go through every bit of that with them and I guide them in that way.

And I also teach healing. I guess you would call it Therapeutic Touch, energy healing, or laying-on-of-hands healing. I teach that to professionals.

DB: And, what percent of people do you feel are able to learn healing?

JO: It’s a matter of degree. There are very few good healers out there, energy healers who can really
transform symptoms. But, I train a lot of people to balance people. That’s a great gift, to energetically balance someone. I think everybody’s got it in them – some people more than others.

I just gave a healing workshop on my new book in Albuquerque. There were around 350 people there. Toward the end of the workshop, I hear this horrible yell at the back of the room, and this woman proceeds to have a grand mal seizure in front of the group. So, I rushed over to her and I did energy work immediately. I put my hands on her legs. There was an emergency-room doctor who was attending the workshop and he kicked into high gear, and his little son was there, so he was able to be the hero for him. And it was all great, very great.

But, immediately my instinct is to do the energy work on someone in an emergency. At the same time 911 was called, but it was amazing because the group got to see it in action.

DB: That’s pretty good!

Now, are there areas, or questions, or problems that you feel don’t respond to what you have to offer?

JO: Well, I really looked at that carefully. It seemed that her seizing stopped within about ten seconds of my putting my hands there.

DB: Have you had that experience before with seizures?

JO: I’ve only had one other person who seized in a workshop, and yes. It doesn’t happen that frequently that somebody has a grand mal seizure in a workshop. But what was so great about it was that this woman had come with some friends, and the friend was a doctor and she said the woman had had a previous seizure but she would not go and get it worked up. And so, being in my healing workshop was the impetus somehow that her soul needed to have a seizure and to be forced into getting help. So, it was quite nice.

DB: And do you have any follow-up?

JO: I asked the conference planner to let me know what happened, because the hotel would let them know, but I haven’t heard. I would like to know.

DB: Do you keep records on the work that you do?

JO: Yes, my book.

DB: I mean, formal records. Like anything that would be an unusual healing where there might be some measurable effects and the person’s physician might give a before and after testimonial.

JO: Yes, sometimes. But the thing is, I’m a psychiatrist, so the patients I work with I don’t readily ask them to do that. It’s confidential.

DB: Okay. And at workshops, have you had those sorts of reactions that might be noteworthy?

JO: I have many. Every weekend I have a healing night where I teach people to do the energy healing where one person is the healer, the other person is the healee, and it’s for a number of hours through the night. And then we form a group and we talk about it the next day, because there’s silence after. We talk about it a little bit, but mainly there’s silence that night. And then we talk about it the next day. People have had everything from pain being relieved, to colds going away, to depression lifting, to feeling more balanced and clear, and more hopeful. You know – the whole range.

I’ve worked with lots people who have cancer. And I definitely think energy healing is helpful and if a patient of mine has cancer, I will definitely use it as an adjunct. I’ve never worked with someone who had cancer disappear. I feel – unless the healer is so evolved that they can actually heal cancer – that the patient needs to get traditional treatment also.

DB: Sure. Do you find that your work blends well with traditional treatment?

JO: Oh, yes, it’s natural.

But, you know, I give traditional treatment. I don’t just give alternative treatment. I’ll put patients on medications, and so forth. I believe in traditional treatment in certain cases.


Wholistic applications of intuition

DB: Do you find that the healing can lessen the need for medication or the dose of medication, or gentle the side effects?

JO: Yes, yes sometimes. Whenever I work with somebody on medication, I always work intuitively, and energetically, and spiritually. I don’t just write a prescription.

In my training at UCLA I was the Chief Resident of The Affective Disorders Clinic for a year. So I really learned how to give out medication, and what the effects are. I have deep respect for it, and I also realize its limitations. But I never learned how to bring energy and a sense of spirit and connection to the medication.

I listen to the patient’s body, and all the time I get feedback from the patient: “How do you feel? How are you in touch with your emotions, your sexuality, your energy? How’s your dream life?” I go through the whole thing with them. And, if they say, “My body really feels I need to go down a little bit,” I’ll do that most of the time. So, it’s really a partnership that I make with my patients, and I deeply honor what they say.

DB: I think I asked this before, but I don’t think we covered the question really. Do you find problems that don’t respond to your work?

JO: Oh, yes. Personality disorders, pathological lying, that type of thing is very resistant.

DB: How about people who have drug problems?

JO: Oh, no, it’s very helpful with that, if they are willing to get sober. Energy work is definitely an adjunct to detox and recovery. Absolutely.

DB: And do you find people opening to their spiritual awareness as a result of the work?

JO: Oh, everybody.

DB: How does that manifest? What ways do they respond?

JO: It depends. I have some patients who were traumatized by religion, so they never want to go back there again. So, their connection is through the heart.

I teach spirituality through energy and intuition. I don’t care what form somebody goes for. It has to be a form that resonates with them, but I don’t care. Frankly, it doesn’t make any difference to me. But, what they need to do is to find a connection that’s real, that comes from the heart.

Then they begin to open their heart chakra, the energy center, and they begin to expand a little bit, to feel the Divine, whether it’s through nature, or through the night sky, or through religion, or through meditation. But it’s a definite connection of the heart that’s energetic, and so, if they don’t feel that, then not much is going on. So, I help them to make the connection that is real to them. It’s not an intellectual connection at all.

DB: Right.

JO: I equalize the energetic experience for them. Because I’ve been working with energy for so many years, I can send energy so that when my patients, who maybe have never felt it before, are able to feel it with me working on them. And the great thing about that is, then they can begin to open it up in themselves since they know the feeling. I can teach them how to do that.

DB: So essentially, you’re providing them with a biofeedback that helps them connect.

JO: Exactly! And the same is true with intuition. I don’t just sit and read patients all the time. They’ll ask me a million questions about everything! And I won’t do that. I won’t answer everything – I don’t have the answers, first of all, but even if I did, I wouldn’t tell them, because they need to tune in.

So I teach them. It’s a process of helping patients tune in. And they have tremendous resistance to doing this because they don’t think they can, so I have to help them believe in themselves and stop asking other people for all the advice.

I’m very against how addicted people can get to psychics. They call all the time, you know, “What’s this with my boyfriend? Should I go on this vacation?” It’s horrible!

DB: Totally disempowering themselves.

JO: Exactly, exactly.

DB: Do you find, when you’re working with people, that you connect with all levels of body, emotions, mind, relationships, spirit? Or, are there particular levels that you’re more likely to connect on?

JO: I’m more likely to connect on levels that somebody has blocked from their heart. That could manifest in relationships, or it can be career, it could be in a spiritual path.

This is very interesting because people will come in, let’s say a patient will come in, and they have a crown chakra, out, ten miles wide – this white light shining from them – and they come in with a serious depression. They are totally out of touch with their spirituality. So I see from that, just in that intuitive reading, that this is what my job is, to help them connect with that.

Somebody can carry the most beautiful powerful energy in the world, but if they’re not connected to it, then a lot of times it doesn’t do them any good.

DB: And do you work with relationships as well? Like with several people in a family, or partners?

JO: Oh, yes. Most definitely.

DB: Do you work with them together, or individually?

JO: It depends on what’s appropriate. Any or all of the above, depending on what is needed.

DB: As you’ve worked with people with their symptoms, and presenting problems, do you find that there are particular symptoms or diseases that correlate with soul issues, or life issues? Or is it very individual?

JO: I think it’s very individual. But one thing that responds best to energy work is anxiety. You teach somebody to open up their heart and get that energy going, and it calms them down immediately.

DB: Beyond anxiety, can you identify any particular symptoms or diseases that correlate with issues?

JO: Most all of them do. Any time somebody comes in to me with a physical illness, it’s always a part of the consideration of what’s going on. And it could mean different things to different people.

DB: Do you find that illnesses, say, of the gut, or the liver, or kidneys, correlate with different kinds of problems? Or could they, in different people, correlate with the same kinds of issues?

JO: Well, I think it’s both. Somebody can have, let’s say, repeated urinary infection, something like that. And it could involve the first chakra area. That can range from everything from sexual abuse, to shutting that energy off themselves and numbing that part of themselves out. So, it would depend on the patient’s life history.

DB: So you wouldn’t be able to develop a catalog of symptoms and likely issues that are related to those symptoms or problems?

JO: I don’t think so. I don’t work that way. Each person is totally individual to me. But maybe if you grouped all the people I’ve worked with on liver cancer, or stomach problems, they might have some similarities, but I’m loath to generalize with people.

DB: Do you see a place, or have you found places, where preventive teaching can be done?

JO: Oh, very much so. Oh, I mean, that’s where the real power is. When you begin to tune in to your intuition... When I teach my patients to do that, they can listen to certain things and avoid a lot of problems, in terms of not going into relationships that will be destructive to them. And they can avoid a ten-year bout of being in a horrible relationship if they just listen to their intuition, and they begin to trust that. So they avoid certain difficulties, if they listen. And that’s a good thing.

DB: Do you find that children pick this up?

JO: Oh yes, some children are really, really attuned. I just got an email from a twelve-year-old in Maryland who had just read Second Sight, my first book, and she was psyched! She really was. She sent me this email and she goes, “I’m your number one fan!” It was so cute.

DB: Can you work with people over the phone?

JO: Not a lot. Sometimes, if my patients are traveling. I work a lot with people in the entertainment industry who go on location, stuff like that. I do it but I prefer not to.

DB: What is the difference?

JO: It’s not pleasing to me. I enjoy being with the person, in the presence of somebody. It’s just a preference to me. A lot of psychics work over the phone. There’s nothing wrong with it. I just don’t like it as much, but I’ll do it. I just don’t like holding the phone to my ear!

Surprises and insights

DB: Do you have surprises when you’re working with people, or is it generally sort of like you see the map and you pretty much follow a map?

JO: Oh no, people always surprise me.

DB: Can you give any examples?

JO: I can give you an example with myself. I surprise myself. You know the incredible power of the information that comes through.

I was going through a period when I was complaining a lot and things weren’t going my way in certain areas, you know, and I was getting kind of down about it and complaining. And I had this dream that my father – he passed on in ’98 from Parkinson’s disease – was making some kind of transition, wherever he was. And I said, “Well, is there anything I can do for you? Is there any way I can help you?”

And he says, “There’s not anything I really need at this point, except for a pen and a piece of paper, in case I want to write a thank-you note.”

And that’s, you know, to me, God speaking.

DB: That is sweet.

JO: With that kind of sweetness and compassion, you know, saying to me, “Come on, be thankful here, for abundance.”

But, it’s so sweet and it’s so loving, the way the messages come through, that I can’t help but listen. So, that’s quite surprising.

DB: How about with patients? Can you think of any surprises that you’ve had?

JO: Well, I had a patient who would get very, very angry. She lived in Wyoming on a buffalo ranch. She was a workshop participant. And, oftentimes, whenever she would get angry, she would crack glass and break windows! And that was quite surprising to her. Quite disconcerting to her.

But she learned the power of the mind over matter, the psychokinetic implications of emotion – the energy of emotions – and how they can alter the physical environment. So, that was kind of surprising to her.

DB: And did it change as she learned?

JO: Oh yeah, she didn’t want that to happen. It freaked her out. She had to channel her anger in different ways.

Some people just have psychokinetic tendencies. You know, they break clocks, they break windows, machines. One thing, I know, when I get frustrated – and a lot of my patients have told me this. When they get frustrated, everything breaks around them – my computer, my fax, my toilet, my light bulbs – everything goes when I go through a frustrated period. All the servicemen have to come in, and that’s even more irritating to me. When I get back to center again, and I feel better, then things seem to get fixed and I go into a new cycle. I think machines are very vulnerable to our energy.

DB: This is turning out to be a very interesting interview. Are there any particular areas you’d like to share that I haven’t asked about?

JO: I think, if anything, I’ve learned from the study of intuition and the heart, what I would like to convey
is never to give up hope. There’s always hope for yourself. There’s always hope for humanity, no matter how dark and dismal it looks. There’s always that goodness in everybody, no matter how much bad they’ve done. And it’s always just waiting to be awakened in some way.

I know people get very down about all the dark energy in the world, and also the dark energy in themselves. It’s quite overwhelming, actually. We humans have a lot to deal with, but that’s just the nature of this reality. And so, with the study of intuition, and the study of the heart, we can gradually begin to heal some of that darkness so we can enjoy the light more. So, if everybody could just keep hopeful, that’s a good thing.

DB: Do you agree with the transcendental meditation people that if you get a certain critical mass of people meditating together that you’re likely to bring about societal changes?

JO: Oh, I deeply believe that. I believe in the collective positive energy when you get the critical mass going. That’s the key. The critical mass of the heart is what can save us. Absolutely.

DB: Do you think that negativity will ever be totally eliminated?

JO: No, not on earth. That’s what it’s all about here. That’s what people are learning.

DB: So negativity really isn’t what we take it to be, classically.

JO: Oh no, not at all. It’s just the forces within us that we must contend with, and heal, and transcend – so that we can come from a higher place and so we can be free.

DB: So, what’s it all about, Judith? Why this struggle?

JO: It’s the nature of being human, the struggle. And the choices people make have extreme significance.

I’m writing a new book, and I was writing a section on patience. I think it’s a revolutionary thing to let somebody go ahead of you in line. I think that’s a revolutionary act. I really do. When you take small things, when you’re not rushing and trying to get ahead of everyone. Let somebody go before you. These simple things that we can do for our own soul development - it’s available everywhere if you look at it that way. You have to look at it that way. Being in the market is the place to develop your soul. Being in the bank line, being in traffic. That’s the earth realm that we have to deal with. And it’s how we deal with it that makes a huge difference.

DB: So being kind, coming from a place of heart, is what you feel will bring about changes?

JO: Oh, I’m convinced of it. The heart is everlasting happiness. Nothing else will bring everlasting happiness. And when we die, what we’ve developed in our heart goes with us as our soul. It’s the only thing that ultimately counts. That’s how I feel, anyway.

And so, with my work, I do everything possible to help others find that in themselves. It’s very, very useful for them.

DB: I’m really enjoying this, Judith.

JO: Are you surprised?

DB: No, it’s just lovely having the heart recommendation, which I feel is very important. And, I’ve seen intuitives who get into ego, and proving that they can do this and that, and it’s lovely to have your recommendations for empowering people to do it themselves.

JO: Oh, yes. I just had tea with this guy who had come to a talk I gave at IONS. I don’t usually do it, but I felt like I wanted to with him for some reason. And he just asked me all these questions. He was a therapist and he was just opening up to his intuition and he had a lot of self doubts.

His big button was that he was afraid of being “the fool,” of his peers mocking him. And he said, “What do you do when these doctors or other people just don’t believe in what you’re saying and they are negative about it, and they don’t think it exists, and they put it down? What do you do about that?”

I just told him, “I totally respect their beliefs! It’s not a conflict for me. You know people are entitled to believe whatever they want, God bless them!” If it works for them, go for it. They don’t have to believe as I do. I don’t have any feeling that other people have to believe as I do or people have to know about intuition or spirituality, if that’s not what they want. Then, they should know what’s good for them… or not. It doesn’t make any difference to me what people believe.

DB: You’re willing to let them go first in line.

JO: I try. You know, I’m not perfect or anything. But, I want to get to that place.

Just the other day, I let a person go in front in line at this store. She was so shocked, like I had given her “Queen for a Day” or something. And I said, “Just go ahead, go ahead.” She asked again, “Oh, are you sure?” I mean, these little things, people don’t realize it. She’ll remember that!

And another thing I do is I leave little bits of money places for people. I leave it in the bathroom, or I leave it on the ground, or wherever I feel like it, so they can find the money and feel lucky.

DB: Do you get intuitions to do it in specific places, or do you just do it randomly?

JO: I just do it when I feel like it.

This man, yesterday, he said to me his girlfriend has this daughter who just hates men, and has been mistreated by men, and he doesn’t know what he’s going to do with this girl. He asked, “What should I do with her?”

I said, “Just be nice to her! That’s all you have to do. Just be nice to her.”

You know, people make things so complicated for themselves. But that was my intuition, so intuition can come through in the most practical ways. And that’s all you have to do.

One thing I’ve learned about intuition and what I love about it is: there it is. If you say the right thing at the right time, that’s all you need. You don’t have to keep laying it on heavy with people. That’s a mistake that many people I train do. They’re so excited about the intuitive process that they just become overzealous.

You know what’s also hard for people? When they tune into their intuition, and it’s not appropriate to share it, it’s hard for them to constrain themselves because they still have that ego investment in being right. They want to be right more than they want to help people.

DB: How do you know when the right time is?

JO: Oh, wow, timing is the essence of intuition. For me, it feels like when a door opens, there’s energy there. It feels right. It feels on. It feels electric, and “now is the time.” As opposed to: nothing’s happening. Or, I feel null. Or I feel like I’m moving backwards. Or, I’m trying to force something. When it’s time, the door opens. And that’s an intuition, when the door opens.

And I am just fierce about that. I have trained myself over the years to wait until that door opens and I will not share an intuition with a patient until that door opens. I don’t care how right I am. I’ll go to my grave with that intuition, I don’t care. If the time isn’t right, I won’t share it.

DB: So, do you ask, in essence, for guidance, like saying, “Is it the right time now?”

JO: Oh, every time I, when I’m working with people, I do. It’s not a sequential thing. It’s something I’ve just incorporated into the question, where I get the information, and I tune in automatically on whether it’s right to share it or not.

Or I may pick up how to share it,because sometimes you don’t want to share it directly. It’s not appropriate to share it directly. So, you have to kind of go around the back door.

DB: Can you give a clinical example of where you went around the back door?

JO: I was on an airplane and this guy, who was sitting next to me, and I just wanted to read my movie magazine, my People. And, all of a sudden I got this flash that his son committed suicide. And it came from out of the blue. I was not interested. But then I asked, “What do I do with this?” because I did feel a pull to talk to him.

And so, we started up chatting about something and then he said, “What do you do?” And I said, “Well,
I’m a psychiatrist and I work with all kinds of patients.” And he says, “Oh, do you work with depressed patients?” And it came out; he brought it up that his son had committed suicide. You see, that was the back door.

It comes up in conversation if you know how to move the conversation along in a certain way. You know what I mean? So it feels more natural. It feels like they’re bringing it up themselves, where I totally know what I’m doing. But, you see, if he hadn’t brought it up I would have just dropped it.

DB: Sure.

JO: So, it’s a kind of skill you develop over the years. I’m developing quite a bit of confidence in myself because I’ve seen the good that can come of it. So, I’ve learned to trust myself. But sometimes I’m not right. Sometimes I’m off.

DB: Why would that be?

JO: Well, a patient of mine just recently asked about a woman who worked in her office, whether or not she was going to be staying there or not. I tuned into the woman and I thought she wasn’t going anywhere. But, in fact, what happened was that within a couple weeks she got fired. And so I looked at where I went wrong with this, and that patient asked me, “Why didn’t you see that?” And so I really looked at it in myself. And what I was tuning into was the woman not wanting to go anywhere. I was just too focused on her, rather than somebody else coming in to fire her. I wasn’t tuning in to the right thing exactly. I was tuning in to whether or not she wanted to stay.

So, it was interesting. I always try and learn from those experiences. And I think also in my mind, when I tuned in, I dismissed the question as unimportant. I wasn’t all that interested in tuning in to it. And what I’ve found is that is when something interests me, then I’m much more accurate. It’s more luminous if something interests me. And, a lot of things interest me.

DB: What are some of them?

JO: Oh, gee. Everything, basically, interests me about the human mind and the human soul working. But whether or not this woman left her job wasn’t very interesting to me. It just didn’t have a pull. But, anything that causes people to stretch, and get bigger. Like, for instance, I was up in Provincetown. I have a friend who is a poet up there, Mary Oliver. She had hurt her arm and asked me to help her energetically. Because I love her, it interested me in helping her. And, in fact, her pain did go away.

DB: Do you find that you’re good at helping with pain?

JO: Sometimes. It depends on my connection with the person.

The most intimate thing you can do is sense a person’s energy. Because they can come off a certain way, in terms of their personality, and even in the energy you sense in them at a distance. But, whenever I tune in to the energy, I get the essence of the person. I get the darkness in them, and I get the light. And that’s quite surprising sometimes because it doesn’t match how the person is seeing it externally.

DB: Why do you think that is?

JO: That it doesn’t match? Well, I think people don’t show their full selves for a number of reasons, and even if they were aware of their full selves, maybe they weren’t aware of a part of it. Most people don’t know how to work with their energy at all. So, it doesn’t surprise me.

But it is the most intimate thing you can do because you really get a sense of who this person is, apart from any external information.

DB: We’re just about out of time, Judith. Is there anything else you’d like to share?

JO: Most people are very shaky inside.

DB: Yes. They don’t have a lot of confidence in themselves.

JO: It’s not only the confidence. It’s the energetic quality of the heart that builds that lump when you tune in. When you tune in to somebody who has developed heart over a period of time, it’s quite lovely to share energy with them. Even though they might have a lot of darkness in them, with the heart it’s just a different alchemy. It’s quite a beautiful connection when you can feel that. And I can feel that in people. It’s what I’m attracted to the most.

But, I feel that even more strongly when I put my hand on somebody and I close my eyes, and I can feel their energy. The human touch is important for me to feel the depth of them.

DB: Do you work with pregnant women?

JO: Yes, sometimes.

DB: Do you communicate with the fetus as well?

JO: I have, and sometimes if couples can’t get pregnant, I ask them to tune into the fetus before it was born, to connect with the soul, because sometimes we need the invitation, and then it comes in.

DB: I have endless questions, but I think we probably have enough at this point for the interview we set out to do for our readers. So thank you, Judith, for sharing your rich experiences and insights.

JO: You’re welcome.

Judith Orloff M.D. is a psychiatrist and medical intuitive, author of Positive Energy: Ten Extraordinary Prescriptions for Transforming Fatigue, Stress, and Fear into Vibrance, Strength, and Love upon which this interview is based. She is also author of the bestsellers Guide to Intuitive Healing and Second Sight. She is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at UCLA, has a private practice in Los Angeles, and is an international workshop leader on the interrelationship of intuition, energy, and medicine. For more information about her workshops and books visit http://www.drjudithorloff.com/

Editorial note: See review of Positive Energy in this issue of IJHC.