Medical Intuition: A Qualitative Exploration of the Subjective Experience of Practitioners

Abstract

Medical intuition practitioners purport to identify physical and nonphysical factors that contribute to an individual’s health condition, knowing nothing other than the person’s name. Although the phenomenon of medical intuition has been observed for centuries, it has rarely been researched; further, there appear to be no in-depth studies relating to the subjective experience of practitioners, known as medical intuitives. Using individual, semi-structured interviews, this qualitative study explored the experience of 15 self-identified medical intuitives. Results of thematic analysis identified three themes relating to practitioners’ inner experience of conducting a medical intuition reading, including mindset, perceptual experience, and interpretation. Another four themes related to the impact of extrasensory perception in their lives, including development of perception, discernment in sharing information, boundaries, and intuition in daily life. Two final themes related to worldviews of medical intuitives, including interconnectedness and holistic view of health. Findings suggest that the nonlinear epistemic nature of medical intuition is additive and complementary to approaches used by conventional healthcare providers and that, together, a more complete picture of an individual’s health may be observed. Relatedly, 80% of medical intuitives reported receiving client referrals from licensed healthcare providers. Results of the study point to multiple areas for future research, as well as suggestions regarding methods of testing intuitive accuracy.