If you're a soul in torment, don't give up the ghost yet: Jane Cameron meets a self-styled therapist from Harpenden who offers free solace to lost spirits

There is nothing spooky about Lance G Trendall. He used to be an estate agent. He lives in a beige and cream-themed house in Harpenden. He is dressed in shorts and a polo shirt. And he cheerfully admits that the closest he has ever come to seeing a ghost is 'sensing a presence' when he was a teenager. His mother had gone on holiday, and he was in her bed with his then girlfriend. Lance was so frightened he had to wake her up for reassurance.

Nevertheless, for the past seven years, 38-year-old Lance has made a living as a 'ghost therapist'. He supplements his income by hypnotising clients who have phobias and personality disorders. He also helps his wife, Allee, with her graphic design business.

'I first became interested in the afterlife when my father died, when I was eight,' says Lance, whose cats - hissing and snarling and hurling themselves about the room - do seem slightly possessed. 'The explanation about where he'd gone seemed contradictory.' Then, when he was 20, one of Lance's estate agent colleagues mentioned that she knew someone who was being haunted. This friend had seen a ghost, in a long, flowing robe, and her two children had begun to wet the bed. Lance contacted his friends Tony and Patricia, who communicated with the spirit world.

The couple decided to hold a seance at the haunted house and arrived, clutching freesias. Lance was bemused: 'It sounded weird to me, going round to see a ghost with a bunch of flowers.'

But Lance began to take things more seriously once the seance began, and the spirit inhabited Patricia, who began sobbing and claimed her innocence. It turned out the ghost was a village idiot from a hundred years ago. His only friend was a young girl, who was found dead in a field. The villagers assumed that the idiot had killed her and stoned him to death.

Ever since, he had been condemned to purgatory. 'We told him we believed him, and reassured him that he was safe,' explains Lance. 'Then, as we were talking to him, we realised that he'd seen his former playmate, and she was able to guide him towards the light.'

This first rescue converted him. Now Lance does rescues each week. There is always a medium present, through whom Lance communicates. His weekly sessions mean that ghosts who want to be 'rescued' know where to come.

There is more than one way to help a lost soul, though. Sometimes, he will come home after being with someone who is especially troubled. 'My head aches and my energy levels have been sapped,' he explains. 'So Allee and I will do a rescue session together. We sit down, with our eyes closed, and Allee is able to open the light gate - an ability she has developed over the last few years - so the ghost can pass through to another dimension. There is an immediate release of tension, and the atmosphere lightens.'

It is often the suddenness of death that confuses the dead. If they had a heart attack, for example, or are involved in a car crash, they have no time to readjust. They are so 'focused on this dimension' that they can't see beyond it. 'I am quite concerned about the number of ghosts,' he explains. 'It may be more crowded down here with the dead, than the living.'

He is keen to stress that he is a down-to-earth sort of person, who doesn't go out trying to sense energies. He says he is persuasive and has good counselling skills - which is all a ghost therapist needs, really.

In extreme cases, he explains, ghosts will inhabit another person's body. Alcohol and drug addiction make us susceptible, and Lance warns against them both. 'People will say: 'He's a different person when he's had a drink,' or, 'I don't know what's got into him again.' That choice of language is so specific,' he says. 'Your subconscious knows that a person is possessed, even if you don't.

'The most dramatic case I had was a 16-year-old girl who had been in a mental hospital for three years. She complained of hearing voices, and couldn't read or watch television because the voices inside her head were too noisy. During a hypnosis session, I asked the voices to come out and sit next to me. Then I told her to say goodbye. She stopped hearing them after that.'

It is important to differentiate between those who don't know they are dead - and those who are frightened of being dead. 'I have spoken to lost people who have seen the light and are afraid that they might be sent to hell,' explains Lance. 'I say to them that it is a good opportunity to ask forgiveness from those they've wronged. People on the other side have a broader view which makes them more likely to forgive.'

An occupational hazard is that ghosts will often seek him out. He was once driving home from a haunted house when his head suddenly began to ache. 'Whoever was hanging round the house had followed me, so I told the ghost, 'Go away. You're causing me pain. Now that I know you're there, I'll talk to you when I get home.' '

Often, the television will flicker on by itself. Or his cats will stare as if someone were there, when there isn't. But Lance isn't fazed. 'I just think, 'Blimey, I've got another one, and ask them, 'Do you know you're not alive?' This happened once when two friends were there, and Lance is doubtful they'll visit again.

(Photograph omitted)