Thanks for the replies!
Now, having set out my initial question, IMHO, I tend to think it's a mix--of mind reading "us", the client--but with the really talented psychics, there's evidence they seem to amazingly leap from us to pick up direct information from the POI.
Differentiating the two is the tough thing I think.
I personally have had absolute PROOF that a reader was reading the POI...and NOT ME...because I did not know the super specific information given to me--and it was such a wacky detail-- but it was exactly confirmed later about the POI.
Here's a crazy example: I was crushed out on this guy (we'll call him David) but I could not tell whether he was interested in me. He wasn't a new person in my life, I had known him sort of indirectly in school....but had not seen him in 15 years.
The reading was sort of middle of the road (probably because the guy had pretty bland feelings about me!--it went nowhere)---but then the reader says something to effect of "so he looks like Don Johnson on Miami Vice, right?"
I thought "what? Don Johnson??...uh...big NO...what the heck is that--sheesh, how nuts".
Of course by now I'd written this off as some meandering waste of time.
About a month or so after this (and after I'd shelved my 'wants' for David, since he obviously wasn't feeling it) I was out with a couple of girlfriends...including a new girl I hadn't known. As we chicks do, we chit chatted about men and I moaned about my fruitless interest in this "David xxxx"--coincidentally, the new girl knew the him from an apartment complex they both used to live in.
She said "oh yeah David xxx!--He thought he was Don Johnson! Dressed exactly like Don Johnson on Miami Vice--the t-shirt with sport coat, worn with jeans--David even owned up to it--talked about it-he like the cool factor and the look"
Soooo...very crazy, eh?
That psychic sure didn't pick that little tidbit up from my brain! She obviously zeroed in on Davids!
Now I know the "Meh/bland not interested" feelings about me were coming from him too!