Author Archives: Shervan K Shahhian, LIBERTY PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION, The Most Comprehensive Online Library Regarding Mental Health, Psychology and Parapsychology in the World.

Doctored Degree in Clinical Psychology (PSYD) (ABD) All But Dissertation, a Masters (M.A.) in Clinical Psychology, a Bachelor's Degree (B.A.) in Psychology, a Associate Degree (AA) in Liberal Arts with an emphases in Psychology, Certification in Anger Management, Certification in MRT-Moral Reconation Therapy®, Certification in Clinical Hypnotherapy, and Certification in Advanced Hypnotherapy.

Meaning-Centered Therapy (MCT) Part 2, explained:

Meaning-Centered Therapy (MCT) could be a structured, evidence-based psychotherapy could be designed to help people find or reconnect with a sense of meaning, purpose, and value in life, especially when facing suffering, illness, or existential distress.

It could be strongly rooted in the work of Viktor Frankl, who developed logotherapy, the idea that the primary human drive is the “will to meaning.”

Core Idea

MCT could be built on a simple but powerful premise:

Even when we cannot change our circumstances, we can change how we relate to them, and still find meaning.

Key Themes of Meaning in MCT

MCT might help clients explore different sources of meaning, such as:

1. Creative Sources

  • What you give to life (work, contributions, legacy)

2. Experiential Sources

  • What you receive from life (love, beauty, relationships)

3. Attitudinal Sources

  • The stance you take toward unavoidable suffering

This third category is especially central, echoing Frankl’s experience during the Holocaust.

Core Components of Therapy

MCT could typically structured and time-limited (often 7–8 sessions), focusing on:

  • Life review (identity, values, personal history)
  • Meaning-making exercises
  • Exploration of legacy (what you leave behind)
  • Responsibility and choice
  • Facing mortality and limitations
  • Reframing suffering

Possible Techniques Used

  • Guided reflection and discussion
  • Narrative reconstruction (rewriting one’s life story)
  • Legacy projects (letters, recordings, symbolic acts)
  • Experiential exercises (e.g., “What matters most?”)

Evidence & Effectiveness

Research might show MCT can:

  • Reduce existential distress
  • Decrease depression and hopelessness
  • Improve spiritual well-being and quality of life

It’s especially effective in:

  • Palliative care
  • Grief and bereavement
  • Trauma and identity crises

How It Could Differ from Other Therapies

TherapyFocus
CBTThoughts and behaviors
PsychodynamicUnconscious conflicts
MCTMeaning, purpose, existential identity

MCT could be less about symptom control and more about:
“What makes life worth living, even now?”

Possible Clinical Insight

MCT is particularly interesting because it:

  • Bridges existential psychology and spiritual meaning systems
  • Can incorporate transpersonal or anomalous experiences without pathologizing them
  • Aligns with frameworks like:
    • Meaning-making in grief
    • Survival-of-consciousness interpretations (if handled carefully)

Possible Limitations

  • Not ideal as a standalone treatment for acute psychosis
  • Requires some level of reflective capacity
  • May feel abstract for highly concrete thinkers

In One Sentence

Meaning-Centered Therapy might help people endure and transform suffering by reconnecting with what gives their life meaning, no matter the circumstances.

Shervan K Shahhian

Meaning-Centered Therapy (MCT), explained:

Meaning-Centered Therapy (MCT) is a psychotherapy approach that might help people find, restore, or deepen a sense of meaning and purpose in life, especially when facing suffering, illness, loss, or existential distress.

It could be strongly inspired by the ideas of Viktor Frankl and his work in Logotherapy, which emphasizes that the primary human motivation is the search for meaning.

Core Idea

Meaning-Centered Therapy could propose that psychological suffering often intensifies when people feel:

  • Life has lost meaning
  • They have no purpose
  • Their suffering seems pointless
  • Their identity or legacy feels threatened

The therapy helps people reconnect with sources of meaning, even in very difficult circumstances.

The approach could be widely used in psycho-oncology, palliative care, and existential psychotherapy.

Main Goals

Meaning-Centered Therapy could help individuals:

  1. Rediscover purpose in life
  2. Understand their life story
  3. Create a sense of legacy
  4. Find meaning in suffering
  5. Strengthen spiritual or existential identity

Four Major Sources of Meaning

Meaning might come from four main sources:

1. Creative Sources

Meaning through what we give to the world.

Examples:

  • Work
  • Creativity
  • Contributions
  • Helping others

2. Experiential Sources

Meaning through what we receive from life.

Examples:

  • Love
  • Beauty
  • Nature
  • Art
  • Relationships

3. Attitudinal Sources

Meaning through how we face unavoidable suffering.

Examples:

  • Courage
  • Dignity
  • Compassion
  • Resilience

Frankl emphasized this most strongly.

4. Historical Sources

Meaning through our personal story and legacy.

Examples:

  • Life narrative
  • Family history
  • Cultural identity
  • Values passed to others

Typical Structure of Meaning-Centered Therapy

The therapy is often short-term and structured, usually 7–8 sessions.

Common topics explored:

  1. Concept of meaning
  2. Life as a story
  3. Identity and values
  4. Creativity and contribution
  5. Experiences of love and beauty
  6. Attitude toward suffering
  7. Legacy and life meaning

Clinical Uses

Meaning-Centered Therapy could commonly used for:

  • Cancer patients
  • Terminal illness
  • Palliative care
  • Existential depression
  • Grief and loss
  • End-of-life counseling

It overlaps with roles such as:

  • End-of-Life Doula
  • Death Midwife

Possible Psychological Benefits

Research shows MCT can:

  • Reduce existential distress
  • Reduce depression
  • Increase spiritual well-being
  • Improve sense of dignity
  • Strengthen resilience

Example of a Meaning-Centered Question

A therapist may ask:

  • “When in your life have you felt most meaningful or purposeful?”
  • “What do you want your life to stand for?”
  • “What legacy would you like to leave?”

Simple Example

A patient with terminal illness may initially feel:

“My life is ending. Everything was pointless.”

Meaning-Centered Therapy helps them rediscover:

  • The love they gave their children
  • The values they lived by
  • The courage they showed in hardship

Thus the narrative shifts from “pointless suffering” to “a meaningful life story.”

Why It Matters (Psychologically)

Meaning acts as a buffer against existential despair.
Even in extreme conditions, humans can maintain psychological stability when they feel their lives have purpose or significance.

This insight came directly from Frankl’s experiences during the The Holocaust.

Interesting that some clinicians might link meaning-centered approaches with spiritual or transcendent experiences, possibly including anomalous experiences and existential awakening.

Shervan K Shahhian

Modern Grief Psychology, an explanation:

Modern grief psychology could be the contemporary scientific understanding of how people experience, process, and adapt to loss, especially the death of a loved one. Unlike some of the older theories that saw grief as a fixed sequence of stages, modern approaches view grief as dynamic, individualized, and influenced by psychological, social, cultural, and biological factors.

Below are possibly the core ideas in modern grief psychology.

  1. Moving Beyond the “Stages of Grief”

For many years, grief might have been associated with the five stages:

Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance

Modern psychology might recognize that these are not fixed stages. People may:

Skip some
Experience them in different orders
Feel several simultaneously
Move back and forth between emotions

Grief today could be understood as non-linear and highly personal.

  1. The Dual Process Model

Possibly, one the influential modern theory could be the Dual Process Model.

It proposes that healthy grieving involves oscillating between two modes:

Loss-oriented coping

Crying
Remembering the deceased
Feeling sadness or longing

Restoration-oriented coping

Adjusting to life changes
Taking on new roles
Engaging in everyday activities

Healthy grief could involve moving back and forth between these states, not staying permanently in one.

  1. Continuing Bonds Theory

Earlier psychology might suggest people should “let go” of the deceased.

Modern research, might show that many people maintain continuing bonds with loved ones.

Examples include:

Talking to the deceased internally
Keeping meaningful objects
Feeling guidance or presence
Rituals of remembrance

These bonds can actually support psychological adaptation.

  1. Meaning-Making in Grief

Contemporary grief research highlights meaning reconstruction.

Loss could disrupt a person’s sense of meaning and identity. Healing often involves:

Reinterpreting the loss
Rebuilding personal identity
Integrating the loss into one’s life story

This process could often deeply existential or spiritual, which may resonate with individuals engaged in spiritual or anomalous experience exploration.

  1. Complicated or Prolonged Grief

Modern psychology might recognize that some individuals develop persistent, debilitating grief.

This condition is now could be recognized as
Prolonged Grief Disorder.

Characteristics include:

Intense longing for the deceased
Persistent emotional pain
Difficulty accepting the death
Identity disruption
Impaired daily functioning

Treatment may include therapies such as:

Complicated Grief Therapy
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
Meaning-centered therapy

  1. Neuroscience of Grief (CONSULT WITH A NEUROLOGIST)

Recent research could show grief involves brain systems related to:

Attachment
Reward
Memory

The brain may continue expecting the loved person’s presence, which explains experiences like:

sensing the person nearby
hearing their voice internally
dreaming vividly about them

These might often be part of normal bereavement phenomena rather than pathology.

  1. Cultural and Spiritual Dimensions

Modern grief psychology may recognize that grief is shaped by:

cultural rituals
spiritual beliefs
community support
personal worldview

Some people may engage in existential or parapsychological exploration, grief may also include:

anomalous experiences of the deceased
spiritual interpretation of death
altered states of consciousness

Some researchers might increasingly study these as meaningful aspects of bereavement, not simply symptoms.

In summary:
Modern grief psychology might view grief as:

Nonlinear
Individualized
Relational (continuing bonds)
Meaning-seeking
Influenced by brain, culture, and spirituality

Grief might no longer be seen as something to “get over,” but rather something people integrate into their ongoing life narrative.

Shervan K Shahhian

Dynamic Process of Adaptation to Loss, explained:

The dynamic process of adaptation to loss may refer to how people actively and continuously adjust, emotionally, cognitively, behaviorally, and even biologically, after experiencing a significant loss (such as death, separation, or major life change). It’s not a fixed sequence, but an evolving, nonlinear process.

Here could be the key ways modern psychology understands it:

1. Not Linear, but Oscillating

Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance suggested a progression, but research now shows:

  • People move back and forth between different states
  • Emotions can recur, overlap, or intensify unexpectedly
  • There is no universal “endpoint”

2. Dual Process Model (Core Modern View)

This is one of the most influential frameworks.

It describes adaptation as an oscillation between two modes:

  • Loss-oriented coping
    • Grief, yearning, remembering
    • Emotional pain, rumination
  • Restoration-oriented coping
    • Adjusting to new roles and life changes
    • Distraction, rebuilding, problem-solving

Healthy adaptation involves moving back and forth between these, not staying stuck in one.

3. Meaning Reconstruction

  • Loss might disrupt one’s assumptive world (identity, beliefs, purpose)
  • Adaptation involves:
    • Reconstructing meaning (“Why did this happen?”)
    • Rebuilding identity (“Who am I now?”)
    • Integrating the loss into one’s life story

4. Continuing Bonds

Instead of “letting go,” modern theory might emphasize maintaining a transformed relationship with the deceased or lost object:

  • Internal dialogue
  • Symbolic connection (dreams, memories, rituals)
  • Emotional presence without physical presence

This can be especially relevant to bereavement-related anomalous experiences you’ve been exploring.

5. Biopsychosocial Adaptation

Adaptation operates across multiple systems:

  • Biological: stress hormones, sleep disruption, immune changes
  • Psychological: emotion regulation, memory, identity shifts
  • Social: role changes, support systems, cultural expectations

6. Individual Differences

Adaptation varies based on:

  • Attachment style
  • Type of loss (sudden vs expected)
  • Cultural and spiritual framework
  • Prior trauma or resilience

7. When Adaptation Becomes Complicated

Sometimes the process becomes stuck or prolonged, leading to conditions like:

  • Prolonged Grief Disorder
  • Persistent inability to integrate the loss
  • Functional impairment over time

Integrative Insight (Clinical + Parapsychology Angle)

From a strictly clinical perspective, adaptation is about internal regulation and restructuring.

From a parapsychological perspective (which you’re familiar with), some researchers suggest:

  • Experiences like after-death communications or bereavement visions may facilitate adaptation by:
    • Providing perceived continuity
    • Reducing existential disruption
    • Supporting meaning reconstruction

This overlaps with, but is interpreted differently than, conventional models.

Bottom Line

The dynamic process of adaptation to loss is:

An ongoing, oscillating reconstruction of emotional life, identity, and meaning in response to absence.

It’s less about “getting over it” and more about learning to live with it in a transformed way.

Shervan K Shahhian

Parapsychology and Bereavement Research, explained:

Parapsychology and Bereavement Research could be a field that explores unusual or anomalous experiences reported by people after the death of a loved one. It could sit at the intersection of psychology, grief studies, and parapsychology, and investigates whether these experiences are purely psychological, meaningful subjective events, or possibly evidence of phenomena not yet understood by conventional science?

This area is often discussed in terms of After-Death Communication (ADC), grief psychology, and anomalous experience research.

1. What Bereavement Research in Parapsychology Studies

Researchers may examine experiences reported by grieving individuals, such as:

Some common reported phenomena

  • Feeling the presence of the deceased
  • Dream visitations where the deceased appears vividly
  • Hearing the deceased’s voice or name
  • Seeing apparitions or visual impressions
  • Coincidences or synchronicities associated with the deceased
  • Electrical disturbances (lights, devices) linked symbolically to the deceased

These could often be called “post-bereavement experiences” or “after-death communications.”

2. Key Research Findings

Studies consistently could show these experiences maybe very common.

Research associated with organizations like the

  • Society for Psychical Research
  • Parapsychological Association

Could found that:

  • Some bereaved people report at least one anomalous experience after a death.
  • These experiences occur across cultures and religions.
  • Most people reporting them do not have mental illness.
  • They often reduce grief and provide comfort.

3. Psychological vs Parapsychological Interpretations

Psychological explanation

Mainstream psychology might suggest these experiences may arise from:

  • Memory activation
  • Attachment bonds continuing after death
  • Dream processing
  • Grief hallucinations
  • Cognitive expectation

For example, grief research might show the mind may create internal representations of the deceased to maintain emotional continuity.

Parapsychological hypothesis

Parapsychologists consider additional possibilities:

  1. Survival hypothesis
    Consciousness continues after bodily death.
  2. Psi-mediated experience
    The bereaved person may unconsciously access information via psi.
  3. Actual after-death communication

4. Clinical Psychology Perspective

Modern grief therapy should take a non-pathologizing view of these experiences.

In many cases they are considered:

  • Normal components of grief
  • Continuing bonds with the deceased
  • Psychologically adaptive

Research might show that when clinicians do not dismiss these experiences, patients often experience:

  • Reduced anxiety
  • Less shame
  • Improved grief integration

5. Related Concepts in Bereavement Studies

Important frameworks could include:

  • Continuing Bonds Theory, maintaining a relationship with the deceased
  • Meaning reconstruction in grief
  • Transpersonal psychology
  • Anomalous bereavement experiences

These could overlap strongly with the broader field of parapsychological consciousness research.

6. Major Research Institutions

Some institutions could be studying these topics include:

  • Division of Perceptual Studies
  • Windbridge Research Center
  • Rhine Research Center

These groups study mediumship, near-death experiences, and after-death communication.

7. Example of Bereavement Phenomena Studied

Researchers might often analyze cases such as:

  • A widow hearing her spouse’s voice at the moment of death
  • A dream encounter with verifiable information
  • Apparitions reported simultaneously by multiple witnesses

These cases could be studied using qualitative interviews, surveys, and cross-cultural analysis.

Important insight:
Some researchers now consider anomalous grief experiences part of normal human grieving, regardless of whether they are interpreted as psychological, symbolic, or paranormal.

Shervan K Shahhian

Dynamic Process of Adaptation to Loss, explained:

The dynamic process of adaptation to loss could refer to how people actively and continuously adjust, emotionally, cognitively, behaviorally, and even biologically (Consult with a Neurologist), after experiencing a significant loss (such as death, separation, or major life change). It might not be a fixed sequence, but an evolving, nonlinear process.

Here are some possible key ways modern psychology understands it:

1. Not Linear, but Oscillating

Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance, suggested a progression, but research now shows:

  • People move back and forth between different states
  • Emotions can recur, overlap, or intensify unexpectedly
  • There is no universal “endpoint”

2. Dual Process Model (Core Modern View)

This could describe adaptation as an oscillation between two modes:

  • Loss-oriented coping
    • Grief, yearning, remembering
    • Emotional pain, rumination
  • Restoration-oriented coping
    • Adjusting to new roles and life changes
    • Distraction, rebuilding, problem-solving

Healthy adaptation could involve moving back and forth between these, not staying stuck in one.

3. Meaning Reconstruction

  • Loss disrupts one’s assumptive world (identity, beliefs, purpose)
  • Adaptation might involve:
    • Reconstructing meaning (“Why did this happen?”)
    • Rebuilding identity (“Who am I now?”)
    • Integrating the loss into one’s life story

4. Continuing Bonds

Instead of “letting go,” modern theory might emphasize maintaining a transformed relationship with the deceased or lost object:

  • Internal dialogue
  • Symbolic connection (dreams, memories, rituals)
  • Emotional presence without physical presence

This might especially be relevant to bereavement-related anomalous experiences.

5. Biopsychosocial Adaptation

CONSULT WITH A NEUROLOGIST

Adaptation could operate across multiple systems:

  • Biological: stress hormones, sleep disruption, immune changes
  • Psychological: emotion regulation, memory, identity shifts
  • Social: role changes, support systems, cultural expectations

6. Individual Differences

Adaptation could vary based on:

  • Attachment style
  • Type of loss (sudden vs expected)
  • Cultural and spiritual framework
  • Prior trauma or resilience

7. When Adaptation Becomes Complicated

Sometimes the process becomes stuck or prolonged, leading to conditions like:

  • Prolonged Grief Disorder
  • Persistent inability to integrate the loss
  • Functional impairment over time

Integrative Insight (Clinical + Parapsychology Angle)

From a strictly clinical perspective, adaptation could be about internal regulation and restructuring.

From a parapsychological perspective, some researchers suggest:

  • Experiences like after-death communications or bereavement visions may facilitate adaptation by:
    • Providing perceived continuity
    • Reducing existential disruption
    • Supporting meaning reconstruction

This could overlap with, but is interpreted differently than, conventional models.

Bottom Line

The dynamic process of adaptation to loss could be:

An ongoing, oscillating reconstruction of emotional life, identity, and meaning in response to absence.

It could be less about “getting over it” and more about learning to live with it in a transformed way.

Shervan K Shahhian

Psychological Grief Process, explained:

The psychological grief process could refer to the emotional, cognitive, and behavioral ways people respond to loss, especially the death of a loved one. Modern psychology might no longer see grief as a simple linear set of stages, but as a dynamic process of adaptation to loss.

Here are the some psychological models used to understand grief:

1. Stage Model of Grief

Proposed five emotional stages people may experience after a major loss:

  1. Denial: Shock, disbelief, emotional numbness
  2. Anger: Frustration, resentment, questioning “Why?”
  3. Bargaining: Mental attempts to undo the loss (“If only…”)
  4. Depression: Deep sadness, withdrawal, despair
  5. Acceptance: Gradual adjustment to the new reality

Modern psychology could emphasize that people do not move through these stages in order, and some may skip stages entirely.

2. Dual Process Model of Grief

This model could say that grieving people oscillate between two psychological states:

1. Loss-oriented coping

  • Crying
  • Remembering the deceased
  • Feeling sadness
  • Processing the emotional pain

2. Restoration-oriented coping

  • Adjusting to life changes
  • Taking on new roles
  • Returning to daily tasks
  • Rebuilding life structure

Healthy grieving could involve moving back and forth between these modes.

3. Meaning Reconstruction Model

This model might emphasize making sense of the loss.

Psychological tasks include:

  • Searching for meaning in the loss
  • Reconstructing identity (who am I without this person?)
  • Maintaining a continuing bond with the deceased through memories or symbolic connection

This model could widely be used in modern grief therapy.

4. Continuing Bonds Theory

Instead of “letting go,” some people maintain a psychological relationship with the deceased, such as:

  • Talking to the person internally
  • Dreams or felt presence
  • Keeping meaningful objects
  • Ritual remembrance

Psychology might recognize that healthy grief often includes ongoing bonds.

5. Complicated or Prolonged Grief

Sometimes the grief process becomes stuck or overwhelming.

This condition is called Prolonged Grief Disorder and may involve:

  • Persistent intense yearning
  • Difficulty accepting the death
  • Identity disruption
  • Emotional numbness
  • Severe functional impairment

It could require specialized grief therapy.

 In modern psychology, grief might be understood as an adaptation process rather than a disease.
Some people gradually learn to integrate the loss into their life story.

Shervan K Shahhian

Ganzfeld Telepathy Studies, what were they:

Ganzfeld Telepathy Studies might be among the well-known experimental approaches in modern Parapsychology, designed to test whether telepathy (mind-to-mind information transfer) can occur under controlled conditions.

What is the Ganzfeld Method?

The term Ganzfeld (German for “whole field”) refers to a state of sensory homogenization, reducing structured sensory input to make subtle mental signals more noticeable.

Typical Setup:

  • Receiver (percipient) sits in a relaxed state:
    • Eyes covered with halved ping-pong balls
    • Red light illumination
    • White noise or static in headphones
  • Sender (agent) is in a separate room:
    • Focuses on a randomly chosen image or video clip
  • After ~20–40 minutes:
    • The receiver reports impressions, images, emotions
    • Then selects the target from several options (usually 4 choices)

If telepathy exists, the receiver should choose the correct target more often than chance (25%).

Key Findings

Early Results (1970s–1980s)

  • Researchers like Charles Honorton reported above-chance hit rates (~30–35%)
  • Suggested weak but consistent telepathic effects

Autoganzfeld Experiments (1980s–1990s)

  • Improved automation to remove human bias
  • Conducted at institutions like Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Lab
  • Results:
    • Hit rates around 32%
    • Statistically significant but small effect

Meta-Analyses

  • Daryl Bem and Charles Honorton (1994):
    • Concluded results support a real but weak psi effect
  • Later analyses found:
    • Small but persistent deviation from chance across many studies

Criticisms & Skeptical Views

Mainstream psychology remains skeptical, citing:

1. Methodological Issues

  • Sensory leakage (unintentional cues)
  • Inadequate randomization in early studies

2. Replication Problems

  • Some labs fail to reproduce results consistently

3. Statistical Concerns

  • File-drawer effect (unpublished negative studies)
  • Small effect sizes

Skeptics like Ray Hyman argued that:

  • The results are not robust enough to confirm telepathy

Parapsychological Interpretations

Within parapsychology, Ganzfeld results are often explained using models you’re already exploring:

1. Psi-Mediated Information Transfer

  • Direct telepathy between sender and receiver

2. Super-Psi Hypothesis

  • Receiver unconsciously accesses information via psi (not necessarily from sender)

3. Altered States Facilitation

  • Ganzfeld state may:
    • Reduce mental noise
    • Increase internal imagery
    • Enhance psi sensitivity

Psychological Interpretation

From a conventional standpoint:

  • The Ganzfeld state resembles:
    • Mild sensory deprivation
    • Hypnagogic imagery (dream-like states)
  • Hits may result from:
    • Pattern matching
    • Expectation bias
    • Subconscious inference

Bottom Line

  • Ganzfeld studies are one of the strongest experimental cases in parapsychology
  • Evidence suggests:
    • A small statistical anomaly
    • But not widely accepted as proof of telepathy
  • Interpretation depends heavily on theoretical framework:
    • Psi vs psychological processes
    • Shervan K Shahhian

How Parapsychology interprets certain experiences that maybe different from Clinical Psychology:

Parapsychology and clinical psychology might often study similar human experiences, but they interpret them through very different explanatory frameworks. This is especially true for experiences such as visions, apparitions, telepathy, near-death experiences, or sensed presences. Below is a comparison.

1. Basic Orientation

Clinical Psychology

  • Focus: mental health, diagnosis, and treatment.
  • Framework: biological, cognitive, and social explanations.
  • Goal: determine whether experiences indicate normal coping, stress reactions, or psychopathology.

Parapsychology

  • Focus: possible psi phenomena (ESP, telepathy, psychokinesis, survival after death).
  • Framework: might explore whether experiences may represent genuine anomalous interactions with consciousness beyond known mechanisms.
  • Goal: investigate whether some experiences are veridical (information-bearing) rather than purely subjective.

The main difference could be:

  • Clinical psychology asks “What psychological process caused this?”
  • Parapsychology asks “Could this involve psi or consciousness beyond the mind?”

2. Interpretation of Anomalous Experiences

Apparitions or sensed presence

Clinical psychology may explain them through:

  • grief responses
  • memory activation
  • dissociation
  • sleep-related hallucinations

Parapsychology may consider:

  • survival-related experiences
  • telepathic contact
  • crisis apparitions

Grief visions

In bereavement cases:

Clinical psychology:

  • interprets them as possible normal grief hallucinations or continuing bonds with the deceased

Parapsychology:

  • sometimes might interpret them as possible post-mortem communication

Telepathy or intuitive knowing

Clinical psychology:

  • intuition
  • pattern recognition
  • coincidence
  • confirmation bias

Parapsychology:

  • investigates extrasensory perception (ESP) under controlled conditions.

3. Differences in Research Methods

Clinical psychology

  • DSM diagnostic frameworks
  • clinical interviews
  • neurobiological models: CONSULT WITH A NEUROLOGIST
  • psychotherapy outcome studies

Parapsychology

  • laboratory psi experiments
  • Ganzfeld telepathy studies
  • case collections of spontaneous experiences
  • statistical anomaly detection

A major organization in the field is the Parapsychological Association.

4. Attitude Toward Anomalous Experiences

Clinical psychology might take a conservative explanatory stance:

  • extraordinary claims require strong evidence
  • priority is protecting mental health

Parapsychology takes an exploratory stance:

  • anomalous experiences may indicate unknown capacities of consciousness
  • not automatically pathological

5. Some Areas Where Both Fields Overlap

There is some collaboration in the study of “anomalous experiences”.
Researchers attempt to distinguish between:

  • psychopathology
  • spiritual or transformative experiences
  • possible psi phenomena

Important modern view:
Some psychologists today recognize that having unusual experiences does not necessarily mean mental illness. The key question is whether the experience causes distress, impairment, or loss of reality testing.

Some modern researchers frame this as “the psychology of anomalous experience”, which tries to bridge both fields rather than oppose them.

Shervan K Shahhian

The 4th model that Modern Parapsychologists are Discussing; the “Super-Psi or Living Agent Psi model”:

Modern researchers in Parapsychology discuss a fourth explanatory model for anomalous experiences that might be called the “Super-Psi” or “Living Agent Psi (LAP)” model. This model tries to explain phenomena that appear paranormal or spirit-related without requiring discarnate spirits or external entities.

The Super-Psi / Living Agent Psi Model

Basic idea:
All the information or effects involved in an anomalous experience might come from the psychic abilities of living people, usually unconsciously.

These abilities may include:

  • Telepathy: mind-to-mind information transfer
  • Clairvoyance: acquiring information about distant or hidden events
  • Precognition: knowledge of future events
  • Psychokinesis: mental influence on physical systems

The “super” part of the theory means these abilities that could possibly operate at extremely complex and powerful levels, combining all of the above simultaneously.

Why It Was Proposed

Researchers noticed that some paranormal cases seemed to involve:

  • Accurate information about deceased people
  • Objects moving: or disturbances (poltergeist cases)
  • Visions or voices: that seem external
  • Mediumistic information

Instead of assuming spirits, the Super-Psi model suggests:

The living person’s unconscious psi might gather information from anywhere in space and time and constructs the experience.

Example

A grief apparition:
Someone sees and hears a deceased relative.

Interpretations maybe different models:

  1. Psychological model: grief hallucination
  2. Survival model: the spirit of the deceased actually appeared
  3. Psi model: telepathic/clairvoyant perception
  4. Super-Psi model: the experiencer’s unconscious psi accessed information about the deceased and created the full perception

Where It Is Used

The model may often be discussed in research areas such as:

  • Apparitions
  • Mediumship
  • Poltergeist cases
  • Near-death and after-death communication reports

Some influential parapsychologists who debated these ideas include:

  • J. B. Rhine
  • Ian Stevenson
  • Stephen E. Braude

Strengths of the Model

Parapsychologists might consider it attractive because it:

  • Explains paranormal information without requiring spirits
  • Uses known psi processes studied in labs
  • May theoretically explain very complex cases

Main Criticism

Critics argue the model becomes too powerful and unfalsifiable.

For example:

If unconscious psi can access the mind, at any place, at any time, then paranormal events could be explained by Super-Psi, making it difficult to test scientifically.

Important Debate in Parapsychology

Today the biggest debate in Parapsychology is between:

  • Super-Psi / Living Agent Psi theory
  • Survival of consciousness after death

Both attempt to explain the same phenomena but propose could be different realities.

Shervan K Shahhian