Parapsychological Experience as a Therapeutic Problem

Summary of a forum contribution at the symposium "Applied Consciousness Science - Science in the Service of the Living" on 12 October 2012 in Bad Abbach

Abstract

In their daily work, psychotherapists are often confronted with experiences of patients, which can not be clearly classified. In most cases, patients do not dare to report such experiences. They refer to them as “paranormal”, “supernatural”, and “really inexplicable” or even as “supernatural”. Therefore, the “Parapsychological Counselling Centre” in Freiburg receives hundreds of inquiries every year from people who have detected that their reports on such experiences are not accepted by the usual healthcare organizations etc. This situation makes many sick people even sicker and prevents the healthy ones from insights into existential questions. It can be been shown that paranormal experiences can be meaningfully implemented in the therapeutic process, if one knows how to distinguish them from psychotic experiences. The peculiarity of our counselling services consists of an interdisciplinary approach, were unusual experiences are investigated with an open- result strategy. In the last 20 years, a system-theoretical concept was been developed which allows a better understanding of paranormal experiences and which provides appropriate guidelines for therapeutic actions and coping strategies. With this approach the “Generalized Quantum Theory (GQT)” and the “Model of Pragmatic Information (MPI)” is applied in practice in an ideology-free and resource-oriented way. In contrast, the usual parapsychological terms appear less useful.