by Catherine Burton, PhD.
Though I have never had a neardeath experience (NDE), my life has been forever changed by what I have learned from those who have. In my professional practice as a psychotherapist, I have also found that the perspective of the NDE can be very effective in the healing, growth, and transformation of clients as they encounter different stages in the human life-cycle.
My first contact with the near-death experience occurred in the 1970s. In graduate school, I met a person who had been in an automobile accident, had had a classic NDE, and overnight changed his worldview, values, and beliefs. He immediately left his job in sales, and decided to become a psychologist. It was striking to witness such an instantaneous transformation. My second experience was reading Dr. Raymond Moody’s book, Life after Life, which helped me to heal my own remaining grief over my father’s death.
The NDE phenomenon also excites and inspires me personally because so many people have, in that brief moment in their lives, directly experienced what I have spent the last 25 years searching for, studying, and practicing to realize in myself. Their experiences, and the growing body of research surrounding them, are now confirming “the perennial wisdom” that the great mystics and sages have been saying all along. Over the years, I gradually began to offer this “wisdom” revealed in the near death perspective to people I work with in my private practice as a clinical psychologist. I would like to share with you the different ways I have applied this expanding knowledge to help people heal, grow, and transform their lives.
Page 3 of 8
Deriving One’s Life Ethics
At some point with almost every client in my practice, I share the fact that millions of people have had NDEs and their accounts suggest that we will go through a life review after we go through the transition called death. My view is, “Why wait until you die to have a life review? Since it is one of the most transformative experiences, why not do your own review right now?” As we come to understand that we will not only re-experience every moment of our lives, but will also feel the effects that every thought, feeling, word and deed has had on others, we often quite quickly become more accountable and responsible for our lives. (Kenneth Ring, PhD, Lessons from the Light, pp.161-165). The golden rule of “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”—because you will feel exactly what you have done unto them—becomes quite an effective way of helping one to become self-governing. The faculty of conscience is restored.
As one way to help my clients make wiser choices, I suggest that they imagine going into the greater self that is experienced during a life review and weigh each option with its possible consequences from that perspective. How will you feel about your decision, as you relive its consequences on your life and others’ lives during your review?
