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.
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Summary
The perspective of the near-death experience can help guide us at every stage in the journey of life — from conceiving consciously and instilling healthy self-esteem in children, through providing adolescents with the big picture and preparing them for life’s quest, to creating meaningful work and loving relationships in our adult life, leading to a deeper spiritual understanding and service to life in our maturity, and finally preparing us to complete our human sojourn and move into the next dimension. Being guided by this perspective, we can know that we made the best of the precious gift of life that was given us, and that when we have our life review we will be able to see the growth we achieved and the blessing our life has been.
I am grateful for the NDE’s wisdom, for its effect on the clients I work with and on myself. I thank all the experiencers as well as the NDE researchers, for the valuable contribution they have made, and all the lives they have touched.
Catherine Burton, PhD, is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Hawaii. She has consulted to, and has conducted trainings for, corporations, government agencies, and community organizations in personal, organizational and community development.
