There are a growing number of Mental Health Care Professionals and Practitioners like me, who are supporting experiencers of anomalous, exceptional experiences. I'm a member of the E³ Exceptional Experiencer Empowerment Initiative, an international professional group for mental health care professionals.

I see it as part of my role to promote good mental health, to reduce the anxiety surrounding extraordinary experiences and to encourage a better, kinder disclosure process. An extraordinary experience may be real, imagined or a combination of the two, but the fear and distress are often all too real and what has happened is part of the individual's 'lived experience'. These people need care, support and, in some cases, treatment. The general population will need support if the existence of non-human intelligences are revealed. Good mental health and well-being requires considerable care in the handling of such disclosures, and well-formulated strategies for the aftermath.

Many people have profound, extraordinary experiences that they don't talk about for fear of being ridiculed or pathologised. Others are aware that they have unusual abilities but keep them secret to avoid judgement. Anomalous experiences are those we have defined as falling outside our current definition of consensus reality across individuals, cultures and time. But this definition is a moving target. uNHIdden's White Paper quotes Professor Thomas Rabeyron's definition of an Exceptional Experience to be: “a rare, spontaneous or provoked experience, involving from the subject's point of view a nonordinary interaction with his or her environment. It often generates intense emotions, both positive and negative, stemming from its unusual and strange nature” (p.4).

There are many human experiences that can be considered anomalous. Examples include spiritual epiphanies or profound lucid dreams that seem more familiar to most people. Other experiences may include contact with disembodied souls, out-of-body experiences (OBE), near-death experiences (NDE), or contact with non-human entities (NHE).

Reports of anomalous experiences now show that they may be happening to millions of people. Some reported estimates show that approximately 30-50% of the world's population report at least one anomalous experience in their lifetime (Cardena et al., 2014; Ross and Joshi, 1992).  Approximately 50% of those who report anomalous experiences say they have difficulty integrating them into their lives (Rabeyron, 2022).

Everyone who has anomalous experiences deserves to be validated, supported and not pathologised. These experiences are real and a legitimate part of our human experience. Academic leaders at universities are working closely with scientists who are researching and writing scientific papers on this phenomenon (Kripal, 2010; Pasulka, 2019). John Mack, M.D., Harvard psychiatrist, professor of psychiatry, and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, evaluated thousands of anomalous experiencers, validated the authenticity of their experiences as not psychopathology, and dedicated his life to helping this population develop coping strategies. He coined the term 'ontological shock' to describe what experiencers go through as they try to integrate what is happening to them when it radically challenges their worldview. (Mack, 1999).

Ontological shock and “controlled disclosure”
"Sociologist Anthony Giddens referred to ontological security as a sense of order and continuity in the way in which an individual sees the world. If an event occurs that is not consistent with the meaning of an individual’s life, it will threaten that individual’s ontological security – and such an event is an ‘ontological shock’ " which can have similar symptoms to other forms of shock and can cause PTSD. "The term has now been adopted within UAP circles for the shock of finding that humans are not alone in the universe. Speaking at the Sol Symposium at the University of Stanford in November 2023, retired US Army Colonel Karl Nell set out a plan for what he termed “controlled disclosure.” He presented a systematic programme of activities based around the governmental, humanities, scientific and business aspects of UAP disclosure. However, medical and psychological aspects were not included. This is an omission that should be remedied. A people-centric approach to UAP disclosure is essential" (Arujuna et al., White Paper: The impact of Exceptional Experiences and disclosure on mental health and wellbeing, 2024, p. 5).

And this is precisely the kind of non-judgmental support you can find from me at my Balance Practice.

                     “All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Mind.” -- Max Planck (Nobel Prize–winning physicist)

.                                       “Everything science has taught me—and continues to teach me—strengthens my belief in the continuity of our spiritual existence after death. Nothing disappears without a trace.” —Wernher von Braun

Examples of Anomalous Experiences

The following excerpts are descriptions of anomalous experiences from The American Psychological Association (APA) research publication, Varieties of Anomalous Experience: Examining the Scientific Evidence: