Two meta-analyses of noncontact healing studies

Reviews of empirical work on the efficacy of noncontact healing have found that interceding on behalf of patients through prayer or by adopting various practices that incorporate an intention to heal can have some positive effect upon their wellbeing. However, reviewers have also raised concerns about study quality and the diversity of healing approaches adopted, which makes the findings difficult to interpret. Some of these concerns can be addressed by adopting a standardised approach based on the double-blind randomised controlled clinical trial, and a recent review restricted to such studies has reported a combined effect size of .40 (p < .001). However, the studies in this review involve human participants for whom there can be no guarantee that control patients are not beneficiaries of healing intentions from friends, family or their own religious groups. We proposed to address this by reviewing healing studies that involved biological systems other than ‘whole’ humans (i.e. to include animal and plant work but also work involving human biological matter such as blood samples or cell cultures), which are less susceptible to placebo and expectancy effects and also allow for more circumscribed outcome measures. Secondly, doubts have been cast concerning the legitimacy of some of the work included in previous reviews so we planned to conduct an updated review that excluded that work. For phase 1, 49 non-whole human studies from 34 papers were eligible for review. The combined effect size weighted by sample size yielded a highly significant r of .258. However the effect sizes in the database were heterogeneous, and outcomes correlated with blind ratings of study quality. When restricted to studies that met minimum quality thresholds, the remaining 22 studies gave a reduced but still significant weighted r of .115. For phase 2, 57 whole human studies across 56 papers were eligible for review. When combined, these studies yielded a small effect size of r = .203 that was also significant. This database was also heterogeneous, and outcomes were correlated with methodological quality ratings. However, when restricted to studies that met threshold quality levels the weighted effect size for the 27 surviving studies increased to r = .224. Taken together these results suggest that subjects in the active condition exhibit a significant improvement in wellbeing relative to control subjects under circumstances that do not seem to be susceptible to placebo and expectancy effects. Findings with the whole human database gave a smaller mean effect size but this was still significant and suggests that the effect is not dependent upon the previous inclusion of suspect studies and is robust enough to accommodate some high profile failures to replicate. Both databases show problems with heterogeneity and with study quality and recommendations are made for necessary standards for future replication attempts

“Most people think you’re a fruit loop”: Clients’ experiences of seeking support for anomalous experiences

Objectives. The aim of this study was to investigate the experiences of clients who report anomalous experiences in counselling services so we are better informed about how therapists have responded to such clients. Design. A qualitative approach was taken involving semi-structured interviews and an inductive thematic analysis was conducted on transcripts. Method. Semi-structured face to face interviews were conducted with eight clients who had discussed at least one anomalous experience in counselling. Results. Four themes were derived from participants’ data which were labelled using short participant extracts: “Why are you looking at that airy fairy crap?”, “It was like banging my head against a brick wall”, “It kind of shut the door”, and “Having someone to normalise and say you’re not crazy, you’re not weird”. Conclusions. Findings highlight the importance for clients of finding an open-minded and informed counsellor so they can explore the meaning of the anomalous experience without being ridiculed or pathologised. Implications for both clients and counsellors are discussed in terms of the accessibility of counselling services to meet the needs of diverse clients and the growing field of ‘clinical parapsychology’

“It’s about having exposure to this”: investigating the training needs of therapists in relation to the issue of anomalous experiences

Two focus groups, consisting of six participants each, were conducted to explore the training needs of therapists when working with clients reporting anomalous experiences (AEs). AEs are those that “depart from our own familiar personal experiences or from the more usual, ordinary, and expected experiences of a given culture and time” (Braud, 2012, p.107). A thematic analysis revealed four themes: ‘Quite often we get taken by surprise because it’s a subject we don’t talk about’, ‘It’s just having this in our vocabulary’, ‘Demystifying and valuing AEs as normal human experiences’, and ‘To ask or not to ask?’. Most of the participants felt that they were unequipped to work with clients reporting AEs and suggestions were made for overcoming this

Exploring the meaning in meaningful coincidences: an interpretative phenomenological analysis of synchronicity in therapy

Synchronicity experiences (SEs) are defined as psychologically meaningful connections between inner events (e.g., thought, dream or vision) and one or more external events occurring simultaneously or at a future point in time. There has been limited systematic research that has investigated the phenomenology of SEs in therapy. This study aimed to redress this by exploring the process and nature of such experiences from the perspective of the practitioner. Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA; Smith, Flowers, & Larkin, 2009) was used to interview a purposive sample of nine practitioners who reported SEs in their therapeutic sessions. Semi-structured face-to-face interviews were conducted with three counsellors, three psychologists and three psychotherapists, and focused on how participants make sense of their experiences of synchronicity in therapy. Three superordinate themes were identified: Sense of connectedness, therapeutic process, and professional issues. Findings suggest that SEs can serve to strengthen the therapeutic relationship and are perceived as useful harbingers of information about the therapeutic process, as well as being a means of overcoming communication difficulties, as they are seen to provide insights into the client’s experiencing of themselves and others, regardless of whether or not the SE is acknowledged by the client or disclosed by the therapist

Flow, Liminality, and Eudaimonia: Pagan Ritual Practice as a Gateway to a Life With Meaning

Paganism is a term applied to a number of nature religions based on traditional indigenous practices. Paganism is practiced through rituals designed to facilitate a flow state that allows practitioners to use magic to achieve their aims. Since the introduction of Wicca to mainstream society in the 1950s, many other Pagan traditions have developed. Similarly, the number of people identifying as Pagan has also increased; in 2011, the number of people identifying as Pagan in the U.K. census reached 80,153. Despite this growth, Paganism is a topic that is underresearched in Psychology. This article uses Ryff’s theory of psychological well-being as a frame-work through which to explore the ways in which Paganism may be particularly conducive to eudemonic well-being as a result of the flow experiences inherent in its practice. This theory posits six key dimensions of eudaimonia: personal growth, self-acceptance, positive relation with others, autonomy, environmental mastery, and purpose in life. The ways in which each of these dimensions is elicited through Paganism is elucidated

Seismic detection of acoustic sharp features in the CoRoT target HD49933

The technique of determining the acoustic location of layers of sharp changes in the sound speed inside a star from the oscillatory signal in its frequencies is applied on a solar-type star, the CoRoT target, HD49933. We are able to determine the acoustic depth of the second helium ionisation zone of HD49933 to be 794 +55/-68 seconds. The acoustic depth of the base of the convective zone is found to be 1855 +173/-412 seconds where the large error bars reflect the ambiguity in the result, which is difficult to determine with present precision on the frequencies because of the intrinsically weak nature of the signal. The positions of both these layers are consistent with those in a representative stellar model of HD49933.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysic

Sensory processing sensitivity, transliminality, and boundary-thinness as predictors of anomalous experiences, beliefs, and abilities

Individual differences are among the most studied correlates of anomalous experiences and beliefs (AEs), but few have focussed on personality measures specifically defined by sensitivity. Of interest in this study is the personality trait of Sensory Processing Sensitivity (SPS), characterised by aesthetic sensitivity, being easily overwhelmed by internal and external stimuli, emotional reactivity and empathy, and deeper processing. An online survey investigated the relationship between SPS, and other personality constructs, in part, defined by sensitivity (transliminality and boundary-thinness) with anomalous experiences, beliefs, and abilities. Two hundred participants (mean age = 32.23; 151 females, 41 males, 6 non-binary and 2 preferred not to say) completed the Revised Transliminality Scale, the Boundary Questionnaire Short-Form, the Highly Sensitive Person Scale - Brief Version (measuring SPS), the Anomalous Experiences Inventory, and open-ended questions on SPS and AEs. There were significant and positive correlations between all four variables. Both transliminality and boundary thinness positively predicted anomalous beliefs with transliminality being the stronger, however, only transliminality predicted anomalous experiences and abilities. The findings suggest a relationship between SPS and anomalous experience and belief, but this is mediated by transliminality and boundary thinness

Testing home dream precognition and exploring links to psychological factors

Precognition refers to the idea that an individual may be able to obtain information about a future event via a non-usual route, prior to the event occurring. Over time various paradigms have been developed to elicit and test for such effects. Here, we focused on dream precognition as dreaming represents a naturally occurring altered state of consciousness that may facilitate such anomalous experiences. Using a home-dream paradigm we examined whether participants would be able to dream about and rate a future target image as more similar to their dreams compared to decoy images. We also examined the potential relationship between dream precognition and sensory processing sensitivity, transliminality, boundary thinness and anomalous experiences and belief. One hundred and one participants completed an initial practice trial, to familiarise themselves with the procedure, followed by the main trial. In each trial participants were required to dream of a future target image that they would later be shown. During each trial, after they had completed their dreaming, participants were randomly presented with a set of four images and required to rate them in terms of how much similarity there was between each image and their dream on a scale from 1 to 100. Results of the main trial showed that ratings for the target image were significantly higher than the decoy images. However, no clear relationships were found between precognitive target ratings and sensory processing sensitivity, transliminality, boundary thinness or anomalous experiences and belief. We conclude that the result is not due to any methodological artifacts and as such represents suggestive evidence for dream precognition. Given the logistical simplicity of the home-dream paradigm we would encourage other researchers to replicate our findings and explore what may be a fruitful avenue of research