“Most people think you’re a fruit loop”: an exploratory study of clients’ experiences of seeking support for anomalous experiences

Anomalous experiences (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, 2010, p.1). White (2001) has listed over 500 different types of anomalous experiences , including meaningful coincidences, out-of-body experiences, near-death experiences, mystical or peak experiences, and extrasensory perception, to name just a few. Research has shown that a high proportion of the general population believe in or experience AEs (e.g. Haraldsson, 2011; Pechey & Halligan, 2012; Ross & Joshi, 1992), that AEs can occur after negative life events (Rabeyron & Watt), and that common reactions can include fear, anxiety and distress (e.g. Eybrechts & Gerding, 2012; Parra, 2012; Siegel, 1986). In addition, individuals may have existential questions following the experience and not know where to seek support or worry that they will be labelled mad if they do. Few studies have explored the perspectives of clients who report AEs in terms of the process of therapeutic intervention and how this is managed by mental health professionals. This seems pertinent given a recent study investigating the counselling experiences of bereaved people who sense the presence of the deceased found that the majority of participants felt their counsellors were not accepting of their experiences or neglected to explore the cultural and spiritual aspects of the experience (Taylor, 2005). The aim of this study was to investigate the experiences of clients who report AEs in secular counselling services so we are better informed about how AEs impact on mental health and how therapists have responded to such clients (e.g., What experiences have clients found helpful or unhelpful in terms of therapeutic intervention? Did they feel listened to and understood by their therapist?). Ethical approval was obtained from the School of Social Sciences Ethics Committee and ethical guidelines of the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) were adhered. Semi-structured face to face interviews were conducted with eight clients (three males and five females aged between 21 and 52 years with a mean age of 37 years) whom had experienced at least one AE which they had discussed in counselling. A thematic analysis, as outlined by Braun and Clarke (2006), was applied to the data and produced four themes: “You have to go digging to get support”, “Why are you looking at that airy fairy crap?”, “It kind of shut the door”, and “Having someone to normalise and say you’re not crazy, you’re not weird”. Findings highlight the importance for clients of finding an open-minded counsellor so they can explore the meaning of the anomalous experience without being ridiculed or pathologised. Themes will be represented by participant extracts to demonstrate how they are grounded in the data and findings will be discussed in terms of their implications for the therapeutic relationship, the accessibility of mental services to meet the needs of diverse clients, and the growing field of ‘clinical parapsychology’.