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Uncanny Phenomena or Madness?

This paper is based on my master’s thesis research into Pakeha and Maori psychotherapists’ and counsellors’ experiences of inexplicable phenomena while working with clients. These phenomena may take the form of ‘uncanny’ knowings, ’synchronistic’ dreams, bizarre visual images, or ’spirit forms’. The experiences create feelings of profound loving connectedness and of being part of a greater whole where self and other, dream and reality, and time and space are not as distinct as they appear in everyday life.

At these times, therapists and counsellors often describe feeling as if they have access to universal knowledge or are being spoken to by an intelligent Other. I discuss these experiences and interpretations and the problematic place these phenomena have within psychoanalytic theory whereby they have largely been excluded from discussion.

The participants:
I interviewed eight psychotherapists and counsellors, of whom three were Maori and five Pakeha.

The experiences:
Therapists described a variety of different experiences that took the following forms:

1) Seemingly being able to know things about clients, which the everyday view of the limitations of our senses tells us cannot be known.

Example 1: In a session, one therapist felt an ” intuitive impulse” go onto the deck outside her therapy room, pick the one rose that was there and give it to her client. The client then burst into tears and said, Read more