Running Between Catastrophe and Faith

Abstract

This paper offers reflection on the impact of near death experiences on consciousness, meaning making, identity, and our capacity to experience wholeness and aliveness. It suggests near death experiences may be opportunities for psychic growth and raises some possibilities about how this may occur. The author’s own story of terror and survival whilst running from a tsunami, the impact on her mental state and relations with others, and the way this experience was symbolised and integrated is described. The subsequent expansion of emotional freedom and agency in her clinical work is illustrated with two case vignettes.