In this first of a double issue of Mindfield Bulletin on “Clinical Approaches for Exceptional Experiences in Children and Adolescents,” Gerhard Mayer contributes his 2026 Presidential Address, arguing that parapsychology is often unfairly labeled as pseudoscience and contends that the term should be reserved for scientific practices that intentionally obstruct or distort knowledge rather than for controversial fields that employ legitimate scientific methods. Athena Drewes is featured in a specially recorded interview detailing her experience working with clients who have exceptional experiences. She also contributes an essay arguing that therapists should validate and explore children’s spiritual and exceptional experiences through spiritually sensitive, play-based approaches that promote healing, understanding, and emotional well-being. Christine Simmonds-Moore suggests that children who are predisposed to anomalous or exceptional experiences can benefit from open discussion, normalization, supportive frameworks, and practical coping strategies that help them understand and manage these experiences in healthy ways. Jacob Glazier argues that narrative therapy provides a non-pathologizing framework for helping adolescents make meaning of exceptional experiences by externalizing problems, supporting identity development, and fostering resilient personal narratives.
Donna Thomas and Kate Adams examine how exceptional experiences are interpreted by children, parents, and professionals, arguing for interdisciplinary, child-centered approaches that take children’s accounts seriously rather than dismissing or pathologizing them through dominant medical and materialist frameworks. Paul DeBlassie argues that paranormal experiences are best understood not as violations of natural law but as expressions of relational consciousness that emerge during periods of grief, transformation, and emotional openness, often carrying profound psychological and therapeutic significance. Kim Lessage details how mediumship and other psychic experiences follow recognizable patterns, triggers, and developmental processes that can be systematically documented, understood, and managed as forms of anomalous perception. The issue ends with Maurice van Luijtelaar and Renaud Evrard providing their “Articles Relevant to Parapsychology in Journals of Various Fields (XLVIV)” with entries of 202 articles from 175 different journals.
