by Anastasia Wasko, Jacob W. Glazier, and David S. B. Mitchell
The adolescent rite of passage is one of the most defining transitions in life. It is a time that is ripe with developmental opportunity as a child emerges from the cocoon of the nursery to the crucible of puberty. There’s a story being written, and that story is about the journey through a rite of passage and into young adulthood. A new person is being and becoming. Without support to shape the emergent identity, a child can be engulfed by change that is overwhelming, deleterious, and downright scary.
Caregivers, parents, and helping professionals need acute observation and education to be attuned to this process. A child’s health is affected by parallel changes happening on the emotional, psychological, and biological level. As such, childhood and adolescence are distinct periods for the future of the child’s mental health. One half of mental disorders appear by age fourteen (Skokauskas, 2019). When layering on the complexity of life and lived experiences, the apparent need for more observation and research becomes even greater. The dynamic mechanisms behind extreme changes in the psyche during adolescence require additional exploration. The sensitivity of this developmental period becomes even more magnified with the presence of anomalous or exceptional experiences. These phenomena create spaces for paradigm-defining developmental trajectories during growth and maturation in childhood and adolescence, while also generating tension around those more normative worldviews circulating among adults. For example, after-death communication speaks to the dynamic of the survival of consciousness after biological death, and poltergeist activity, when interpreted psychodynamically, gives reason to consider how unconscious personal or systemic tensions come to light in the external world (Mayer, 2022).
What children experience and how the world reacts to them in adolescence influences their long-term development and health (Likhar et. al., 2022). And, if a child experiences something anomalous, such as seeing strange entities, perceiving information through nonordinary means, or carrying on with “imaginary friends,” the right intervention is critical.
Generally, the “right intervention” means empowering a child to discuss their experience, make meaning on their own terms, and shape their identity as they see fit. Of course, a child won’t necessarily use those terms. Rather, they will react by sharing experiences or hiding them. They may feel ashamed, confused, comforted, or encouraged. The right intervention must come on the part of the caregivers and society.
Yet, society often does not fully accept the reality of anomalous experiences. The question of pathology lingers, too. What should be treated through therapeutic or psychiatric intervention? What is an adverse exceptional experience in childhood or adolescence? Mindfield Bulletin explores these clinical concerns in the current issue.
In this issue, Gerhard Mayer contributes his 2026 Presidential Address on the definitional problems of pseudoscience, rallying parapsychologists to resist the ideological and ill-conceived term. How might social and caregiving attitudes be shaped? Dr. Athena Drewes, a clinical psychologist with over 45 years of experience, has been interested in anomalous experiences her whole career. This issue features a specially recorded interview with Dr. Drewes on her experience working with clients who have exceptional experiences. She also contributes an essay entitled, “Supporting Children’s Spirituality and Exceptional Experiences in Child and Play Therapy.” Christine Simmonds-Moore writes about this topic in “Understanding Tendencies Toward Anomalous Experiences Among Children and How to Support Them as Parents, Teachers, and Caregivers.” Jacob Glazier explores internalization and externalization through narrative therapy in his article “Narrative Therapy and Exceptional Experiences in Adolescents.”
Next, the mechanics and conversations. Thomas and Adam provide the article “What Children Tell Us About Their Exceptional Experiences and How Adults Respond to Them.” Their work examines 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 explores the topic of paranormal experiences and what, who, and how we are relating through his article “Paranormal Experience and the Relational Psyche.”
And then, of course, is the lived experience itself. Many of the researchers were inspired in their own work and careers by anomalous experiences during childhood and adolescence. Kim Lessage writes about being the conduit for anomalous information in “The Flash Demystified: What Mediumship Actually Feels Like From the Inside.” 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.
We hope that you enjoy this first of a double issue of Mindfield on clinical concerns around children and adolescents who have exceptional experiences. May this help further the conversation in the helping professions around the importance of these unique and often discounted experiences.
Akanksha, L, Prerna, B, & Manoj, P. (2022). Early childhood development and social determinants. Cureus, 14(9), e29500. https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.29500
Skokauskas, N., Fung, D., Flaherty, L. T., von Klitzing, & K., Pūras, D. (2019). Shaping the future of child and adolescent psychiatry. Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health, 13. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13034-019-0279-y
Mayer, G. (2022). Editorial: Miracles, anomalies, anxiety and paradigms. Journal of Anomalistics, 22, 6–17. https://doi.org/10.23793/zfa.2022.6
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 …
by Gerhard Mayer, 2026 Presidential Address
