Content uploaded by Ryan D. Foster
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Ryan D. Foster on Feb 15, 2016
Content may be subject to copyright.
Eternal Connection: An Exploratory Study of the Effects of Learning About Near-Death Experiences on Adult Grief
Abstract
We examined the effectiveness of a near-death experience (NDE) psychoeducational group bereavement intervention in reducing distressing aspects and enhancing a growth aspect of grief among bereaved adults. Participants were 22 females and 2 males (2 African American, 3 Asian, 2 Latina/o, and 17 White non-Latina/o) ranging in age from 20 to 71, with a mean age of 35.3 years. In this experimental design, we randomly assigned 12 participants to the experimental group and 12 participants to the waitlist control group. Effect size findings based on Hogan Grief Reaction Checklist scores indicated modest to substantial benefits of the NDE learning module intervention for bereaved adults in the form of decreased panic behavior, blame and anger, and detachment and increased personal growth. Conclusions include that further research into the effectiveness of NDE-related psychoeducational programs with bereaved individuals is warranted.
... For example, Foster and Holden (2014) found that learning about NDEs had a positive effect on grief, a result that other investigators had observed anecdotally (Horacek, 1997;McDonagh, 2004). In a quantitative study of the effects of a bereavement support group model that included a heavy focus on providing psychoeducational videos on NDEs had on adults' grief, Foster and Holden (2014) found that participants had significant decreases in the areas of bereavement-related panic behavior, blame and anger, and detachment, and significant increases in personal growth. ...
... For example, Foster and Holden (2014) found that learning about NDEs had a positive effect on grief, a result that other investigators had observed anecdotally (Horacek, 1997;McDonagh, 2004). In a quantitative study of the effects of a bereavement support group model that included a heavy focus on providing psychoeducational videos on NDEs had on adults' grief, Foster and Holden (2014) found that participants had significant decreases in the areas of bereavement-related panic behavior, blame and anger, and detachment, and significant increases in personal growth. Similarly, Winkler (2003) witnessed reduced suicidal ideation in therapy clients as a result of reading NDEr accounts, and Sullivan (1984) even discussed that learning about NDEs provided "supportive preparation for those facing combat" (p. ...
... Foster et al. also suggested that professionals who interact with patients in medical settings should have some formal training to increase their knowledge of NDEs. The results of these case studies also support a broader evidence base for the use of psychoeducational NDE resources with other non-NDEr client populations to assist in mental health and wellness (e.g., Foster & Holden, 2014;Horacek, 1997;McDonagh, 2004;Sullivan, 1984;Winkler, 2003). ...
... Interrater reliability was excellent for the full text screening (j ¼ 1.00). This review included 14 data sets (Chow et al., 2019;Constantino & Bricker, 1996;Foster & Holden, 2014;Goodkin et al., 1999;Johnson et al., 2016;MacKinnon et al., 2015;McGuinness et al., 2015;Murphy et al., 1998;Piper et al., 2001Piper et al., , 2007Rosner et al., 2011;Sikkema et al., 2004;Supiano & Luptak, 2014;Wenn et al., 2019). ...
... However, in one study (Constantino & Bricker, 1996) the control group had significantly higher scores of anxiety, death anxiety and social adjustment. Three studies (21%) did not describe in which way treatment adherence or compliance with the intervention was addressed (Foster & Holden, 2014;McGuinness et al., 2015;Rosner et al., 2011). Seven studies (50%) used intention-to-treat analyses (ITT; i.e., last observation carried forward method, expectation-maximization algorithms, hierarchical linear models), whereby one study did not describe the ITT method (Wenn et al., 2019). ...
... On average, participants were 48 years old (Range: 30-74), 74% female (Range: 0-100%), 72% Caucasians and had lost someone 2.5 years ago (Range: 0.2-9). Half of the bereavement groups were heterogenous with respect to the kinship of the deceased (Foster & Holden, 2014;Goodkin et al., 1999;McGuinness et al., 2015;Piper et al., 2001Piper et al., , 2007Supiano & Luptak, 2014;Wenn et al., 2019), and four (29%) concentrated solely on partners or parents (Chow et al., 2019;Constantino & Bricker, 1996;Johnson et al., 2016;Murphy et al., 1998). Five studies (36%) included heterogenous causes of death (Chow et al., 2019;Johnson et al., 2016;Murphy et al., 1998;Supiano & Luptak, 2014;Wenn et al., 2019), whereas three studies (21%) focused on bereavement by suicide or AIDS (Constantino & Bricker, 1996;Goodkin et al., 1999;Sikkema et al., 2004). ...
This review summarizes the evidence of bereavement groups for symptoms of grief and depression. The literature search using Web of Science, EBSCO, PubMed, CINAHL, and MEDLINE yielded 14 studies (N = 1519) meeting the inclusion criteria (i.e., randomized-controlled trials, bereaved adults, bereavement group, validated measures). Overall, bereavement groups were marginally more effective than control groups post-treatment (gG = 0.33, gD = 0.22) but not at follow-up. Although tertiary interventions yielded larger effect sizes than secondary interventions, the difference was not significant. The results imply that the evidence for bereavement groups is weak, although the large heterogeneity of concepts for intervention and control groups limits the generalizability.
... The sample sizes for the studies ranged from 25 53 to 298. 52 The reason for bereavement varied across the studies and included: death of a partner, 45,46,50,52 death of close family member/friend, 51,53 death of a parent, 56 HIV/AIDS, 48,58 suicide 41,42 and Alzheimer's disease. 47,49 Table 2 presents the outcomes of the primary studies. ...
... All interventions included face-to-face sessions. In all, 10 interventions targeted the bereaved individuals alone; 40,46,49,[52][53][54][55]58,59 while eight used a group or family approach; 41,42,44,45,48,50,51,56 and one intervention used a combination of individual and group approaches. 47 Timing. ...
Background:
Supporting people after bereavement is a priority area for many health services. Investment in bereavement care must be supported by a rigorous evidence-base.
Aim:
To examine the (1) relative proportion of descriptive, measurement and intervention research in grief counselling and (2) quality and effectiveness of intervention studies.
Design:
Systematic review of studies published in the area of grief counselling.
Data sources:
MEDLINE, Embase, Cochrane Library and PsycINFO databases were searched for studies published between 2000 and 2013. Eligible papers were categorised into descriptive, measurement, review, commentaries and intervention studies. Intervention studies were assessed against the Cochrane Effective Practice and Organisation of Care methodological criteria, and papers meeting criteria were assessed for quality. The impact of interventions on grief, psychological morbidity and quality of life was examined.
Results:
A total of 126 data-based papers, including 47 descriptive, 3 measurement and 76 grief counselling intervention studies were included. Only 59% (n = 45) of intervention studies met Effective Practice and Organisation of Care design criteria. Overall, study quality was poor, with the majority of interventions showing a risk of bias in several key areas. The three studies that met all criteria showed mixed effectiveness.
Conclusion:
Grief counselling interventions require a strong rationale for design, and a systematic approach to development and evaluation. Descriptive research efforts should inform this process, focusing on homogeneity in sample, identification of risk factors for complicated grief and the impact of extraneous factors on intervention effects. Interventions should include comparisons to usual care, as well as replication to confirm positive findings.
... Horacek (1997) examined the impact of learning about NDEs on those facing their own death or the death of a loved one, and outlined seven cases where NDEs alleviated the suffering of the dying or grieving individual. More recently, Foster and Holden (2014) examined the effectiveness of a NDE-related psycho-educational program on a group of bereaved adults, revealing that learning about NDEs positively impacted several aspects of grief, such as decreased panic behavior, blame, anger, and detachment, while increasing personal growth. ...
Research has revealed a consistent pattern of positive aftereffects in those who report a near-death experience [NDE]. Beneficial outcomes are also possible for those who have not had a NDE, but instead learn about them, although much of this research has been conducted on therapeutic populations. Using a sample of 143 participants randomly assigned to either an intervention or non-intervention group, we investigated whether learning about NDEs generated the same psycho-spiritual benefits having a NDE does. Results revealed significant changes in appreciation for life, spirituality, and appreciation for death, in the intervention group after learning about NDEs.
... Another experience that may also show similar effects is learning about NDEs during bereavement. Foster and Holden (2014) found that bereaved adults who attended a psychoeducational group that taught them about NDEs showed greater changes in personal growth, mood and panic behaviour than a control group. Similarly, Horacek (1997) observed that some bereaved people are comforted by NDE accounts. ...
The purpose of the present study was to examine prolonged grief symptomatology among individuals who reported near-death experiences (NDEs). Following Park’s meaning-making model (2005), religion and meaning-making were also examined as possible pathways associating NDE variables with grief. Online survey data from 22 bereaved adults who met criteria for NDE (Greyson, 1983) were examined. Correlation analyses indicated that NDE variables were associated with grief as well as meaning-making and religious variables. These findings suggest that NDEs produce positive effects on the grieving process by reducing the grievers’ use of negative religious coping and helping them find meaning from their loss.
Persons who come close to death but survive catastrophic accidents sometimes report very vivid experiences during times when their survival was in doubt, when they were believed to be dead, and during resuscitation efforts. This qualitative study builds upon existing research on near-death experiences (NDEs) by focusing on the oral accounts from a sample of individuals with large and life-threatening burns. The NDE accounts were obtained from burn survivors attending the Phoenix Society’s World Burn Congress and are similar to reports by notable researchers (Greyson, 2003; Moody, 1975; Ring, 1980) while reflecting the uniqueness of the individual survivor’s experiences. Six major themes are reported. Counselors and health professionals need to be aware of and educated about NDEs as these experiences can have profound effects upon the individual. Patients who have had NDEs may need to discuss them but fear professionals will reject their stories as being crazy.
Survivors of large burns may face positive and negative psychological after-effects from close-to-death injuries. This study is the first to examine their near-death experiences (NDEs) and posttraumatic growth (PTG) and life satisfaction afterwards. With an available sample of 92 burn survivors, half met the criteria for an NDE using an objective scale. Those who indicated religion was a source of strength and comfort had high scores on life satisfaction, PTG, and the NDE Scale. Individuals with larger burns reported greater PTG than those with smaller total body surface area burned (TBSA). There were no significant differences on life satisfaction, PTG, or NDEs when examined by gender or years since the burn injury. Elements of the NDE most frequently reported were: An altered sense of time, a sense of being out of the physical body, a feeling of peace, vivid sensations, and sense of being in an "other worldly" environment. Social workers and other health providers need to be comfortable helping burn survivors discuss any NDEs and process these through survivors' spirituality and religious belief systems as they recover.
As the worldwide population ages, and modern medical techniques for resuscitation advance, near-death experiences (NDEs) are more and more frequently reported. NDEs include more than the popular notions of moving through a tunnel or seeing a light at the end. They also include people, once revived, knowing things the knowledge of which can't currently be explained. Co-editor Janice Holden tells us, for example, about a woman who was brought to the hospital clinically dead. After revival, said she said that during her death state, she had "seen" a shoe on a ledge outside a sixth floor window of a second building of the hospital campus. A social worker checked. The shoe was still there, not visible from the street, and on the opposite side of the campus from where the woman had been brought in by ambulance. Great controversy exists in the medical and psychological fields surrounding such NDEs, which have been reported by adult, teen, and child patients after life-threatening crises including heart attack, stroke, blood loss from car accidents, near-drownings, anaphylactic shock, and attempted suicide. Are NDEs caused by physiological changes in the brain or are they biological reactions to oxygen loss or impending death? Are they a product of changing states of consciousness? Or are they caused by something else altogether? In this unique volume, experts from around the world and across the U.S. share the history and current state of NDE research, controversies in the field, and their hopes for the future of investigation into this fascinating phenomenon. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The purpose of this article is to provide data on a recently developed instrument to measure the multidimensional nature of the bereavement process. In contrast to widely used grief instruments that have been developed using rational methods of instrument construction, the Hogan Grief Reaction Checklist (HGRC) was developed empirically from data collected from bereaved adults who had experienced the death of a loved one. Factor analysis of the HGRC revealed 6 factors in the normal trajectory of the grieving process: Despair, Panic Behavior, Blame and Anger, Detachment, Disorganization, and Personal Growth. Additional data are provided that support reliability and validity of the HGRC as well as its ability to discriminate variability in the grieving process as a function of cause of death and time lapsed since death. Empirical support is also provided for Personal Growth as an integral component of the bereavement process. The article concludes by considering the substantive as well as psychometric findings of this research for such issues as traumatic grief, anticipatory grief, change in the bereaved person's self-schema, and spiritual and existential growth.
The previous articles in this special section make the case for the importance of evaluating the clinical significance of therapeutic change, present key measures and innovative ways in which they are applied. and more generally provide important guidelines for evaluating therapeutic change. Fundamental issues raised by the concept of clinical significance and the methods discussed in the previous articles serve as the basis of the present comments. Salient among these issues are ambiguities regarding the meaning of current measures of clinical significance, the importance of relating assessment of clinical significance to the goals of therapy, and evaluation of the construct(s) that clinical significance reflects. Research directions that are discussed include developing a typology of therapy goals, evaluating cutoff scores and thresholds for clinical significance, and attending to social as well as clinical impact of treatment.
In the light of continuing debate over the applications of significance testing in psychology journals and following the publication of J. Cohen's (1994) article, the Board of Scientific Affairs (BSA) of the American Psychological Association (APA) convened a committee called the Task Force on Statistical Interference (TFSI) whose charge was "to elucidate some of the controversial issues surrounding applications of statistics including significance testing and its alternatives; alternative underlying models and data transformation; and newer methods made possible by powerful computers" (BSA, personal communication, February 28, 1996). After extensive discussion, the BSA recommended that publishing an article in American Psychologist, as a way to initiate discussion in the field about changes in current practices of data analysis and reporting may be appropriate. This report follows that request. Following each guideline are comments, explanations, or elaborations assembled by L. Wilkinson for the task force and under its review. The report is concerned with the use of statistical methods only and is not meant as an assessment of research methods in general. The title and format of the report are adapted from an article by J. C. Bailar and F. Mosteller (1988). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Researchers have failed to distinguish definitions of near-death experiences (NDEs), criteria for identifying them and tests of those criteria. Few researchers specify criteria or apply standard tests; those who do often use those tests inappropriately. Tests of NDEs may either describe their common features, measure their depth, or 'diagnose' their occurrence; all three have been used to define NDEs, although they serve different purposes. Since we do not have a dichotomous diagnostic test for NDEs, researchers define NDEs by scales summing characteristic elements, a circular definition that uses intervening variables in place of NDEs themselves, and begs questions of different elements' sensitivity and specificity for NDEs. Researchers need to identify the critical dimension(s) to be assessed in determining depth of NDEs and develop an accepted definition of the phenomenon and a fixed-interval scale with which to measure it.
This meta-analysis addressed the question of how effective grief therapy is and for whom, using B. J. Becker's (1988) techniques for analyzing standardized mean-change scores. Analyses were based on 35 studies (
N = 2,284), with a weighted mean effect size (ES) of δ
+ = 0.43 (95% confidence interval = 0.33 to 0.52). Clients in no-treatment control groups showed little improvement (
d= = 0.06), possibly because of the relatively long delay between loss and treatment in most studies (mean delay = 27 months). Moderators of treatment efficacy included time since loss and relationship to the deceased. Client selection procedures, a methodological factor not originally coded in this meta-analysis, appeared to contribute strongly to variability in ESs: a small number of studies involving self-selected clients produced relatively large ESs, whereas the majority of studies involving clients recruited by the investigators produced ESs in the small to moderate range. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Research articles published in the
International Journal of Play Therapy (IJPT) were examined to investigate the use of selected statistical practices in quantitative inferential studies. The current article examined whether researchers (a) verified methodological assumptions of statistical analyses, (b) reported confidence intervals, (c) discussed the risk of experiment-wise Type I error, (d) preferred univariate analyses to multivariate analyses, (e) used univariate analyses as post hoc methods to detect multivariate effects, and (e) screened data and reported findings with graphical displays. Recommendations for improved statistical practice are provided. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)