Reference Material

These are some of the books that I use for reference material.

End-of-Life and Bereavement.

A Near-Death Researcher’s Notebook: What I Have Learned About Dying, Death, and the Afterlife – Kenneth Ring’s essays explore death as a journey, not an ending. He focuses on living meaningfully before death. Topics include challenges of dying, living a fulfilling life, psychedelics for death, near-death experiences (NDEs), right-to-die ethics, loneliness, and death’s portrayal in literature.

Death is But a Dream: Hope and meaning at life’s end – This book explores pre-death dreams and visions, vivid experiences reported by over 1,200 patients. Dr. Christopher Kerr, offers a unique perspective on death through his patients’ stories and extensive research, arguing that death holds not just finality, but transformation.

Final Gifts: Understanding the Special Awareness, Needs, and Communications of the Dying – Hospice nurses Maggie Callanan and Patricia Kelley share their intimate experiences with patients at the end of life, drawn from more than twenty years’ experience tending the terminally ill.

On Death and Dying: What the Dying Have to Teach Doctors, Nurses, Clergy and Their Own Families – Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’ groundbreaking classic on the five stages of grief.

Sign Posts of Dying – Signposts of Dying tells about the unique language and behaviors of the dying, shining a light on often ignored or unrecognized aspects of the dying process.

The Orphaned Adult: Understanding And Coping With Grief And Change After The Death Of Our Parents –  The Orphaned Adult validates the wide array of disorienting emotions that can accompany the death of our parents by sharing both the author’s heart-felt experience of loss and the moving stories of countless adults who have shared their losses with him.

The Tunnel and the Light: Essential Insights on Living and Dying – This is an engaging introduction to the beliefs, work, and life of psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. Based on her more than 30 years experience with the dying, this book offers both challenge and hope.

When Parents Die – The death of a parent marks an emotional and psychological watershed in a person’s life. This book covers the entire course of grieving, from the immediate aftermath of a parent’s death through to the point of recovery, paying particular attention to the many circumstances that can prolong and complicate mourning, including sudden death.

Words at the Threshold: What We Say as We’re Nearing Death – This book looks at how end-of-life words often take on an eerie significance, giving tantalising clues about the ultimate fate of the human soul, and how the language of the dying can point the way to a transcendent world beyond our own.

Deathbed Phenomena and After-Death Communication.

At the Hour of Death: A New Look at Evidence for Life After Death – Researchers Karlis Osis, Ph.D and Erlendur Haraldsson, Ph.D have collated compelling evidence that suggests we, as conscious beings, do survive physical death. This book is the product of extensive interviews of over 1,000 doctors and nurses who have been present when cases of “post-mortem existence” have occurred.

Hello from Heaven – Drawing from 7 years of research, including 2,000 interviews and 3,300 firsthand accounts, Bill and Judy Guggenheim offers a comprehensive exploration of after-death communication experiences, examining 12 major types of ADCs and their impact on individuals’ lives. 

Gifts from the Unknown: Using Extraordinary Experiences to Cope with Loss & Change – Louis LaGrand, an experienced grief counsellor, explores after-death communications in various situations and highlights their potential to assist individuals in coping with loss and promoting personal growth. 

In the Light of Death: Experiences on the threshold between life and death – Death appears to be a process rather than a single event in time and may be heralded by deathbed phenomena such as visions that comfort the dying and help to prepare them for death. Ineke Koedam, an experienced hospice worker, researched these ‘end-of-life- experiences’ by interviewing fellow hospice workers in various hospices and has put their experiences together in this book.

New Thinking Allowed Dialogues: Is There Life After Death? – Edited by psychologist Jeffrey Mishlove, this book tackles the question of life after death. Mishlove, a parapsychology expert, brings together diverse viewpoints on consciousness, reality, and what lies beyond. Featuring contributions from leading figures and drawing on Mishlove’s award-winning research, the book explores the evidence for life after death.

Nearing Death Awareness: A Guide to the Language, Visions, and Dreams of the Dying – Nearing Death Awareness explains the extraordinary behaviors often seen in those nearing the end of life, and how the experience of these can be changed from odd, bewildering moments into opportunities for spiritual refinement and growth.

One Last Hug Before I Go: The Mystery and Meaning of Deathbed Visions – One Last Hug Before I Go explores in depth the Deathbed Vision (DBV). Included are: survivors’ detailed accounts of their departed loved one’s visions and final words; the survivors’ mystical experiences and premonitions preceding a loved one’s passing; accounts of seeing the soul leave the body; and after-death communications. These final words and visions from the dying provide a poignant, final farewell hug to loved ones, offering peace of mind and hope for an eventual reunion.

Proof of Life after Life: 7 Reasons to Believe There Is an Afterlife – Dr. Raymond Moody and Paul Perry presents evidence for life after death drawn from extensive research into near-death experiences spanning nearly fifty years. Through case studies, research findings, and expert interviews, the authors explore the possibility of consciousness survival beyond bodily death, including shared-death experiences.

The Art of Dying – Peter Fenwick is an eminent neuropsychiatrist, academic and expert on disorders of the brain. His most compelling and provocative research has been into the end of life phenomena, including near-death experiences and deathbed visions of the dying person, as well as the experiences of hospice and palliative care workers and relatives of dying people. From descriptions of the phenomena encountered by the dying and those around them, this book is an excellent basis for helping people come to terms with death.

We Do Not Die Alone: Jesus is Coming to Get Me in a White Pickup Truck – Dr Mendoza reports the vast experiences of nurses who have been present at the bedside of their dying patients. These patients have had deathbed visions which have left the patients, their families and their nurses with a deep sense of peace.

Visitors at the End of Life: Finding Meaning and Purpose in Near-Death Phenomena – About 30 percent of hospice patients report a deathbed vision. This book is about how, when, and why our dead visit us. Allan Kellehear – a medical sociologist and expert on death, dying, and palliative care – has gathered data and conducted studies on these experiences across cultures. Providing an understanding of a widespread yet mysterious phenomenon, Visitors at the End of Life offers insights for palliative care professionals, researchers, and the bereaved.

Near Death Experience.

After: A Doctor Explores What Near-Death Experiences Reveal About Life and Beyond – Dr Greyson, a world’s leading expert on near-death experiences, reveals his journey toward rethinking the nature of death, life, and the continuity of consciousness.

Big Book Of Near-Death Experiences: The Ultimate Guide to What Happens When We Die – This book encompasses every aspect of the near-death phenomenon: the experience, after effects and implications. It investigates and reports on the power of changed lives, the reality of deceased who come back, visitors at death’s edge, out-of-body travel, the expansion of normal faculties, and the importance of spirituality.

Closer to the Light: Learning from the Near-Death Experiences of Children – In hundreds of interviews with children who had once been declared clinically dead, Dr. Morse found that children too young to have absorbed our adult views and ideas of death, share first-hand accounts of out-of-body travel, telepathic communication and encounters with dead friends and relatives.

Consciousness Beyond Life: The Science of the Near-Death Experience – Internationally renowned cardiologist Dr. Pim van Lommel offers detailed research into whether or not our consciousness survives the death of our body.

Delog: Journey to the Realms Beyond Death – a delog (pronounced DAY-loak) is one who has crossed the threshold of death and returned to tell about it. For five full days Dawa Drolma lay cold, breathless, and devoid of any vital signs, while her consciousness moved freely into other realms. She undertook her journey as a delog according to instructions she had received in visions as she traveled through the bardo, or intermediate state between death and rebirth, and the hell realms.

Divine Moments; Ordinary People Having Spiritually Transformative Experiences – Nancy Clark’s life was transformed by a near-death and a near-death-like experience. She has been researching spiritually transformative experiences for thirty years and in this book has compiled diverse spiritually transformative experiences happening to ordinary people today. The experiences are varied and include near-death and near-death-like experiences, out-of-body experiences, after-death communications, spiritual awakenings, religious conversion experiences, meditative and prayerful experiences, and mystical experiences.

Dying To Be Me: My Journey from Cancer, to Near Death, to True Healing – Anita Moorjani relates how, after fighting cancer for almost four years, her body began shutting down as it became overwhelmed by the malignant cells spreading throughout her system. As her organs failed, she entered into a near-death experience where she realized her inherent worth and the actual cause of her disease. Upon regaining consciousness, she found that her condition had improved so rapidly that she was released from the hospital within weeks, without a trace of cancer in her body.

Encountering Heaven and the Afterlife: True Stories From People Who Have Glimpsed the World Beyond – Real life, stories of near death experiences and spiritual encounters provide glimpses into the spiritual world around us.

Erasing Death: The Science That Is Rewriting the Boundaries Between Life and Death – Dr. Sam Parnia, a leading experts on the scientific study of death and near-death experiences (NDE), presents research from critical care and resuscitation medicine while also shedding light on the ultimate mystery: What happens to human consciousness during and after death?

Evidence of the Afterlife: The Science of Near-Death Experiences – In 1998 Dr. Long began the Near Death Experience Research Foundation with the goal of creating a forum for near death experiencers to share their stories. Based on first-hand evidence drawn from over 1,600 verified NDE accounts, Evidence of the Afterlife presents a strong argument yet for the underlying truth of those who have died and returned to share their experience.

Farther Shores: Exploring How Near-Death, Kundalini and Mystical Experiences Can Transform Ordinary Lives – Dr. Kason explores a wide range of spiritually transformative experiences: near-death experiences, mystical experiences, spiritual energy/kundalini episodes, psychic awakenings and spontaneous inspired creativity. Dr. Kason offers advice on how to use these occurrences for spiritual growth and personal healing.

Foundations of Near-Death Research: A Conceptual and Phenomenological Map – This book is the first in a series that explores near-death experiences (NDEs) by summarizing key research articles. It covers the work of the International Association for Near-Death Studies (IANDS) over the past four decades. The book addresses core questions about NDEs and provides insights into the history of near-death research.

God and the Afterlife: The Groundbreaking New Evidence for God and Near-Death Experience – this book is an intensive exploration of the people who have reported going to the frontier of heaven, met God, and have returned to share their journey. It provides new insights into the human experience and expands our notions of mortality, offering possibility, hope, and comfort.

Infinite Awareness – Infinite Awareness pairs Woollacott’s research as a neuroscientist with her self-revelations about her mind’s spiritual power. Between the scientific and spiritual worlds, she investigates the definition of human consciousness and the existence of a non-physical mind.

I Remember Dying: Remarkable True Stories of People Who Return from Heaven – Recent advances in medicine mean that an increasing number of people are being revived after being clinically dead and returning from ‘heaven’. This book reveals that such experiences are more common than thought. These revived people report that death is not the end, but a beginning.

Lessons from the Light: What We Can Learn from the Near-death Experience – Near death experience expert Kenneth Ring reveals the practical wisdom held within these experiences. He provides evidence that merely learning about the near death experience has similar positive effects to those reported by people who actually have had near death experience.

Life After Life – Dr Moody reveals his ground-breaking study of people who experienced ‘clinical death’ – and were revived. Their testimonies and descriptions of ‘death’ and ‘beyond’ are strikingly similar, vivid and overwhelmingly positive they have changed the way we view life and death, and the spiritual hereafter.

Living in a Mindful Universe: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Heart of Consciousness – Neurosurgeon Dr Eben Alexander experienced a near-death experience. When he awoke, he was certain of the infinite reach of the soul and a life beyond death. In this book, he shares his journey to understand the true origins of consciousness and uncover ways to cultivate a state of harmony with the universe and our higher purpose.

Love is the Link: A Hospice Doctor Shares Her Experience of Near-Death and Dying – A hospice physician who had a near-death experience as a child shares the stories and lessons she has learned over the past 25 years of supporting people with NDEs, increasing knowledge of NDEs among healthcare professionals, and being with people in their final days of life.

Making Sense of Near-Death Experiences: A Handbook for Clinicians – This is an accessible guide to the theory and evidence underlying the phenomenon of NDEs. With contributions from leading international experts in the field, it provides an overview of the research into NDEs, the nature of NDEs and how they have been experienced around the world, and the physiological, psychological and medical bases of the phenomenon.

Near Death in the ICU – In this book, a critical care physician looks at the phenomenon of the near-death experience and makes a case for not only listening to but acknowledging and helping the experiencer integrate this phenomenon of consciousness into their care. Through anecdotal accounts. Dr. Bellg offers her thoughts on what the near-death experience could be and importantly, how it can be used as a tool toward meaningful change.

Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife – In 2008, Dr Alexander fell into a coma after suffering a rare form of bacterial meningitis. Scans of his brain revealed massive damage. As his family prepared themselves for the worst, Dr Alexander’s brain went from near total inactivity to awakening. He woke certain of the infinite reach of the soul, he was certain of a life beyond death.

Religion, Spirituality and the Near-Death Experience – This book looks at decades of research into near-death experiences (NDEs) and tries to balance the investigation of these much-reported yet baffling phenomena.

Science and the Near-Death Experience; How Consciousness Survives Death – Chris Carter challenges arguments against consciousness surviving death and shows how near-death experiences (NDEs) may truly provide a glimpse of an awaiting afterlife. He looks at the many psychological and physiological explanations for NDEs – such as stress, birth memories or oxygen starvation – and shows why each of them fails to explain the NDE.

The Case for Heaven, Near Death Experiences as Evidence of the Afterlife – Examines the nature of the afterlife as it is revealed through the near-death experiences of more than fifty people from all walks of life.

The Crossover Experience: Life After Death / A New Perspective – Near-death experiences (NDEs) often share common themes, but the authors believe there’s more to discover as the details and what’s missing from NDE accounts hold hidden insights. By delving deeper, they hope to gain a richer understanding of this phenomenon.

The Day I Died: Ten Remarkable True Stories of Near-Death Experience – Around the world, ordinary people go about their daily lives convinced they’ve had a glimpse into the afterlife. Their eye-witness accounts often share uncanny similarities, and this book analyses these narratives and sheds light on a phenomenon at the crossroads of the medical and the mystical.

The Handbook of Near-death Experiences: Thirty Years of Investigation – A team of international experts presents the history, recent developments, and controversies in the intriguing study of near-death experience. Experts from around the world share the history and current state of near-death experience (NDE) knowledge.

The Journey Home: What Near-Death Experiences and Mysticism Teach Us About the Gift of Life – Harvard theologian Phillip Berman examines how near-death and mystical experiences can give our lives new meaning.

The Journey Home: Inspiring Passages From Near-Death Experiences to Comfort the Dying – The Journey Home was written for the terminally ill. Everyone who approaches death experiences some degree of fear. By reading the passages from those who have experienced profound unconditional love and incredibly beautiful Near-Death Experiences, the authors hope these passages will create a genuinely positive expectation for the journey they are about to take.

The Light Beyond: The extraordinary sequel to the classic Life After Life – ‘The Light Beyond’ is based on more than a thousand case studies of adults and children who clinically reached the point of death and survived, as well as amazing new research. It shows the many striking similarities shared by all near-death experiences (NDEs), and opens the doors to a powerful message of love from the frontier between life and death.

The Near-death Experience : A Reader – A comprehensive collection of NDE cases and interpretations. This book encompasses a broad range of disciplines: psychological researchers discuss cognitive models and Jungian theories of meaningful archetypal phenomena; the biological perspective describes how brains near death may produce soothing endorphins, optical illusions, and convincing hallucinations.

The Next World: Extraordinary Experiences of the Afterlife – Gregory Shushan investigates the link between extraordinary experiences and beliefs in the afterlife. He explores how near-death experiences (NDEs) shape afterlife beliefs globally, scrutinizing their variations and cultural responses. Shushan also compares NDEs with shamanic journeys, past-life memories, and medium communications, revealing both similarities and differences.

The Purpose of Life as Revealed by Near-Death Experiences from Around the World – This book is a collection of stories and quotes that shine a bright light on the universal truths that NDEs reveal and how to apply these to our everyday lives. 

The Self Does Not Die: Verified Paranormal Phenomena from Near-Death Experiences – This book contains over 100 reliable, often firsthand accounts of perceptions during NDEs that were later verified as accurate by independent sources. By carefully studying and describing many convincing and corroborated cases, during cardiac arrest and other cases, the authors conclude that there are good reasons to assume that our consciousness does not always coincide with the functioning of our brain: Enhanced consciousness can sometimes be experienced separately from the body.

The Transformative Power of Near-Death Experiences: How the Messages of NDEs Positively Impact the World – This book aims to inspire people from all walks of life, cultures and faiths to the transformational power of the message of NDEs and show how the love experienced during the NDE has the capacity to heal minds, bodies and souls.

The Truth in the Light: An Investigation of over 300 Near-Death Experiences. Neuropsychiatrist Dr Peter Fenwick looks at the near-death experience from a wide range of perspectives including neurology, the philosophy of science and of mind, religion and mystical experience. The book offers first hand accounts of near-death experiences.

The Wisdom of Near Death Experiences: How Understanding NDE’s Can Help Us to Live More – Dr. Penny Satori has created this collection of reliable case studies, anecdotal evidence and well-documented research of NDEs and looks at what we can learn from those who have encountered such a brush with death.

Transformed by the Light: The Powerful Effect of Near-Death Experiences on People’s Lives – A Seattle pediatrician reports on the near-death experiences of children he has treated and how these experiences have had a positive effect throughout their lives.

What Happens When We Die? – Through his work as a critical-care doctor in a hospital emergency room, Dr Sam Parnia became very interested in some of his patients’ accounts of the experiences that they had while clinically dead. He started to collect these stories and read all the latest research on the subject, and then conducted his own experiments.

Mythology.

A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living – One of Joseph Campbell’s most popular books, A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living is a treasure trove of insight and inspiration, thought-provoking in its depth, poetic in its scope.

Myths of Light: Eastern Metaphors of the Eternal – In this book, Campbell explores, the principle that underlies all the great religions of India and East Asia, from Jainism and Hinduism to Buddhism and Taoism.

Myths to Live by – Joseph Campbell analyses myth in psychoanalytic terms to reveal their essential qualities and to demonstrate how they continue to reflect human needs, providing reassurance even in today’s world. Campbell believed that all religion is a search for the same transcendent and fundamental spiritual truths.

The Hero with A Thousand Faces – Joseph Campbell outlines the Hero’s Journey, a universal motif of adventure and transformation that runs through virtually all of the world’s mythic traditions.

The Mythic Image – Joseph Campbell’s major study of the mythology of the world’s high civilizations over five millennia.

Counselling and Psychotherapy.

An Introduction to the Therapeutic Relationship in Counselling and Psychotherapy – The therapeutic relationship is considered to be the most significant factor in achieving positive therapeutic change. Cross-modal in its approach, this book examines the issues impacting on the therapeutic relationship true to all models of practice.

Beyond Physicalism – Drawing upon empirical science, metaphysical philosophy, and the mystical traditions, the authors work toward an improved “big picture” of the general character of reality, one which strongly overlaps territory traditionally occupied by the world’s institutional religions, and which attempts to reconcile science and spirituality by finding a middle path between the polarized fundamentalisms, religious and scientific, that have dominated recent public discourse.

Counselling Skills in Palliative Care – This book has been written as a work-book with pauses for reflection, exercises, questions, answers and case studies, and its main aim is to help the reader with communication in palliative care. It aims to help not only those directly involved in the care of the dying person, but also anybody who will be affected by the death of a close or loved person.

Ego And Archetype: Individuation: Individuation and the Religious Function of the Psyche – This book is about the individual’s journey to psychological wholeness, known in analytical psychology as the process of individuation. Edward Edinger traces the stages in this process and relates them to the search for meaning through encounters with symbolism in religion, myth, dreams, and art.

Existential Counselling and Psychotherapy in Practice. Offering a framework and practical methods for working from an existential perspective, central to this book is the belief that many of our problems arise out of the essential paradoxes of human existence, rather than from personal pathology. From this perspective, the purpose of counselling and psychotherapy is not viewed as problem-solving, but as a mean of enabling people to come to terms with living life as it is, with all its inherent contradictions.

Gift of Tears: A Practical Approach to Loss and Bereavement Counselling – Gift of Tears includes new research and examples of recent events to help illustrate the effects of loss. Containing a strong practical element, the book guides the reader through the process of contemplating and eventually confronting their own relationship to loss.

Hope and Grace: Spiritual Experiences in Severe Distress, Illness and Dying – The author shows how care providers can support patients in their suffering and how they can recognize patients’ spiritual experiences. Explaining different types of experiences of transcendence such as seeing angels or feelings of otherness and presence, this book is of valuable use to professionals working in palliative and spiritual care.

Imagery and Symbolism in Counselling – This dictionary analyses and explains numerous symbols and images, with the aim on understanding the vast wealth of symbols and symbolic language.

Integrating Traditional Healing Practices Into Counseling and Psychotherapy – This book critically examines ethnic minority cultural and traditional healing in relation to counseling and psychotherapy. It presents a range of accounts of the dilemmas and issues facing students, professional counsellors, psychotherapists, social workers, researchers, and others who use multicultural counseling or transcultural psychotherapy as part of their professional practice.   

Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century – The authors systematically present evidence for a variety of psychological phenomena that are extremely difficult, and in some cases clearly impossible, to account for in conventional physicalist terms. Topics addressed include phenomena of extreme psychophysical influence, memory, psychological automatisms and secondary personality, near-death experiences and allied phenomena, genius-level creativity, and ‘mystical’ states of consciousness. 

Meaning in Suffering: Comfort in Crisis through Logotherapy – Elisabeth Lukas illuminates the potential for meaning in the presence of even intractable pain, guilt, and suffering.

Person-Centred Counselling in Action – a definitive exposition of the theory and practice of the person-centred approach which has supported and inspired hundreds of thousands of trainees and practitioners worldwide.

Sacred Space: Embracing the spiritual in person-centred therapy – This book is an in–depth exploration of a spiritually oriented person-centred approach which is based on an integrative therapeutic model called the core self model. The author traces the journey of the self through the stages of life and looks afresh at the process of becoming a person that Carl Rogers first described over fifty years ago.

Speaking of Dying: A Practical Guide to Using Counselling Skills in Palliative Care – Compassionate and tactful communication skills can make the difference between an awkward encounter with a dying patient, and an engaging, empathic bond between two people. Speaking of Dying is a practical guide to using counselling skills for all clinical disciplines working in palliative care, whether in a hospice, hospital or at home.

Spirituality in Counselling and Psychotherapy: An Integrative Approach that Empowers Clients – Spirituality and Religion in Counselling and Psychotherapy offers a practical approach that utilises thematically based, personally accessible notions of spirituality and an integration of various traditional and contemporary counselling theories.

Techniques of Grief Therapy – This book offers a series of innovative approaches to grief therapy to address the needs of the bereaved. It includes a variety of specific and practical therapeutic techniques, each conveyed in detail and an illustrative case study. 

The Book Of Symbols: Reflections on Archetypal Images: VA (The Archive for Research in Archetypal Symbolism) – Authored by writers from the fields of psychology, religion, art, literature, and comparative myth, the essays flow into each other in ways that mirror the psyche’s unexpected convergences.

The Death View Revolution: A Guide to Transpersonal Experiences Surrounding Death – Madelaine Lawrence, PhD, describes the known transpersonal experiences associated with near death and dying and how, in some cases, they challenge our current understanding of psychological needs and biological death. She makes the case for the integration of these transpersonal experiences into mainstream science and education of the public, family members and health care providers in order to provide comprehensive care of those near death and dying.

The Essential Jung: Selected Writings – This compact volume of extracts from the twenty volumes of Jung’s published writings presents him clearly, in his own words and in precis.

The Gift Of Therapy: An open letter to a new generation of therapists and their patients – From psychiatrist Dr. Irvin D. Yalom’s more than thirty-five years in clinical practice, The Gift of Therapy is a guidebook that illustrates through real case studies how patients and therapists alike can get the most out of therapy.

The Sacred Path of the Therapist – Modern Healing, Ancient Wisdom, and Client Transformation – Drawing from her experiences with shamans and as a therapist, Irene Siegel discusses therapists’ evolving roles as healers and guides.

When Death Enters the Therapeutic Space – this book offer insights into working with mortality in the therapeutic encounter. Taking an existential perspective, it brings together a variety of client groups, all of whom have experienced a confrontation with mortality, and encourages the reader to engage with and reflect upon the subject of death. 

Values & Ethics in Counselling and Psychotherapy – This book offers an introduction to values and ethics in counselling and psychotherapy, helping the development of the ethical awareness needed throughout the counselling process.