Transpersonal counseling, rooted in the late 1960s and early 1970s, draws on the ideas of Carl Jung, William James, Abraham Maslow, Stanislav Grof, Stanley Krippner, and Ken Wilber. The chapter reviews transpersonal experiences including mystical states, meditative states, peak experiences, and altered states of consciousness from both substance-induced and non-substance-induced sources, as well as trance states. It concludes by discussing how these concepts and experiences can be pragmatically integrated into everyday counseling practice, illustrated with a case example.
A virtual reality simulation of a near-death experience significantly reduced death anxiety and stress in 61 adults who experienced a first-person immersive VR scenario. Participants were randomly assigned to either a narrated or non-narrated version, and both groups showed similar reductions in death anxiety and stress from before to after the intervention. The findings suggest that VR can serve as a scalable tool for psychological interventions, helping people confront mortality-related fears and potentially fostering behavioral changes like reduced avoidance of death-related thoughts and greater resilience.