Research Profile

  • A transpersonal understanding of spiritual experiences in individuals with epilepsy

    The research explores spiritual experiences in epilepsy – Transpersonal experiences that are difficult for traditional empirical research methods to investigate. For many, epilepsy involves an altered state of consciousness, unusual feelings and sensations – ‘auras’. Some auras have a very particular quality; a ‘numinous’ feeling, or ‘cosmic-spirituality’. The medical model is material about them and pathologises these experiences, regarding them as, at best, hallucinations and at worst, a symptom of seizure-associated psychosis. Transpersonal psychology takes such altered states of consciousness seriously, rather than rejecting them as anomalous.


  • Chris Roe

    Professor of Psychology

  • Conference papers

    2014

    • BPS Transpersonal Conference, University of Northampton, Sept 2014 – Poster: ‘Transpersonal perspectives of spiritual experiences in epilepsy’

    2015

    • University of Northampton, Psychology of Emotion & Feeling, Apr 2015 – ‘The Dreamy State: An Autoethnography of Spiritual Meaning in Epilepsy’
    • 1st Transpersonal Research Colloquium, Milan, Jun 2015 – ‘Auto-ethnography – a transpersonal qualitative methodology from the heart’  
    • PsyPAG, University of Glasgow, Jul, 2015 – ‘Auto-ethnography – a transpersonal qualitative methodology from the heart’
    • BPS Transpersonal Section Annual Conference, Sept 2015 –  ‘The dazzling light of temporal lobe auras and other altered states of consciousness’
    • BPS Transpersonal Section Annual Conference, Sept 2015 –  ‘Workshop:The Waking Dream technique: engaging with the intuition of the unconscious self’
    • 2nd British Autoethnography Conference, University of Aberdeen, Oct 2015 – ‘The dreamy state: an autoethnography of spiritual meaning in epilepsy’
    • Spirituality & Wellbeing, University of Derby, Nov 2015 – ‘A transpersonal exploration of epilepsy and its numinous, cosmic states’
    • Exploring the Extraordinary, York, Dec 2015 – ‘A tale of the temporal lobes and other mystical states’

    2016

    • 6th Qualitative Research on Mental Health Conference, Chania, Greece, May 2016  – ‘Close your eyes, and describe the scene before you’ – using dreams as a relational approach to reflexive research’
    • 6th Qualitative Research on Mental Health Conference, Chania, Greece, May 2016  ‘An autoethnographic narrative of the dreamy states of epilepsy’
    • 33rd Annual IASD Conference, Rolduc Abbey, Hollan, June 2016 – ‘Dream-work as an autoethnographic research method’
    • International Disciplinary Symposium, Philosophy of Media Award to present at Mythology & Media Conference, Sept 2016 – ‘Jung, Dream, Film’
  • Louise King is a UKCP certified Transpersonal Counsellor & Psychotherapist. And has a private psychotherapy practice in London, using transpersonal therapeutic methods, which include dreamwork and creative expression. Louise is a member of the BPS Transpersonal section and a voluntary member of the Spiritual Crisis Network.

    Louise is a Lecturer in Psychology & Counselling at the University of Northampton, where she is a Doctoral candidate conducting research into transpersonal understandings of spiritual experiences in epilepsy. She is passionate about auto-ethnography as a qualitative methodology for researching the phenomenology of her experiences of epilepsy and the nature of anomalous epileptiform events.