Near-death experience integration and support (IANDS)

Domain VII · Transpersonal, psychedelic & altered states · John Audette, Raymond Moody, Kenneth Ring · 1977 · Charlottesville, Virginia

What it is

NDE integration and support is not a manualised therapy. It is a clinical approach plus a peer-support movement for people who report a near-death experience (NDE): a vivid, often profoundly meaningful experience during or near a life-threatening event (e.g. sense of leaving the body, peace, light,…

Format

• No source gives a fixed session count. Greyson & Harris (1987) describe three contact contexts, which work as phases; Hoffman's (1995) disclosure stages, as summarised in Pehlivanova et al. (2025), describe the experiencer's own course. Hoffman (1995) itself is not drawn on.
• Experiencer's course (Hoffman 1995, via Pehlivanova et al. 2025): early shock → need for validation → interpersonal implications → exploration → integration. Rejection during the validation stage is considered especially harmful. About a third of disclosures happen immediately or within a day.…

Who practises it, and how they are trained or regulated

• Regulatory status. Not a regulated treatment and involves no drug; delivered within ordinary psychotherapy, counselling, nursing, chaplaincy or peer-support practice. IANDS has offered continuing-education credit for an online NDE course for nurses, psychologists, social workers, chaplains, MFTs and counsellors.

Questions to explore with your client

• What drew you to it, and what are you hoping it will change?
• Is there physical contact? Was it explained beforehand, and do you feel free to say no or stop at any point?
• Does it involve any substance, plant preparation, remedy or supplement? Has your doctor or prescriber been told, especially about any medication you take?
• Is it a group, retreat or community? How do they respond if someone wants to leave or raises a concern?
• How do you and the practitioner understand what is happening, in spiritual or cultural terms? Is that a source of comfort, worry, or both?
• Who runs it, and what training or registration do they hold?
• What actually happens in a session or meeting, and how often?
• What does it cost, and is there pressure to commit to more?
• How do you feel afterwards, in the hours and days that follow?
• Does it fit with, or clash with, the work we do here?

What practitioners of it watch for

• grandiosity or crushing obligation.
• the client modifies an unwanted aftereffect without guilt.
• a short, prioritised list exists that the client recognises.
• interpretation that implies the experience was "only" symbolic.
• the client communicates something new or feels less alone with it.

When to involve someone else

• New or worsening physical symptoms, or advice to stop or change prescribed medication: involve the client's doctor or prescriber.
• Signs of coercion, isolation from family and friends, escalating costs or secrecy: discuss openly and consider safeguarding.
• A crisis or thoughts of suicide: follow your crisis protocol. In the US, call or text 988; in the UK and Ireland, Samaritans on 116 123.

Drawn automatically from the guide's own sections. Stay curious: neither endorse nor dismiss what the client values, and check anything that matters against the full guide and its sources. Not medical advice.