Webinar: Navigating the Unexplained

Bigfoots, aliens, and ghosts all have three things in common:

1. They’re unexplained.
2. People have witnessed them.
3. They have traumatized many of their eyewitnesses.

Join us as we explore the unique challenges and struggles people involved with these types of phenomena have had to face both psychologically and socially, and what you can do to be a caring, empathic ally.

Presented by Joey Harmon, LPC. Joey works with children, adolescents, and adults and his specialties include Child-Centered Play Therapy (CCPT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Child-Parent Relationship Training (CPRT), and Career Construction Interviews (CCI).

Watch a replay of the presentation here.

This webinar is facilitated by Joey Harmon, a licensed professional counselor working at the Heights location of Eddins Counseling Group in Houston, Texas. He earned his Master of Science in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from the University of North Texas, and his Bachelor of Arts in Psychology at Houston Baptist University. 

The topic of the webinar is an area that not many mental health professionals have explored from a post-traumatic standpoint. To clarify, this presentation will not include any personal opinions from the speaker regarding the degree to which he believes or disbelieves in the experiences he will describe. He is also not going to suggest that the audience needs to believe or disbelieve the literal subject matter that will be discussed tonight. 

Outline

1. Purpose of Presentation
2. High Strangeness and Trauma Definitions
3. Unique Traumas of Eyewitnesses
4. How to Support Eyewitnesses
5. Cultural and Therapeutic Considerations

Presentation Purpose

• Not approaching this as a researcher
• Not attempting to sell the authenticity of the phenomena
• Not attempting to debunk hig-strangeness phenomena

Discuss & normalize the experiences of eyewitnesses, and teach how to be supportive

The focus of the presentation is going to be on the post-traumatic challenges of the alleged observers of these phenomena as well as communication strategies that we can incorporate for helping them emotionally. Remember, this presentation is facilitated by a mental health practitioner, and not a researcher in these fields. 

In addition, it is important to emphasize that not everyone who experiences high strangeness is necessarily traumatized either during or after the experience. There is no intention to generalize when describing this population. For the purposes of this presentation, the focus will be on those who exhibit symptoms of trauma following an encounter, as well as trauma resulting from the social backlash of discussing the encounter.

Many of the struggles that will be discussed will apply to some degree to non-traumatized high strangeness eyewitnesses. But again, the focus will be on trauma victims of high strangeness. 

The research on the topic was pulled largely from anecdotal or qualitative data by listening to interviews of eyewitnesses, as well as going to the following subreddits to hear from eyewitnesses about any psychological struggles that they’ve had to endure following their traumatic high strangeness experiences. 

The speaker put out a call to members of various forums, asking if anyone would be willing to share any social and/or psychological struggles they have endured following an encounter. They acknowledge that this approach is not terribly comprehensive, as some forums were easier to post on than others. Efforts were made to reach out to a few additional forums, but these were the most receptive. 

There is a lack of formal peer-reviewed studies on the stress experienced by those encountering high strangeness, so the information presented is largely based on anecdotal cases. Towards the end of the presentation, the topics included will lend themselves more to formal study, which will be discussed in more detail later.

What is High Strangeness? 

Different people will give you different definitions, but for the purposes strictly of this presentation, we’re going to define high strangeness as unexplained and/or unconfirmed phenomena that are anecdotally witnessed by observers but have yet to be officially classified. 

The three areas overwhelmingly associated with high strangeness are: 

• Cryptozoology – the study of unknown or unconfirmed animals like sasquatches, lake monsters, animals thought to be extinct, but maybe they’re still around (like the thylacines)
• Paranormal Experiences – such as ghosts
• UFOs/UAPs – unidentified flying object (UFO), or unidentified anomalous phenomenon (UAP)

People will have varying opinions regarding the extent to which certain subcategories within these topics actually fall under the umbrella of high strangeness. However, for the purposes of this presentation and for the sake of simplicity, these three groups will be consolidated under this overarching term. The reason for combining them is the unifying theme of the unexplained present among these groups.

While the existence of these phenomena is debated, what isn’t in question is that real everyday human beings have been negatively impacted by them. Therefore, we owe it to them as members of the human race to treat them with the sense of dignity that they deserve. 

The Cambridge Dictionary defines trauma as “severe and lasting emotional shock and pain caused by an extremely upsetting experience”. 

The end of that definition should be changed to one or more extremely upsetting experiences, since trauma, of course, does not happen in a vacuum. In other words, traumatic responses are normal responses to abnormal circumstances. The mind and the body of an individual are really trying to protect that person from any further harm, whether that harm be physical, emotional, and/or sexual. 

These attempts at self-preservation will oftentimes backfire, unfortunately, or are expressed when they aren’t necessary. For example, somebody traumatized by gun violence might duck under a car or a table when they hear fireworks. So if they hear genuine gunshots going off, that would be a safe thing to do to try to protect themselves. But when fireworks are going off, that’s not necessary. That could be embarrassing for the person after the fact, but their mind and their body is just trying to keep them safe in that moment, regardless of what’s really going on out in the world. 

Within the context of tonight’s topic, the brain and the body’s survival instincts could arise in the form of attempting to protect the eyewitness from either the entity itself, from any trauma they might have brought on during the encounter, and/or keeping them safe after having been abandoned by those formerly trusted to keep them safe. 

Bigfoot Encounter

There is a story of an alleged Bigfoot encounter that does a really good succinct job at highlighting both the terrors of a high strangeness encounter, as well as the emotional harm that others can, unfortunately, provide after the fact. This story is narrated by a YouTuber who goes by the pseudonym Bob Gymlan, who briefly describes the narrative, dictates the narrative, and then gives his personal thoughts on it at the end. 

We are not trying to convince anybody of the factual legitimacy of this story, nor attempting to scare or shock anyone. As a potential trigger warning, some of the eyewitness descriptions and illustrations can be unsettling. We are purposefully going to skip over the more disturbing parts of the report because, again, our intention with this is not to shock and awe anyone. 

The eyewitness is not physically harmed in any way. Again, certain sections are more descriptive and they ultimately aren’t needed for tonight’s purposes, we’re going to be skipping past them to more relevant sections. 

 

The purpose of this video was to serve as a primer for discussing the traumas that are unique to this population to high strangeness eyewitnesses. 

The Eyewitness Experience

Now moving on to eyewitnesses themselves. Let’s move into discussing the typical experiences of someone traumatized by a high strangeness event like the individual in the video that we just watched. 

There are two main types of traumas associated with these kinds of encounters. There is the event itself and then the social backlash. Starting with the first component, experiencing high strangeness in and of itself can be surprising at best and torturous at worst. 

The Encounter

Sometimes these sightings are benign, but others can be very frightening and harrowing. There are reports of people believing that their very life was being directly threatened by the subject of their encounter, particularly with cryptid eyewitnesses and ghost eyewitnesses, and strong feelings of uneasiness, shock, and/or terror can accompany the event. 

Physiologically, people often report having a racing heart, shallow breathing, feeling as if they’re frozen, and having their hair stand up both during the encounter and while they’re remembering the encounter. These, of course, are all reactions to trauma because they are the body’s way of trying to get the person into that fight, flight, or freeze mode.

To either fight the thing that is threatening their lives to run away from it or to basically pretend like they’re dead or to try to hide from it, be still so it doesn’t notice you, things like that. So your body is going to go into that physiological state. 

It’s also not uncommon for high-strangeness trauma victims to never want to return to the area of their encounter or even to similar kinds of places. Again, for cryptid eyewitnesses, this usually takes the form of even lifelong hunters and outdoors people never going back into the forest ever again because they never want to risk seeing what they saw. 

Facing the Unknown

There is the literal entity, creature, object, or what have you that can be frightening. In addition, there can also be a massive worldview shift for an individual upon encountering something that they believed wasn’t real to begin with. This sense of ontological shock can be very profound and can cause great degrees of confusion for years following the event. One quote that’s stuck with us for a while related to this is: ”I made eye contact with something I didn’t believe in.” 

People might end up wrestling with and suffering more from having to recalibrate what they thought was true, maybe more so than the literal encounter themselves, and to be potentially denied answers for the rest of their lives. 

Social Ramifications

Then also, secondly, and potentially more damaging is the fear of repercussions of telling anybody about the experience, as well as the negative social ramifications from other people if they do say anything. Those traumatized by high strangeness are left in a particularly confusing position because they may not know what to do exactly about this encounter that they’ve just had. 

Many will know how it’s going to sound if they say that they saw a cryptid, a monster, a ghost, or an alien. And so this population is at particularly high risk of never processing their trauma in any healthy way. This partially contributes to the anger that many eyewitnesses will also face, that they had this traumatic event forced upon them, and now they feel they can’t even go talk about it with anybody because, again, they know how it’s going to sound. They’re angry that they’re in this position when they never asked for it and then ultimately feel as if there’s nothing they can really do about it anyway.

What Eyewitnesses Stand to Lose

Some of what eyewitnesses stand to lose and have historically lost include some of the following: 

• Respect from loved ones
• Respect from their community (social status)
• Employment
• Future credibility
• Privacy/Dignity

These are included here because they have happened to eyewitnesses in the past. Now, mind you, this list is neither definitive nor comprehensive, and much of this is dependent on the culture of the alleged eyewitness and the family and community that they come from. Nevertheless, it is worth detailing what many fears are putting at stake if they do try to come clean about what happened to them. 

That first part is respect from loved ones. People suffering from trauma will be hesitant to risk losing those who are the closest to them as they attempt to make sense of what happened. It can be a double whammy of losing a sense of normalcy and safety from an encounter, but then also having the pain of betrayal if those closest to them turn their backs in the midst of their suffering. 

Respect from their community, or their social status can extrapolate to coworkers, members of a religious organization, or depending on the size of the town, the entire community that the eyewitness lives in. Those with a high social status may fear that they have the most to lose if people see them as either lunatics or a liar.

Next is employment. Especially back in the day, alleged eyewitnesses may no longer be seen as stable enough to continue their job, especially if they have a high-ranking job with a lot of responsibility, a lot of people relying on them, or the backlash of having them associated with their place of employment may cause the business to fire them in order to maintain the image of the company. It may also be difficult for an eyewitness to find stable employment afterward, depending on how well-known their claims are. 

Future credibility. Why would anyone want to trust somebody who claims they saw a monster in the woods or something supposedly out of a fairytale? 

Then privacy and dignity. Alleged eyewitnesses may find themselves hounded by others, largely strangers, wanting ceaselessly to either mock them for their report or to endlessly ask them about it if their name was attached to their claims of what happened to them. Of course, there are a multitude of ways in which all of these can intersect with one another, causing a greater degree of hardship than any one of these would leave on their own. 

Difficult Decisions

Eyewitnesses may believe that they are in several lose-lose situations if they talk about what they’ve gone through. Either they’re a respected member of the community and they risk losing their social status, job, and sense of respect, or they already don’t feel respected by others and they risk being all the more ridiculed or pitted. 

They’re confronted with either being potentially betrayed by the very people who would normally have their back or having the burning agony of keeping this secret with them, never to reveal to the world the traumatic incident that has been plaguing them. 

Resiliency

How do traumatized eyewitnesses cope? 

One solution to the problem of being ridiculed for telling your story is to tell the story anonymously. This can be done through a variety of different methods. One of which has become increasingly common recently is telling one story on a podcast under a pseudonym. 

Some will consume media related to their encounters like podcasts, YouTube channels, and TV shows to try to find comfort. Still, many others will take to internet communities to post about what they saw in like-minded groups. 

Community

Eyewitnesses may attempt to find peace by joining communities of other eyewitnesses and/or those who are open-minded about these kinds of subjects. These communities are often composed of different researchers, artists, authors, scientists, and others who meet either online or in person at a variety of different conventions, like the Mothman Festival, held every year in Point Pleasant, West Virginia. 

Having access to such groups can provide a greater sense of normalcy to high-strangeness trauma victims because it can help people feel as if they aren’t alone, and they can meet others who will be affirming regarding what they experienced, as opposed to those who just completely treat them like a lunatic. 

Curiosity

Lastly, eyewitnesses often become absorbed in the subject of their encounter in order to help make better sense of what they saw, especially if they didn’t believe in the phenomenon beforehand. Doing so allows for an outlet to actually process their experiences in a manner deemed safe to them. 

Ultimately, what all three of these approaches are doing is that they are attempts at trying to reestablish a sense of community and/or normalcy in one’s life. 

Everything in Moderation

Now, just like with any other coping skill, there is the potential for harm if any of these are taken to an extreme. For example, if a parent were to begin neglecting their children because they became absorbed in studying Lake Monsters. That would be relying on that coping mechanism in an unhealthy way. Going back to the high-strangeness communities, unfortunately, people can still be ridiculed even within those circles. 

None of these coping skills are bad, certainly in and of themselves. It’s just that the more avenues of support a trauma victim has, the more peace they’ll be able to attain, and the more fulfilling life they’ll be able to live following their encounter. 

Instead of only having a few potentially limited resources for processing their anguish, becoming a supportive ally can open up more doors for them, like how the more blocks there are in a toy house, like a Lego house, the sturdier it’s ultimately going to be. 

Being Supportive

This then begs the question of how we can be supportive of those negatively impacted by such events without either belittling them or compromising our own worldviews. We’d like to address that last part first because we really want to allay any fears about what acceptance actually looks like. 

Acceptance of a person is not the same as full acceptance of their story.

Critical thinking does not need to be abandoned in order to make room for empathy. The brain and the heart do not need to be at odds. What acceptance really means, especially within this context, is accepting that the human being in front of you, the same person who participates in our democracy and the same person whose word would carry weight on a jury, this human being had a human experience with human reactions, whatever it was that they saw. 

Emotional Intelligence

You might not be able to relate to what they’re going through, but what you can do is you can respect the emotions that they have regarding the events. One can identify with the emotions without wholeheartedly signing off that what they experienced had actually occurred. 

One can be supportive and someone with decency without having to fulfill this need to emphasize what they believe really occurred. For example, you don’t need to believe in aliens to empathize with a UFO eyewitness because you have felt confused and startled before. You don’t have to believe in ghosts to empathize with a ghost eyewitness, but you have felt terrified before and you have felt helpless before.

See, those are the emotional experiences that you and this eyewitness have that ground on, whatever it is they say that they saw. Again, this isn’t me either dismissing or confirming any examples of high strangeness. It’s just that we must continue to dispel the lie that one must see eye to eye with somebody in order to treat them with kindness. That, of course, is a concept that can be applied far beyond the scope of this presentation tonight. 

Defensiveness

Before diving into specifics, we’d like to address why we might become defensive when encountering people whose experiences differ from our own—especially in cases of high strangeness like paranormal or UFO sightings. The nature of such experiences can clash with many Western worldviews, making it challenging to reconcile these differing realities.

Being told by a sincere friend that they “saw a ghost” is naturally going to elicit a different type of reaction than if they claimed to have seen a coyote or a spider. Again, this goes back to what was said earlier regarding the lie that one must wholeheartedly believe somebody in order to treat them with dignity. It makes sense to automatically feel defensive. That’s not necessarily something that you have control over. But you have to ask yourself: “To what degree are we going to let our needs to feel right interfere with treating somebody with compassion, especially if this is a person that we claim to love?” 

How to Help 

Now that we’ve established that one does not need to believe a high strangeness or need to change their worldview in order to still be kind, how do we go about interacting with traumatized eyewitnesses of alleged high strangeness events? 

Start with the fundamentals of active listening: maintain good eye contact and keep your body facing the speaker. In play therapy, there’s a principle where the therapist’s toes should follow their nose, ensuring that your entire body is directed toward the person you’re engaging with, whether it’s a child or an adult. This includes nodding along as they speak and avoiding interruptions.

Next is to pay attention to what emotions you believe the person is feeling as they tell their story and/or what emotions they were feeling as they were having their encounter. Again, you don’t need to have gone through what they went through or believe in the legitimacy of what they claimed they saw, but you have felt frightened, confused, shocked, etc. 

Connect with them emotionally because you have felt those feelings before. In doing so, you’ll be activating your mirror neurons, which are these specific kinds of neurons that are related to developing empathy. Whenever someone’s expressing a certain emotion and you start to feel that emotion as well, those are your mirror neurons kicking in. Those allow you to better engage with them. 

Even if you’re unsure of what they are or were specifically feeling, just make your best-educated guess and stick with it until proven otherwise, because it’s better to get some practice in than to not attempt at all, and after all, practice makes perfect. 

Be Emotionally Aware

Patiently wait out their story and focus on their emotional experiences. Use language like: “That must have been horrifying. I don’t blame you for being confused. I see why you’re angry that this happened to you.” 

Identify an emotion and provide a validating response based on that emotion. Tell them something you’d like to hear if you felt the way that they are feeling. These skills can be used when interacting with anybody, telling you any emotionally charged story. Of course, with any story whatsoever. 

“Do you believe me?”

On the off chance you find yourself pressed on whether or not you believe them, if they ask you, which they might not necessarily, and you’re unsure of whether or not you believe them, simply say: “I don’t know what to make of it, but clearly something happened to you.” 

“I don’t know” is a perfectly good answer when it is an honest answer. However, if you truly just do not believe the phenomenon they’re describing exists and they ask your opinion on it, you can tell them something along the lines of: “Well, I know you saw something. You aren’t lying to me and you aren’t crazy. This is clearly something that shook you up, and I want to support you.” Because it is that’s really something that shook them up. You can believe that and you can trust in that. 

You can say all that with confidence because we know, as established earlier, that supporting someone emotionally is not the same as agreeing with them. 

The Importance of Critical Thinking

If you feel compelled to question them further about their experience, either to learn more about what happened and/or to politely maybe offer some alternatives on what they saw, if you’re not entirely sure, then just wait until they’re not in an emotionally volatile state. They may not be at the time, but it’s also very possible for any trauma victims to find themselves feeling very raw and exposed when discussing what occurred to them. 

The neurological reason for this is that parts of the brain that are most conducive to survival are the ones that are going to be kicking in to protect the individual. So the more core parts of the aren’t able to distinguish between remembering and reliving a dramatic event and actually being in life-threatening danger. 

The higher reasoning parts of the brain may not be functioning at full capacity when someone is telling their story since the brain’s focus at that moment is to keep the person safe. Of course, again, to emphasize, that’s not to say that everyone who is retelling their encounter will be in that emotionally exposed state. It’s just good to be aware of that ahead of time. 

If you do desire to respectfully engage in dialog regarding other potential explanations for what they experienced, remember to just always come from the approach of respect and decency. Your goal is to discuss differing opinions while maintaining your relationship with the person. Avoid outright saying: “I don’t believe you.”, and instead use phrases such as: “Well, I’m just really not sure what to think of it or what to make of it.”. 

Cultural Considerations

Acceptance of the existence of various “cryptids” and spiritual forces can be common in indigenous cultures (Strain,2012).

Speaking of awareness, it’s also important to go over multicultural considerations when discussing high strangeness, particularly from the standpoint of indigenous cultures. Much of overall Western culture is uncoupled from the acceptance of spiritual realities and therefore will be inherently more dismissive of whatever doesn’t fit into a more secular materialistic worldview. 

However, that’s not necessarily the case for many non-Western cultures. Many will readily embrace different aspects of the phenomena described earlier and incorporate acknowledgment of them into their ways of life. For example, Strain describes in her paper how both Bigfoot and the Hairy Man (which is a roughly 1,000-year-old cave painting associated with sasquatches), are both associated by some members of the Tool River Reservation with healing. So much so that the Tool River alcoholism program, which is a substance abuse recovery center, was purposefully built near these cave paintings. 

In addition, many will grow up hearing stories about spirits and “unclassified animals” from a non-folkloric perspective and may view them in the same manner as other more mundane elements of life and wildlife, like foxes and bears and things of that nature.

When these phenomena are dismissed outright by non-local, largely Western researchers, the locals who have been describing these kinds of experiences for centuries may feel angry and rejected. Now, it should be noted, of course, that obviously not every person in every non-western or indigenous society will be uniform in their beliefs about what might otherwise be described as high strangeness. 

Not everyone will agree on the extent that these cases should or should not be seen as true, and it would be very inappropriate to assume otherwise. In addition, this is not to say that folklore as a concept cannot exist or that members of Indigenous communities don’t recognize the potentially fictitious nature of folklore. However, we just want to harken back to what was said earlier regarding being respectful, regardless of one’s personal opinion on the existence or nonexistence of extraordinary entities. 

Commenting on these cultural considerations is just another effort to promote respect for those who might otherwise be dismissed and to educate on the potential normality of these subjects amongst diverse populations. 

Therapeutic Help for Eyewitness Trauma

We want to be mindful of our time, so we wanted to spend these last few minutes briefly discussing the potential for therapeutic options for victims of high stranger trauma, as well as why some members of this community may attempt to try to avoid them altogether.

This information could be useful for anybody who knows someone traumatized by an extraordinary phenomenon, and/or anybody watching this who might find themselves within this community, within this category. 

Stigmas and Facts Regarding Therapy

Eyewitnesses might want to avoid a counselor for many of the same reasons described earlier regarding why they wouldn’t tell others about their encounter whatsoever (the fear of ridicule, not being believed, etc). However, therapists specifically have a perceived level of power within our culture that may particularly dissuade someone from seeking any therapy altogether. 

Some alleged eyewitnesses may fear being labeled with a diagnosis like schizophrenia after a single session if they say that they saw something like a ghost or a UFO. Others might fear that if one is “too honest” with their therapist, the clinician will then have them brought to a psych ward against their will or something like that. 

Many may inherently mistrust mental health workers outright and/or have had negative experiences with therapists in the past that would then make it difficult for them and make them uneasy about seeing another one, especially for such a stigmatized topic. This is part of a larger conversation involving the general public’s level of trust for mental health workers.

We don’t intend to broach the entirety of that at the tail end of a presentation about a different topic. Just to address the second concern first, there are a great many steps that would need to be taken before a therapist were to contact the authorities in any capacity. It’s a very, very rare occurrence. 

Mental health workers can only alert the authorities if they believe that the client is in danger of harming themselves or harming somebody else, and if that person isn’t willing to take any steps to help alleviate those worries first. If they’re not willing to fill out what’s called a suicide contract, where they list out different people they can talk to if they’re feeling suicidal, different hotlines they can call, different activities they can do, etc. 

We personally, as counselors, have spoken with many clients several times about topics like self-harming suicide. Despite all those conversations, we have never needed to actually ever needing to call and escort for them in any capacity. 

Therapists cannot force someone into a psych ward simply because they report an experience that is not recognized by science. While we can’t speak for all states, in Texas, individuals have the right to refuse services, including leaving if they are being escorted to a hospital. When it comes to potential diagnoses and avoiding them, it’s important for clients to determine if a therapist is a good professional fit. Clients should inquire if a therapist is affirming their experiences before booking an intake session. 

At Eddins, we offer free 15-minute consultations with therapists before any paperwork or formal intake appointment is scheduled. This helps clients feel more confident in their choice of a professional. Anyone seeking a therapist, regardless of their experiences, should look for similar options to ensure a good fit before proceeding. 

More Facts about Psychotherapy

Despite these concerns, there are various therapeutic trauma interventions and meditations available to help those suffering from past traumas. These include brain spotting, EMDR, body scan meditation, prolonged exposure or systematic desensitization, a variety of different cognitive therapies, and acceptance and commitment therapy. 

Therapists are also trained in what’s called unconditional positive regard, which means that the client doesn’t need to jump through any hoops or behave in a particular manner for the therapist to regard them positively. 

In addition, regarding confidentiality, therapists are bound by federal and state laws such as HIPAA, as well as our codes of ethics, which prevents us from disclosing either stories from our clients or especially their identifying information. Violating said confidentiality can lead to a lot of trouble for a therapist, to put it lightly, as you can see at the bottom of the screen there. 

While it may be intimidating at first, finding a proper affirming trauma-informed therapist could provide yet another stable form of support in a traumatized eyewitness’s life to help alleviate their suffering and grow towards a brighter future. 

After speaking with several of our colleagues who work at Eddins Counseling Group, we can confidently say that we have at least a few clinicians, who would be warm and compassionate to this population. We are able to see clients either in person at our three Houston locations throughout all of Texas or virtual counseling, and several other states, depending on different licenses. 

In addition to helping folks with trauma, we also provide play therapy, adolescent counseling, counseling for individual adults, various ongoing groups, couples counseling, family counseling, and career counseling or coaching. 

Before we headed out, there were a lot of people who were very supportive of us while we putting this presentation together. Lots of people, many of which are here tonight in the audience, and we’re really appreciative. We want to specifically give shoutouts to Karac St. Laurent, who runs the CrashCourse Cryptozoology YouTube channel, as well as the team over at the Crypto Campfire podcast. They all offer their insights and advice not only on the topic itself but also on how we could obtain some anecdotal data. 

Here are the references that we used for tonight:

• American Medical Association (n.d.). HIPAA violations & enforcement
• Bob Gymlan. (2019, May 8). It Came Into The Tent – A Bigfoot Encounter [Video]
• F. D’Antoni, A. Matiz, F. Fabbro, C. Crescentini (2022) “Psychotherapeutic Techniques for Distressing Memories: A Comparative Study between EMDR, Brainspotting, and Body Scan Meditation” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19 , 1142

Did you experience any hesitancy from your colleagues when pitching this presentation idea? 

Not really, and we’re very thankful for that. Admittedly, we were hesitant to discuss it initially, but those we did talk to—our coworkers—were very supportive and intrigued by the subject matter, for which we are very grateful. When we mentioned that some colleagues here would be good fits for individuals within this traumatized community, we meant it. They were enthusiastic and recognized that the mental health community hadn’t done much to address the specific trauma of these eyewitnesses.

What are your plans, if any, about creating an organized support group going forward? 

That would be awesome. That would be wonderful. We love the idea of that. For truly the past several years, really, we’ve been thinking about the potential for that and the idea of that. We struggle with the implementation of that. 

Counseling laws can be very strict, and they oftentimes aren’t necessarily federalized. HIPAA is federalized, but a lot of counseling laws will differ by state. We would need to emphasize that while we’re a counselor, we’re not their counselor. It’s a support group, but it’s not a therapeutic group. We would encourage them to seek out their own therapist, but that this is just a support group. 

Truth be told, there are quite a few avenues for that already, maybe not necessarily run by mental health practitioners, but there are some outlets out there already that people feel that they can get that off their chest a little bit.

We’re not opposed to that. We’re also not opposed to some credentialing service or CEO or some rostering for high strangeness-affirming therapists. But we’ll just have to see where the future holds. 

Do you believe you are seeing high strangeness as a more normalized subject that people are willing to discuss? 

It’s become a lot more mainstream, but there isn’t that same sense of overwhelming fear that maybe we’ve seen in generations past. We to mention a really great quote that we heard. That question was asked of another, someone who is a proper researcher within this field. They said, “No, if anything, people are becoming less critical, potentially.” They just want to hear a bunch of stories without wanting to really think for themselves about the matter on the subject.

We think it’s certainly becoming more and more normalized, which is great from a mental health standpoint. Hopefully, that will encourage people to seek the help that they deserve. Hopefully, other therapists out there will be more receptive to this population, which is a neglected trauma population, quite frankly.

Regarding critical thinking, that doesn’t mean that you really need to believe absolutely everything you hear. Critical thinking is very important. But long story long, yes, we do think it is more normalized, and so hopefully people will seek out more formal support because of it. 

How many people with encounters in your research were willing to go to therapy or counseling for their trauma? 

We couldn’t say. We were able to read a couple of responses to our Reddit posts that we made referencing a therapist or somebody who knew somebody who then referenced the therapist. But even that person, since that was second-hand or third-hand, even they couldn’t say whether or not it was definitively for what they experienced. 

There’s also this lingo used within mental health circles called the “presenting problem”, which is the initial reason someone might go to therapy, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that that’s actually the largest issue they have going on. For example, someone might go to therapy because they’re having difficulty with focusing and paying attention, but then it comes later on that they’re struggling with severe levels of anxiety, and they’ve never really learned how to accept that and handle that in a healthy manner. 

That’s led to concentration issues. The presenting problem is concentration, but really, the real problem is anxiety. It’s possible that people will have symptoms of trauma because of what they experience, but they don’t necessarily know that it’s because of what they experience. Then as they establish rapport with their therapist, hopefully, it would come up. Admittedly, that’s speculation. Further research is needed. Certainly further research is needed within this area. 

Do you see trends in how trauma presents itself depending on the source of the trauma or how that trauma started?

Yes and no. It depends. Like with anything in mental health, the answer is ultimately, it depends. There are some overarching symptoms that are commonly seen, such as physiological responses. Traditionally, it was just fight or flight, but now we recognize fight, flight, freeze, and fawn. 

For example, a person might become jittery and anxious as their body tries to get them out of a situation. They might become numb as their body’s way of protecting them, like a turtle retreating into its shell. They might also become hypersensitive to criticism or external sensory stimuli, such as lights and sounds. While there are common trends, you can’t always predict how things will turn out.

Would manifestations or entities presented in sleep or sleep paralysis be considered high strangeness? 

This depends on how an individual defines high strangeness. Some may view it as purely psychological, thus excluding it from the category of high strangeness. However, many others do not see it that way. Ultimately, it varies from person to person, but potentially, yes. 

If a patient expressed interest in alternative treatments such as exorcism or other similar spiritual, or religious treatments, would you encourage that patient to seek that? 

Yes, definitely. A more recent and welcome trend in mental health therapy and psychotherapy is incorporating clients’ spiritual practices, provided they have any and value them. Integrating clients’ spirituality into their growth process is beneficial when it is an important aspect of their lives.

If the clinician and the client share the same spiritual beliefs and traditions, it can be especially beneficial. Recent studies have highlighted the mental health benefits of incorporating a client’s spiritual practices into treatment. In the past, this aspect was often ignored, and if a client brought it up, therapists might have pathologized it or overlooked it entirely. However, this has changed in recent times.  

Regarding exorcisms, they can indeed be intense and touch on the realm of demonology, raising questions about whether an issue is a demon possession or a form of psychosis. Even seasoned exorcists, who have studied and practiced for decades, often assert that a “true demon” possession occurs in only about one out of a thousand cases they encounter. The other 999 cases are typically mental health concerns, such as psychosis. However, if the exorcism is beneficial for the individual, then it is considered helpful.

Do you have any recommendations for literature? 

There’s a book called Bridging the Tragedy: Silver Linings in the Mysterious Ohio River Valley. It explores the post-traumatic growth experienced by witnesses of the original Mothman sightings in West Virginia in the late ’60s, as well as the Silver Bridge collapse in the same area. Written by Bill Kousoulas, PhD, and Jacqueline Kousoulas, it discusses how eyewitnesses and the community as a whole recovered from these events.

Additionally, other research articles, while not directly related to this topic, have examined the small number of people experiencing high strangeness who also exhibit symptoms of psychosis, such as hallucinations or delusions. These studies found that this is a relatively small portion of that population. The majority of people claiming to have seen phenomena, particularly related to UFOs, do not exhibit these symptoms.