At the Threshold: What Near-Death Experiences Reveal About Consciousness, Healing, and Living, Mitchel Liester, MD (1 hr)
Description
What happens at the edge of life? And what can those who have returned tell us about consciousness, healing, and what it means to truly live?
Near-death experiences (NDEs) have been reported across cultures, throughout history, and by some of the most celebrated minds in science, literature, and the arts. From Carl Jung's vision of Earth from space during a 1944 heart attack, to Sharon Stone's transformative experience following a brain hemorrhage, to Ernest Hemingway's out-of-body encounter on a WWI battlefield, NDEs have inspired, challenged, and forever changed those who lived them.
In this compelling session, Dr. Mitchell Liester invites participants into one of the most fascinating frontiers of modern consciousness research. Drawing from neuroscience, psychology, and the lived accounts of artists, writers, scientists, and visionaries, this presentation explores what NDEs can teach us about the nature of consciousness and the extraordinary capacity of the human mind to heal, transform, and find meaning.
For clinicians, the implications are profound. NDE survivors consistently report reduced death anxiety, increased compassion, diminished materialism, and a deepened sense of purpose. These transformations offer powerful insights for therapeutic approaches to existential distress, end-of-life care, and treatment-resistant depression.
This is a session that will move you, challenge you, and expand the way you think about life, death, and everything in between.
Learning Objectives: At the end of this presentation, participants will be able to:
Describe the core features of near-death experiences and evaluate current neuroscientific and consciousness-based models proposed to explain them.
Identify clinically relevant psychological and behavioral changes commonly reported by NDE survivors: such as reduced death anxiety, increased altruism, diminished materialism, and enhanced sense of purpose
Apply evidence-based frameworks for meaning-making, present-moment awareness, and values clarification into patient-centered psychiatric and palliative care.
Mitchell B. Liester, M.D., is a board-certified psychiatrist and Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. He received his medical degree from the University of Colorado School of Medicine in 1985, completed his psychiatric residency at the University of California, Irvine, and served as Chief Resident. He has maintained a private practice in Monument, Colorado for over 34 years.
Dr. Liester's interest in psychiatry originates from a deep fascination with altered states of consciousness, whether triggered spontaneously by near-death experiences or through other means. His grandfather's near-death experience, which occurred while Dr. Liester was still a medical student, first introduced him to this realm and shaped a research career spanning more than three decades. His work encompasses consciousness, near-death experiences, indigenous healing practices, biological psychiatry, and psychedelic medicines. He has also investigated the phenomenon of cellular memory, exploring how personality changes following heart transplantation may point to memory stored beyond the brain itself. He has published widely in peer-reviewed journals, contributes regularly to Psychology Today, and served as Vice President of the International Association for Near-Death Studies. To investigate indigenous healing practices, he has journeyed to the Himalayas, Hawaii, Bali, Fiji, and the Andes and Amazon rainforest of South America.