- a web-based investigation using online research tools to study the prevalence, phenomenology and impact of End of Life Experiences

The Current Reseach Team:

Dr. Peter Fenwick, MB, BChir, FRCPsych, DPM, was educated at Trinity College Cambridge where he obtained an Honours Degree in Natural Science. His clinical medical training was carried out at St Thomas's Hospital in London.

After obtaining experience in neurosurgery he specialised in psychiatry and for several years ran the Epilepsy Neuropsychiatry Unit at the Maudsley Hospital.. He is Honorary Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Psychiatry and at the University of Southampton, and Honorary Consultant in Neurophysiology to Broadmoor Special Hospital. He has published numerous scientific papers on brain function and also several papers on meditation and altered states of consciousness. He is also President of Horizon Reserach Foundation (formerly the UK branch of the International Association of Near-Death Studies), reflecting his special interest in this field. He lectures widely in England, on the Continent and in the US on brain disorders and has made many appearances on radio and television. His first book, written together with his wife, was The Truth in the Light, and details the results from a survey of NDEs following the first NDE TV programme in the UK aired in 1987 and directed by Tony Edwards. Over two thousand people wrote in.

Peter's interest in death experience originates from 1985 when one of his patients told him about an NDE after a failed cardiac investigation during which his heart stopped. Peter teamed up initially with Margot Grey and David Lorimer of the Scientific and Meedical Network and then with Dr. Sam Parnia , to carry forward the work of NDE research in the UK. Dr. Parnia almost single-handedly carried through the first UK survey at Southampton General Hospital, the first prospective survey of NDE experiences in a cardiac care unit in the world, This research work confirmed the incidence of 10% NDE experiences during cardiac arrest and opened up the field for prospective research studies in this area.

Ben Davidson, BA, MinstGA, RMN, based in Eastbourne, UK, is an Honorary Senior Lecturer at South Bank University and health service manager. A psychiatric nurse and group analyst by profession, Ben's special interests are politics/ideology, and ethics/spirituality in psychiatric care.

He co-ordinated for its early years the Pathfinder User Employment Programme at South West London & St. George's, supporting the paid employment of people with a history of serious mental health problems in clinical posts within a large London Mental Health NHS Trust, and researching the impact of the project on the lives of those concerned and the quality of services in the Trust. He won the prestigious Nursing Times/3M's 'Nurse of the Year' award for this work in 1999.

Ben is Executive Editor of the journal group analysis. He has published widely, most recently guest editing a special issue of the journal entitled 'Group Analysis in the New Millennium', also editing two texts in recent years and publishing approaching 30 journal articles and book chapters. He has retained an Honorary Senior Lecturer role following a period working full time as a Senior Lecturer at Southbank University, teaching and supervising student and post-qualification nurses.

Ben has 14 years experience of conducting groups in the UK national health service (NHS) and private healthcare settings, his practice in recent years including psychotherapy for adults at the Maudsley Hospital and adolescents at Nightingale Hospital, both in London, also running patient groups, staff development groups, supervision groups for trainee counsellors and experiential groups for trainee psychotherapists at a number of NHS and private clinics. In recent years he has also managed the Children's Section of Croydon's CAMHS for the Maudsley and South London Mental Health NHS Trust, and currently works for Priory Healthcare as Service Development Manager for six of its acute and.continuing care hospitals in the southeast, in some of which he also practices as a group analyst.

Ben's interest in the research originates from his own experience of altered states of consciousness and a commitment to explore the interface between mystical experience and psychiatric diagnoses.

Sue Brayne, MA

Sue qualified as an SRN at the Middlesex Hospital in 1974. In 1986 she survived a plane crash, and subsequently trained with the Elizabeth Kubler Ross Foundation as a crisis and bereavement counsellor. She later taught the Hoffman Process, an eight-day residential workshop aimed at conflict resolution of parent/child relationships. In 2000 she completed an MA in Religion at King Alfred's College, Winchester, in the Rhetoric and Rituals of Death, and is currently completing a two-year postgraduate diploma in counselling at Thames Valley University. She also works for a north London hospice as a bereavement counsellor. Sue has been interviewed in the press and on radio about the effect of surviving a near death experience and how it has influenced her life and spiritual beliefs.

Hilary Lovelace SRN DN

Hilary qualified as an SRN in 1979 at St Thomas's Hospital, where she worked as a Staff Nurse,, and trained in district nursing at Portsmouth Polytechnic. ..She obtained an ENB in the care of the dying at St. Barnabus' Hospice in Worthing. She has wide interests, qualified as an aromatherapist in 1992 and obtained a certificate in Holistic Health Care in 1993.. She has also studied the use of massage and aromatherapy in cancer care. She has worked widely as a District Nurse and has been part of a team in many different regions. She has worked as a Hospice Staff Nurse for the Douglas Macmillan Unit and for the Marie Curie Foundation of Shropshire. She has wide experience in caring for the dying and a deep understanding of the difficulties and challenges involved in hospice work. Hilary has an interest in deathbed phenmena and feels that these should be more widely investigated.