The Parapsychological Association is pleased to announce an awardee of this year's Robert L. Morris Student Travel Fund: Taylor N. Robinson

Taylor N. Robinson is a graduate student in the psychology department at the University of West Georgia and a student member of the Parapsychological Association focusing on parapsychological research. She is also a member of the Exceptional Experiences Research Lab (lead by Dr. Christine Simmonds-Moore and Dr. Jacob W. Glazier), where she assists with various studies and conducts independent research projects. Taylor is drawn to parapsychological research to normalize and validate exceptional human experiences. She encourages people to share such experiences so the door to more research opens in the parapsychological field with the hope that exceptional experiences will one day no longer be demonized or labeled as mysterious.

Taylor’s presentation at the 65th Annual Convention of the Parapsychological Association will examine possession phenomena through a clinical parapsychological lens. Western societies tend to label uninvited possession cases as dissociative identity disorder, a label that leads to the afflicted being institutionalized and deemed a danger to society. There is a perceived absence of control over co-consciousness living in a single physical vessel. However, Taylor proposes that psychiatric practitioners could introduce techniques used by indigenous cultures to allow the host to reclaim the control they have lost. She will describe how introducing a clinical parapsychological perspective to Western cases of dissociative identity disorder, wherein one embraces the methods used in invited ritualistic possession cases, can restore hope to individuals with dissociative identity disorder so they are not haunted by the label of a life-limiting and lifelong diagnosis that, without holistic intervention, feeds a fear they may never be able to integrate back into society.
 

The Parapsychological Association established the Robert L. Morris Student Travel Fund in 2005 after receiving a generous donation from Joanna Morris in a memorial of her late husband, who held the Koestler Chair of Parapsychology from 1985 to 2004. The PA Board of Directors considered how best to use this donation and believed that Bob Morris would have most liked for the funds to be used to encourage student participation in the PA.

Your continued support will extend the life of this fund. If you would like to make a contribution, please visit our Support Page and note the "Student Travel Fund" when sending your donation.