Published: October 2025

Keywords:
Systemic therapy, Immanence, Sacred uncertainty, Relational ethics, Non-ordinary experiences, Trauma and healing, Indigenous knowledge, Second-order thinking.

Hugh James George Palmer, Ph.D.

Hugh Palmer is a Systemic Family Therapist and academic with extensive experience in research and expertise in systemic practice, ecological thinking, and therapeutic approaches. He serves as the Systemic Lead on the Doctorate in Clinical Psychology (ClinDpsyD) programme at the University of Hull, where he coordinates teaching and research in systemic theory and practice, developing approaches that integrate systemic, ecological, and relational frameworks.

His work focuses on the interconnection between family systems, environmental awareness, and creative thinking in therapeutic practice. He is the coordinator of the EcoSystemic Hub, a member of the editorial board of Murmurations, and the author of numerous academic articles and book chapters published in international journals, edited volumes, and academic presses.

hugh.palmer@sky.com

hugh-palmer-therapy.com

Abstract

This paper invites a systemic engagement with experiences that sit on the margins of what could be considered ‘conventional’ understanding. These experiences include encounters with the dead, altered states, visionary knowing, and relational healing. Rather than interpreting these phenomena as pathological or transcendent, I approach them through the lens of immanence, where all meaning arises in relation. Drawing on personal experience, systemic therapy, trauma theory, philosophy, and ecology, I argue that healing is not the restoration of order but the emergence of new relational patterns. Voices from Bateson to Blake, Jung to Gendlin, converge around the idea that meaning is not contained in individuals but arises between them, in relationship, conversation, presence, and in care. This paper does not seek to explain the unexplainable but to stay with it, ethically and curiously. It suggests that in a time of epistemic fracture, systemic practice may offer a form of sacred attention: one that trusts relationship itself as a source of wisdom, especially where knowledge breaks down.