Foreword

by Cyndi Dale

Two hundred years ago, our great-great-great grandmothers and grandfathers would have been shocked to hear about today’s advancements in Western medicine, perhaps to the point of disbelief. A shot will prevent polio, mumps, or yellow fever? A small pill, called an “antibiotic,” will cure deadly diseases or prevent gangrene? Surgical procedures will reattach severed limbs? Something called “stem cells” will regrow fingertips or even entire organs?

Far across the ocean in the Orient, Easterners were already practicing a form of medicine that included using needles to move invisible energies in and out of the body. Our Western ancestors would have considered this form of health care nonsense—or possibly witchcraft. They might have asked how “acupuncture” could work when a needle is meant for sewing, not healing.

Two centuries ago, the Western mind couldn’t understand a different culture’s form of medicine, which has since been scientifically proven effective in treating pain, addictions, depression, and other afflictions. These days, we call this medicine holistic, alternative, or complementary.

History has proven that great progress is seldom foreseen and is often unpublicized. Dorothea Hover-Kramer’s book, Healing Touch, however, must be noticed. News of this book, and the implementation of its advice, can’t wait for tomorrow’s audience. Therapeutic Healing Touch is a landmark healing approach—one that blends Eastern and Western philosophies and techniques. Even more important, Healing Touch promises to usher in a new era that focuses the power of love for patient and practitioner alike. The best part is that Dorothea’s book really is for everyone—for real people with real lives and real concerns. Now we can all learn how to deliver and benefit from this healing medicine, regardless of any previous experience—or lack thereof—in a medical field.

As a healing practice, Healing Touch is unsurpassed. As explained by Dorothea, Healing Touch falls under the category of energy medicine, or the manipulation of energy to establish optimum wholeness—physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. The basic philosophy is holistic, a 5,000-year-old Eastern tradition that treats the entirety of a person, not just the symptoms she or he experiences. Because of this, Healing Touch invites a transformation of body, mind, and soul—the three elements of the self that intertwine to create true well-being. Reminiscent of ancient wisdom, Healing Touch is ageless. It carries forward a torch of hope, the light needed when our doorsteps are darkened by illness, loss, or trauma.

Healing Touch is not only an Eastern or “alternative” care. It has matured and is quickly being integrated into allopathic medical communities worldwide. As of 2007, at least a hundred U.S. hospitals offered Healing Touch, with more than 86,000 nurses or health-care professionals delivering the service, according to Healing Touch. This number is growing by leaps and bounds annually, with hospitals frequently incorporating Healing Touch as a complement to standard care. It’s not uncommon to find Healing Touch practitioners soothing patients in hospital pre- and post-surgical areas, or assisting with sleep disturbances. In addition, hundreds of thousands of individuals have received Healing Touch treatments in practitioner-based clinical and office settings.

Procedures include assessing energy imbalances, shifting energy in the biofield (the layers of energy that surround our body), creating ease through various relaxation processes, and utilizing a number of other maneuvers to alter the issues underlying a presenting concern. The idea is that as you modify the energy causing a problem, you can potentially shift the problem right out of existence—or at least initiate enough change to enable balance and hope.

Practitioners can receive energy through their heartfelt intentions and send it to a recipient with their hands, which usually move above the physical body. They can also send healing in absentia or to someone in a different locale. As explained by Dorothea, Healing Touch works by aligning the unlimited supply of energy in the universe through committed focus called centering. The process requires knowledge and practice, but no extraneous materials such as stethoscopes, pills, or needles. This means that Healing Touch can be performed anywhere and by anyone committed to love—once he or she has been guided through the correct steps.

This ease of delivery is one of the reasons Healing Touch is so popular, but the main attraction is its efficacy. Nearly one hundred studies have been conducted on Healing Touch, with many organizations participating in the discovery. Healing Touch has certainly earned its reputation as one of the world’s most credible, widespread, hands-on energy medicines; it’s well documented in its ability to relieve anxiety, pain, suffering, emotional distress, stress, and illness. This energy treatment has benefited so many people that the Healing Touch Program agreed to support Dorothea in authoring a book that shows us “average” people how to apply these techniques in our everyday lives.

For decades, Healing Touch was only taught to those willing to undergo the intensive training available through the Healing Touch Program (HTP). More than a hundred thousand people (both laypersons and health-care practitioners) have been trained through HTP, the only nationally accredited program of its type. Multiply the number of practitioners by the thousands upon thousands who have received Healing Touch treatments, and you will understand why it is spreading so quickly and why you want to be apprised of this simple yet amazingly powerful practice.

Dorothea is uniquely capable of revealing these “trade secrets” in such a way that we can all safely access these healing methods. Her wall is covered with professional credentials in nursing and psychology, including a doctorate in educational psychology, a master’s degree in public-health nursing, and a diploma in comprehensive energy psychology. In addition to being a founding elder in the Healing Touch Program, Dorothea is also one of the pioneers of energy medicine and energy psychology. She is, therefore, an extraordinary guide into the world in which small to large miracles occur daily.

Yet it is her spirit that guarantees the beauty and accessibility of this book. Dorothea cares. As a child, she could perceive the light inside living beings. Because of this sensitivity, Dorothea is distinctively able to show us our true light—no matter what is happening in our lives—and how to use the resulting insights to better ourselves and others. As a collective, we can now begin to close the gap between the Eastern world, which embraces the subtle and the soul, and the Western universe, which comprehends the body and the mind. As individuals, we can bridge chasms that separate parts of ourselves, creating unity where there was once divisiveness.

I was able to use the tools outlined in Dorothea’s book at a critical time in my own life. While reading a preview of her book, I helped my ill mother move four times. I inhaled Dorothea’s wisdom about caregiver burnout—I felt ready to check into a senior center myself. Dorothea’s practical methods for nourishing my inner core and physical well-being were crucial to my survival.

Is a loved one dying? Dorothea instructs us on how to ease the transition or perhaps even stave off death until another time. Are you or someone you care about ill, fatigued, traumatized, or in pain? The techniques included in this book are thoughtful, simple, and safe.

Myself, I’ve employed Healing Touch and related practices in my everyday life for decades. As a professional energy expert, I use these types of tools in my practice all day long. As an author, I often research and write about the history of healing, sharing how energy medicine really works. As a person, however, I know that what really counts is how I integrate these truths into my “real” life: how I deal with unkempt rooms, needy children, dead batteries, the flu, and Minnesota winters that seem eleven months long.

Let’s face it: life is challenging, and we can use all the “supernatural” help we can get. As a single mother with two boys and five animals—none of whom feel particularly called to listen to my deep wisdom—I depend on Healing Touch practices to fill the gap between life’s unmet needs and my capabilities.

How often did I soothe a child’s brow, furtively delivering the kiss of healing energy when Tylenol wasn’t cutting it? How did I tear my younger son’s homework out of the wild maniac dog’s toothy grip, if not for the power of Healing Touch? My older son still doesn’t admit that there was something pretty cool about reducing his swollen ankle to normal size in five minutes with that “weird stuff Mom does.” And my partner doesn’t realize that we would have twice the “discussions” we’ve actually had if I hadn’t learned how to soothe my inner being with Healing Touch relaxation techniques.

To be honest, the only thing Healing Touch hasn’t helped me do is cook. My younger son still thinks that “homemade” cookies come out of a long tube and need only to be cut before being baked.

Could my children have survived my mothering if not for Healing Touch practices?

Clearly, Dorothea’s book is an absolute must for anyone and everyone who lives a real life. We are here on earth to be a light from heaven, even while walking, talking, working, loving, arguing, sleeping, and simply being. We are here to ignite the world, whether in a grocery store, doctor’s office, or day-care center. We are here to give and receive love, and that is the essential instruction provided by Healing Touch.

As the Greek physician Hippocrates said ages ago, “Healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity.” Through Healing Touch, Dorothea presents real-life techniques that will help you deal with all the “opportunities” life presents, from broken hearts to crying children to bodily wounds. At their core, Healing Touch really is an opportunity to advance—to learn, grow, transform, and ultimately to open more to the truth of who we are. Essentially, this book is about the great truths we are to insert ourselves into every day. May you learn how to shine even brighter because of it.

—CYNDI DALE

Bloomington, Minnesota

June 2011

Introduction

“There is a quiet light that shines in every heart ... It is what illuminates our minds to see beauty, our desire to seek possibility, and our hearts to love life.”

—POET JOHN O’DONOHUE, FROM TO BLESS THE PLACE BETWEEN US

All of life is imbued with energy, the nonmaterial life force that is dramatically absent when life ends. Science is showing us that we humans are indeed energy beings with a vibrational field that communicates information within the physical body as well as within the creative mind. Allowing ourselves to sense the “quiet light” within is a natural human potential. We can extend this inner light to express caring for others and to alleviate suffering, as we’ll explore in this book.

My own life story has always been closely intertwined with sensing the life essence of other people and living things. On reflection, I think this sensitivity was my best response to handling the vast, incomprehensible forces that surrounded me. No one could make sense of the horrors of life and death with which I grew up in the midst of the massive world war in Berlin, Germany, during the time of saturation bombings and the death of my mother.

I had to trust my inner knowing, which was undoubtedly enhanced by my five-year-old fanciful imagination. As a child, I noticed that some people seemed to have brightness, vitality, or a quality of “light” surrounding them. Based on this quality, I chose my substitute caregiver from the many wandering refugees passing by our house. I also noticed the diminished lights in many of the refugees. One woman particularly had no visible life force. She was brought to our front door. While other refugees attempted to help her, and while I ran to get a glass of water, she died on the doorstep.

When the magnificent trees on my street were felled for post-war winter firewood, a neighbor brought several little fledgling birds for me to tend. I intuitively put my hands over the frantically jumping, helpless birds. Surprisingly, this calmed them. I then invented ways of feeding them with medicine droppers, and by watching their “lights,” I could tell which ones were going to live and which ones would die. Those that died became part of little burial rituals my older sister and I dreamed up. As for the living, in a few days the little nestlings would fly off on their own.

As the famine after the end of the war progressed, more helpless chicks were brought to me. As before, I used my hands over them and added heartfelt prayers of good wishes for either outcome—whether it be life or death—to help them along.

Years later, while traveling on extended sailing trips, I was to encounter lost, frightened birds at sea and found that again I could assist them with the “hands and heart” methods I had discovered in those war-torn times. Of course, I also added gentle touch whenever needed to help my four children and their many pets with their injuries. In these instances, I always felt calm and fully present to the moment, as if this work were exactly the right thing to do.

In my early teens, I read about Florence Nightingale, “the lady with the lamp,” who brought nursing out of its dubious past into the forefront as a valid profession for physical and emotional healing. Fascinated by her ideas of creating supportive environments in the midst of war, I plunged into a traditional three-year nursing diploma program after a lonely year in musical studies at college.

Encounters with traditional nursing educators in the late 1950s were, needless to say, a bit bumpy when I asked about hands-on healing. I was promptly directed to learn to give injections, make well-mitered corners on patients’ beds, and, above all, to follow doctors’ orders. On the quest for learning more about real healing, as well as to lessen the causes of illness, I pursued public health nursing to the master’s level, enjoying its focus on prevention and practitioner independence. To this end, I worked as a public health nurse for the extremely poor in Boston’s South End and used my hands to soothe the areas above my patients’ wounds in addition to giving prescribed medical interventions.

After my return from years of public health explorations in Singapore, and upon graduating from a doctoral program in educational psychology in the 1970s, I started hearing about a new movement in nursing called Therapeutic Touch. It was to become known as the first noninvasive program that could bring about pain relief and relaxation by using awareness of the human energy system. I traveled to attend several workshops with its founders, Dr. Dolores Krieger and Dora Kunz. Meeting them was a thrill. Their divine and human natures shone throughout their hands-on demonstrations and descriptions of the scientific basis of the work. They cited recent developments in quantum physics and the applications of these concepts to human caring, the social sciences, and nursing. I was immensely heartened to hear Dr. Krieger say, “Anyone can learn this ... it is a natural potential we all have ... it does not require being clairvoyant or unusually intuitive.”[1] Perhaps, I ventured, I too could become a nurse/therapist who could help to heal others.

There was no doubting the effectiveness of Therapeutic Touch to help patients in hospital settings. The many stories of patients achieving accelerated wound healing, lessened anxiety, and pain relief without more medication were astounding. I was a bit taken aback by the apparent rigidity of Dr. Krieger’s training course but have since come to understand her desire to keep the work as free as possible from intrusions or misuse by establishing strong parameters around her program. Therapeutic Touch remains the “first” of its genre and set the stage for a number of other energy-field modalities to surface.

In the early 1980s, after presenting a program at one of the Therapeutic Touch conferences, I joined the American Holistic Nurses Association and served on the board of this fine new organization for nearly ten years. As a psychologist and the association’s education chair, I was always looking for new courses that could be developed. When I heard about Janet Mentgen, an energetically sensitive nurse who taught work to other hands-on practitioners, I eagerly signed on and helped develop what eventually became the Healing Touch Program in 1989, with Janet as its designated founder. Since that time, Healing Touch has grown from its humble beginnings to reach thousands of practitioners worldwide, as we shall see further on.

My writing career began in 1996, when an agent from Delmar, a large social sciences textbook firm, asked Janet for a textbook about Healing Touch. In her usual, direct way, Janet pointed her finger at me and said, “You will write our textbook!” I was taken aback. I could not even imagine writing a book, let alone one about the subtle energies we worked with in Healing Touch. A new language about the framework of hands-on practice had to be developed. Healing Touch: A Resource for Healthcare Professionals came off rather well in spite of my misgivings, and it evolved into a revised second edition in 2002.[2] In 2009, an entirely new book called Healing Touch Guidebook: Practicing the Art and Science of Human Caring was released to celebrate HT’s twentieth anniversary, authored by myself and other HT colleagues; it was published by the Healing Touch Program Press.[3]

As my practice of psychotherapy evolved, I found new applications for HT in my counseling sessions. After teaching HT for ten years under Janet’s leadership, I was able to cofound a new organization, the Association for Comprehensive Energy Psychology (ACEP), with the help of supportive colleagues. ACEP is now a thriving international group of therapists who integrate work with the human energy system into their practices to bring about relief from emotional distress.

Over the past twenty-plus years, my love and respect for the work of HT and my connection to its wonderful practitioners has continued to expand. When I was approached about writing this book for the general public, I paid attention to my intuition for hints about how Janet might respond to the idea. Since she had passed on in 2005, I went to my sense of Janet’s energy. The strongest memory I had of Janet was repeated in a recent dream, which showed me her steady support for my continuing to write about Healing Touch. “Yes, sure,” she would say to me, “just stay with truth as you see it.”

Janet was always positive and receptive to new ideas. We’ll learn more further on about her and the magical work she brought to a whole new generation of practitioners.

At present, more than twenty years later, Healing Touch continues to be a vital program of hands-on healing, and its courses are available to interested people from all walks of life. In this book, we’ll explore some of the basic concepts of HT, caring theory, and the most relevant research. You’ll also learn several of the most practical methods for helping friends and loved ones as well as yourself.

It is my privilege to be an ambassador for Healing Touch. It is my hope that reading this book and using its ideas will pique your curiosity and interest, enlarge your “inner light,” and activate the caring outreach that is so needed in our world at this time!

PART I

THE ADVENTURE OF HEALING TOUCH

CHAPTER ONE

Healing Touch Stories from Everyday Lived Experiences

“There is no end. There is no beginning.

There is only the infinite passion of life.”

—FILMMAKER FEDERICO FELLINI

Healing Touch (HT) provides a direct, unfettered approach for relief from physical and emotional distress. Although Western, conventional medicine has focused on primarily treating illness in the body, everyone knows that body and mind are, in fact, inseparable. Each of us is a person with physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual capacities within one resplendent being.

When there is good health in all of these dimensions, we are whole. Healing comes from the Greek word holos, meaning “whole.” Healing is the process that happens when stressed or ill persons recover their wholeness and evolve toward higher levels of functioning.

The impact of HT over the past twenty plus years is demonstrated by its effective, noninvasive methods for restoring wholeness to people suffering from physical and/or psychological distress. Often, healing changes in clients receiving HT occur in relatively short amounts of time, as if the human body and mind are designed to reorganize and align toward ever-evolving health via methods that are harmonious to all aspects of the whole person.

Since the late 1980s, Healing Touch, an active form of hands-on caring, has proven its ability to positively affect every aspect of human life. The situations reported here are real and have been repeated thousands of times. The stories come from the trenches of everyday activity as well as from clinical settings. To get a taste of HT at work, we’ll explore a sampling of actual life experiences in the following areas:

responding to emergencies

dealing with family dramas

reducing caregiver burnout

helping to decrease pain and anxiety

facilitating transitions

Responding to Emergencies

Healing Touch is literally as close as the presence of a caring person. It is ideal for giving immediate response to a disaster. Wherever people find themselves, especially in crisis situations, opportunities arise for healing and implementing conscious choices. With a hands-on energetic method such as Healing Touch, it is possible to help restore a sense of personal wholeness for the person in need.

Story: Grandma to the Rescue!

Linda, a grandmother from Texas who learned basic HT methods at her senior center, sent me a description of a frightening personal experience:

“Last summer my twelve-year-old granddaughter, Tanya, was riding on a water toy behind my jet ski. We were having a great time until she fell off and injured her left hand. It hurt so badly that it hung limply and could not be moved or used.” As soon as I got her onto the back of my jet ski, Tanya intuitively reached out to me and said, “Please hold my hand.” While sitting on the floating jet ski, I took her little, wet, cold hand between my hands and immediately felt the sense of a warm, loving light. This lasted about a minute and then we both took a few deep breaths and slowly rode back to the dock. Tanya kept her hands on my waist, and I held her left hand. It seemed there was a flow of energy from my hand into hers for the entire ten minutes until we reached the shore.

“When we arrived on land, I performed an HT technique, Hands in Motion, over her left hand for about a minute. This calmed Tanya and reduced the pain. She brightened, smiled at me, and said, ‘You know, Grandma, it’s all better.’ I was so relieved!”

“After I took her home, Tanya’s mother and I agreed that a medical exam and X-rays were needed. The results showed no fractures; the injuries were limited to severe muscle strains and bruises. Tanya received occupational therapy for several weeks until she regained full function of her hand. I was so thankful for knowing HT interventions in that time of crisis! I also learned how HT, combined with conventional medical care, could lead to positive outcomes.”

Undoubtedly, Linda’s caring intention had been communicated directly to her grandchild. Because Linda had learned HT, she knew how to quickly access inner peace, a process we call “centering.” Then, Linda activated the caring touch that facilitated what she imaged as an energy flow. The fear and anxiety that could have easily emerged were mitigated by Linda’s quick, conscious choice to center and connect with the injured child. The trust between Tanya and her grandmother created the link to facilitate relief.

As shown by this incident, Healing Touch interventions are highly portable. One of the great gifts of energy-based modalities is their applicability to all kinds of settings from hospitals to outpatient and hospice facilities, as well as to everyday situations in homes, schools, businesses, or while traveling. Our natural, innate wish to lessen distress or pain in others can be activated with a simple shift in consciousness such as Linda’s centering response. Despite the reality of high-tech medicine in most conventional settings, no gadgets or tools were required to bring about the healing effects described in the vignette. A brief time of intentional movement sufficed to relieve pain.

The HT method known as Magnetic Passes—Hands in Motion and Hands Still is described in more detail later. While the exact mechanisms for this outcome remain only partially understood, the results speak for themselves. In the last three decades of exploration, practitioners of energetic modalities such as HT have found relief of anxiety and pain perception to be the most direct effects of their interventions.

Another valuable aspect of Linda’s story is the way it shows the coming together of HT approaches with conventional medical care. While HT is frequently a stand-alone method used by laypersons and health-care practitioners to facilitate body-mind-spirit healing, it is also well-recognized as a complement to Western medicine.

All parents wish the best outcomes for their children. Seeking medical evaluation and follow-up are essential even after the pain subsides. In this case, exercise with hand movements was needed to restore full function to Tanya’s hand, something that could have been missed without medical assessment.

Considering the incident in other ways, the outcome could have been considerably worse without the immediate calming responses of the grandparent who knew HT. For example, unaddressed anxiety can lead to exaggerated pain perceptions, especially in sensitive, preadolescent children such as Tanya.

Many examples of HT responses in emergency situations can be cited. The ability “to know what to do when no one quite knows what to do” seems to be an inherent part of HT’s gift to complementary health care.

Dealing with Family Dramas

Family life can be likened to a roller coaster; something is always up or down. Kids of all ages get upset with each other and fight in efforts to establish their place in the family as a preparation for later life in the hierarchical world. HT interventions offer practical ways to increase awareness among family members and can be used to mend the many interrelationships lived out in the primary family—husband/wife, mother/daughter, mother/son, father/son, father/daughter, and all who are joined together in a family activity.

Story: Mother Increases Family Peace

Mary sought counsel from a family friend because her three children were always fighting, and because they had difficulty falling asleep after watching TV. She felt hopeless that things could ever improve. Her friend suggested several of the calming HT methods that Mary could use for herself and later on with each child. He also explained the irritating, brain-stimulating impact of microwaves emitted by a television’s vibrational field, even with nonviolent programs. After a little practice, Mary used HT with each child after spending one-on-one time with them in the evenings, either reading or storytelling. Bedtimes quickly became a time of increased intimacy and peacefulness.

Mary explained, “When the youngest was ready for bed, she really surrendered. The more I passed my hands over her energy field, the more relaxed she became, looking more and more like she was love-drunk. I could feel this so-sweet spirit filling up. It was intoxicating! I smiled down on her and commented, ‘You really like this stuff, don’t you?’”

Her daughter answered, “Well, I didn’t know you could do real magic!” Then she fell asleep almost instantly.

“A true love story, my children are,” said Mary. “They are so resilient, so malleable, so strong. I always find it amazing how willing they are to love and how perceptive they can be when they feel safe and respected.”

Mary’s family life changed dramatically when she centered herself frequently during the day as she went through the usual routines in preparation for the children’s return from school and took charge of the chaos. She fell in love with her children again. Later on, the children’s grades improved as well.

Reducing Caregiver Burnout

At some point in life, almost everyone becomes a caregiver for another person. While the nurturing of a newborn may require around-the-clock efforts, needs diminish over time and are replaced by the rewards of seeing a child grow up. Even under favorable circumstances, however, many parents become exhausted by the burdens of childrearing and the limited time for meeting their own needs.

Becoming a caregiver for a chronically ill or aging person whose health gradually declines over an indefinite period is another challenge. At present, nearly ten million Americans are involved in caring for their elderly relatives because people are simply living longer.[1] Unlike childrearing, however, caregiving for someone with long-term disabilities has few built-in rewards other than the sense of inner satisfaction that caregivers must learn to give to themselves.

Story: Susie Gets Her Bearings Back

My friend Susie had the good fortune to marry a physician with an excellent income, who was fifteen years her senior. When she turned sixty-five, her husband was eighty. He became a cranky, quarrelsome senior who did not like any direction and was used to being right. Worse, he began to lose the personality and wit that had so charmed her, and showed increasing signs of mental deterioration. Susie began to wear herself out trying to give care at home, so she found a congenial assisted living setting for her husband. Alas, the staff could not cope with him either and recommended that he be transferred to a dementia unit. When faced with this terribly difficult choice, Susie began to fall apart. She cried incessantly, could not make decisions, and seemed to have lost her bearings.

When I met with Susie, I reminded her of the HT methods she had learned in a workshop many years before. Spontaneously, she touched herself lightly on the head. “I remember HT for the caregiver was such an important part of the training,” she said. “How did I forget what I most needed for myself?”

With this insight, Susie accessed deeper levels of centering and self-care and was able to begin accepting herself and her dilemma. She allowed herself to grieve intensely the loss of her husband’s personality. At the same time she released the tension with frequent clearing of her energy field. After facing the conflicts within herself, she decided to find the best possible care for her husband by interviewing nursing-home staffs. She reconnected with prayer and her faith. A sense of trust and confidence developed within her despite her husband’s deteriorating condition. To date, she lives with a clear sense of purpose while fulfilling the exceedingly difficult task of watching the gradual decline of a loved one.

Hospital nurses are most familiar with the signs of caregiver burnout, including exhaustion, inability to think clearly, unproductive overactivity, indecisiveness, hopeless crying, and becoming stonily removed.[2] Because of this, nurses quickly resonate with energetic interventions such as centering and caregiver self-care, which are essential elements in becoming an energy-oriented practitioner. In today’s world, laypersons and professionals from all walks of life are drawn to HT, not only because of the calming effect of the methods on their friends and relatives, but also because of the “return to one’s self” that is an integral part of the basic training courses.

Helping to Decrease Pain

The effects of energetic interventions for pain management have become almost legendary. Willing volunteers, who have learned HT as a complement to medication, use their skills in hospitals, schools, homes, service clubs, hospices, clinics, and community centers. After centering themselves, they often use some of the pain relief methods specifically described in chapter 11. The methods appear to be effective for relieving the sudden onset of pain that may occur after a fall or surgery, as well as for long-term, recurring painful conditions such as arthritis.

HT practitioner Barbara sent me this account of how she used HT to help her arthritic mother.

Story: Mother Relinquishes Her Cane

“When I arrived at my brother’s home, Mother was lying on the couch on her left side, the position that gave her the most relief from chronic arthritis pain,” remembers Barbara. “After a quick lunch, I asked her if she would like some Healing Touch from me. Since Mother knew about HT, she quickly agreed. She lay down on the couch. I centered myself and then prayed for guidance in helping her to reach whatever would be for her highest good. I assessed her energy field and noted a blocked area below her feet and a thickness or density in the right gluteal area. I sent my helping intention to the dense area of congestion by moving my hands directly above her body in that location.”

After several moments, the thickness Barbara had sensed dissipated, and she removed her hands. The energy in that area now seemed to be flowing more readily and felt smooth and lighter. “I then concentrated on Mother’s specific pain by placing my left hand on the gluteal area and my right hand above on the abdomen.” I held the image of energy and light flowing through the areas for approximately five minutes. When I felt less heat, I released my hands slowly. I stepped back and gently told Mother that the session was complete and asked her how she felt.

“She sat up with a beautiful glow on her face and asked, ‘What did you do?’ I explained as best I could about the techniques I used. She exclaimed, ‘I can’t believe this; I have no pain!’ She and I were both amazed. In fact, I couldn’t believe my eyes when she got up off the couch and walked painlessly around the room. I even asked, ‘Are you sure, Mom? How would you rate your pain on a scale of one to ten?’ She quickly replied, ‘Zero!’”

The next day, a Sunday, Barbara’s mother was able to do all the walking required to get in and out of the car, go to church, proceed to the altar for Communion, return to the pew, and then walk out to the car with minimal assistance. All of the family was astounded because she did not use her cane at all.

Facilitating Transitions

Our lives are filled with transitions. The most notable ones, of course, are birth after nine months of gestation and physical death into the great beyond. However, there are many smaller transitions as well—from childhood to adolescence, from school to career, from being single to partnering, from adulthood to midlife maturity, and on to the aging process. Some transitions are so gradual they are hardly noticeable except on looking back; others loom before us like an apparent crisis. Healing Touch can be a steady companion in times of change and help us to gain a wider perception of ourselves within these turbulences.

Here is another example of HT in action when needed.

Story: Dad Creates Family Bond

Ben, a new father who learned HT in the preparation-for-birth classes at the local community hospital, was able to assist his wife, Sally, through labor and delivery with HT maneuvers. Everything went smoothly until they got home.

He wrote: “Sally, proud new mother, was home holding our newborn who was crying loudly and fussing even after being fed and diapered. Sally walked back and forth trying to calm our little girl. No success. Then she rocked her. Nothing seemed to appease this baby who had been so angelic before. I could feel the baby’s distress and my wife’s anxiety. I really did not want to interfere in any way but wondered if HT, which had worked so well with my wife during labor, could help our daughter as well.”

“At some point I could no longer resist. I entered the room and quietly asked my wife if she wanted some Healing Touch for our baby. She agreed and sat down again, obviously ready to try anything. Please understand; this baby had a strong and steady voice and a gut-wrenching cry. I approached with my hands, not touching, just holding her field. She launched one squeak ... and then literally melted into my wife’s arms. Our eyes widened when there was an enduring silence. Again, I witnessed the power of this hands-on method. I brushed and held our baby’s field for a few more minutes while my wife and I connected deeply into the relationship that now included this fascinating newcomer. Suddenly, I knew what they were speaking of in our prenatal classes when they talked about ‘bonding.’”

The Healing Touch Landscape Today

Thousands of stories like these abound. As of current reckoning, more than a hundred thousand people have attended at least one HT class and nearly four thousand practitioners are certified after completing the five-level basic training. Although the program originally began within the nursing profession, as we’ll see in the next chapter, many workshop participants are not only allied healthcare professionals from the social sciences, but also laypersons from all walks of life and all family roles, including mothers, husbands, grandmothers, siblings, neighbors, and friends, much like the people cited in the preceding tales.

Currently, the Healing Touch Program (HTP) offers more than seven hundred classes each year throughout the United States and Canada. HT has been taught in thirty-two nations. Information about these offerings and the activities of HTP is available via the free Energy Magazine at energymagazineonline.com. As of 2010, the publication enjoys a circulation of over twenty thousand.[3]

***

You may be wondering how such a strong program could develop in a relatively short time. Several factors contributed to HT’s undisputed success, and we’ll learn about them as we proceed.

CHAPTER TWO

A Dream Comes to Life: How Healing Touch Happened

“Imagine a community that acknowledges intuitive wisdom and where scientific discoveries integrate with heart-centered caring. If this vision resonates with you, you may want to join the many Healing Touch caregivers who are already creating such a worldwide community.”

—DOROTHEA HOVER-KRAMER

Healing Touch grew rapidly because it was a right idea for our times. Most of the enthusiasm of the initial days focused on the convergence of several elements: a tireless and gifted initiator, a network of nurses searching for new ways to help their patients, the collegiality of interested seekers who formed the initial training groups, and the willingness of uncounted volunteers to bring HT to their communities across the nation.

Like a wave starting to crest, many practices of energy-linked modalities had surfaced in the 1980s, including reiki, polarity therapy, pranic healing, shiatsu, tai chi and qigong, and the teachings of Rosalyn L. Bruyere, Barbara Brennan, and Brugh Joy. With the growing development of the American Holistic Nurses Association and the American Holistic Medical Association, health-care professionals and the public began to focus on alternative and complementary approaches for relief of anxiety and pain. When the HT course developed by Janet Mentgen and her colleagues first appeared nationally in 1990, this interest swept into a tidal wave that spread out to reach many untouched shores.

Setting the Stage for HT

The founding of the American Holistic Nurses Association (AHNA) in 1980 gave a new outlet for my explorer’s nature, and I enthusiastically joined founder Charlotte McGuire to serve on its board of directors for nearly ten years. Here was a great opportunity to meet with some of the leaders in the new holistic, alternative modalities as they began to blossom into what is now known as complementary or integrative medicine. It has been an exciting adventure also to join the many health-care consumers who have begun to seek out less invasive therapies for improved human functioning and enhanced self-healing capacities.

As a psychologist, I was on the lookout for a program that could teach principles of personal self-care to the many wounded practitioners in health-care professions. My ears perked up when I heard about Janet Mentgen, a holistic nurse who taught methods that integrated hands-on healing approaches. Janet had been teaching her own integrated version of energy therapy, which included elements of Therapeutic Touch as well as the work of new presenters and several indigenous healers. She had put her own spin on it and developed a one-semester course, which she had been successfully teaching for several years at Red Rocks Community College in Colorado. Not only was her material fascinating, but Janet also had a personal style of quietly doing the “right thing.” She was honored in 1988 as AHNA’s Holistic Nurse of the Year for her untiring efforts in bringing the new concepts of energy therapies to nursing.

Janet participated in AHNA’s regional meeting in Florida early in 1989, where I first saw her in action. She seemed to have a single-minded will to bring increased wellness to all seventy participants there. Late into the night, she worked to relieve pain; to activate sluggish, depleted energies; and to bring about deep relaxation with her hand movements and caring intention.

Janet’s demonstration, as part of her presentation at the conference, sealed my determination to include her work as one of the courses AHNA could offer nurses, health-care professionals, and interested laypersons. It happened that one of the participants at the regional meeting had coughed all night, keeping her roommates awake and cranky. The roommates offered this unfortunate lady as a subject for Janet’s demonstration, and she willingly accepted.

Janet assisted the woman in getting onto the treatment table while she continued to cough. Then, during a brief but notable moment, Janet set her intention and quickly brought her hands into the woman’s energy field. Even though I did not understand the hand movements, to me it looked like an energetic ballet. I could see streamers of light coming off Janet’s fingers as she pulled out what appeared to be dark fuzzy material from the lady’s chest. I was fascinated by Janet’s spinning hand movements, which added power to her concentration while the energy flowed like showers of light from her hands. After about half an hour, both Janet and the woman were fully surrounded by the same “light” I used to see around healthy living things. There was no further coughing that night, much to the relief of the roommates. But, interestingly, the long-term congestion that had caused the coughing never returned for the rest of the lady’s lifetime.

Throughout the demonstration, I felt deeply moved by the shift in health I was witnessing and determined that AHNA should offer Janet’s course to its members. Thinking aloud what came to me as an educator and therapist, I suggested, “With AHNA’s established networks we could reach interested nurses, health-care professionals, and even laypersons with this course. Through AHNA’s nonprofit educational status, we could make your course available for continuing education credits, which most professionals need as well.”

We agreed to meet later that summer to discuss many ideas about what we might accomplish.

Healing Touch Gets Its Name

At the appointed time, Janet welcomed me to her Denver home and we began a collaboration that continues to evolve. Janet also invited Susan Morales, one of her Canadian students, to join us. After a short period of meditation, the three of us began hands-on healing exchanges.

Relaxed and shiny after having my energy field smoothed, I opened with, “What shall we call this new program we’ll offer through the AHNA networks?”

Susan was clear: “Well, we can’t call it Therapeutic Touch because that’s a well-established program and besides, Janet’s program is quite different.”

We started playing with words: healing, transformation, energy movement, energy balancing, touch but not really physical touch, touch in the human energy field. Nothing quite fit until all three of us called out seemingly at once, “How about Healing Touch?”

The words hung in the air and vibrated with a resonance that danced.

The paperwork of ordering Janet’s material into five weekend packages followed. I wrote behavioral objectives and evaluation criteria for each segment and filled in with references to current literature. Level 1, as we called it, was ready to launch in October of 1989 with the help of Dr. Sharon Scandrett-Hibdon, then at the University of Tennessee. Together we assembled the basic components of what is now known as the Healing Touch standardized curriculum, which is taught to this day through the large organizational arm of the Healing Touch Program (HTP).

Expansion of the Course Networks

The following year, more than thirty programs of the Level 1 course were offered throughout the United States with the generous help of AHNA networkers. Single-sheet handouts evolved into orderly packets, and several years later, we had a manual. Additional course levels were offered each year and more sophisticated notebooks were developed to accompany the trainings. In 1993, nearly thirty students of all five levels graduated. Completion of the basic program included a year of apprenticeship, mastery of the curriculum, and a proven ability to significantly enhance client well-being.

The stage was set for a certification program to acknowledge the new practitioners of Healing Touch. Healing Touch became AHNA’s first certificate program and it is now one of ten additional holistic health-care programs sponsored and approved by AHNA.

Indeed, we had pioneered the first certification program for health-care professionals and laypersons in hands-on energy healing practices. Certification began opening doors for those seeking new career paths. An influx of sensitive people from many other professions, especially the computer sciences, joined the ranks. The time was ripe for what we called “high touch” to complement the computerized world of virtual, isolated human interactions. Hospitals and outpatient settings had become predominantly high tech, and the idea of direct human contact via purposeful and caring interventions had a timeless appeal.

Up to the present, HTP has continued to expand its outreach, not only in teaching the basic five-level core curriculum that can lead to certification, but in adding specialty courses such as instructor training, working with specific populations, addressing trauma, and teaching practitioner self-care principles. HT now reaches its audiences through a wide variety of media including a monthly free online magazine, annual worldwide and regional conferences, online telecourses, webinars, case-study books, and an online store.[1]

The most frequently taught workshop is, naturally, the Level 1 Healing Touch course, since it is open to anyone who is interested in learning resources for hands-on healing. It is a practical, interactive workshop, which provides so much information and actual experiencing of the methods that many people take it more than once. The teachers of all the courses are gifted practitioners who have undergone extensive training in educational principles to engage their students as fully as possible. Of the more than one hundred thousand individuals who have taken Level 1 to date, nearly 70 percent go on to take another level. HT has become a major influence in the health-care field, as we will elaborate further in the next chapter.

Janet Passes the Baton to New Leaders

From the beginning, HT resonated with health-care professionals across the United States. Janet Mentgen and the colleagues she inspired (including me) reached nurses and other health-care workers who wanted to give more to their patients than the surgical and chemical interventions evident in most conventional medical settings. Many course participants attended with the desire to overcome their sense of discouragement with the limitations of the Western medical model. Like a magician opening new doors, Janet helped them to actualize their dreams by activating their good intentions to help people in need. As time went on, she inspired many of these seekers to develop independent practices as professional energy medicine practitioners.

Because HT grew so rapidly, it was difficult for Janet to handle the complex aspects of running the growing program and business with its thousands of daily requests. Many students required frequent, gentle nurturing before they could claim their own power. Janet had a delightful style of being both very human and much larger than human. I often saw her play with abandon, letting out the inner child by playfully walking or talking in funny ways. Always, she was most eloquent when talking about the intricate details of a healing process, describing the energy field interactions she and many other practitioners could see and sense.

Sadly, Janet’s body began to wear out. Despite being exhausted and tired from fighting lung cancer, she attended the HT annual international conference in September 2005 with more than six hundred students and practitioners. Three days later, she passed on. By then, Janet had mentored one of her finest students, Cynthia Hutchison, a doctorally prepared holistic nurse, to become the Healing Touch Program director.

As would be expected, the first two years were challenging. Often, loss of a program’s founder results in the demise of an organization. Instead, the Healing Touch Program continued to thrive and expand through the good will of the many HT practitioners and the strength of its basic curriculum.

Now, the program has found a new vitality that likely exceeds all of Janet’s dreams. Cynthia has brought a depth and a clarity to the teachings that encourages newcomers and long-term practitioners alike. Janet’s daughter, Lisa Mentgen-Gordon, has decisively taken the helm as chief executive officer.

New Developments within the Healing Touch Program

In addition to its five-level curriculum leading to certification as a practitioner, the Healing Touch Program now offers training for instructors and advanced practice courses on a number of timely topics. Several spin-off programs have also been created to follow special student interests. These delightful programs include Healing Touch for Animals, Healing Touch Spiritual Ministry, and Healing Touch for Babies.

Thousands of health-care professionals and laypersons are now connected to the Healing Touch Program, and hundreds of thousands of people have benefited from receiving Healing Touch in times of physical, emotional, and spiritual crisis.

The Healing Touch Professional Association (HTPA), created in 2008 within the HT Program structure, provides a forum for practitioner business guidance. It also serves to support members, whether they are students, practitioners, instructors, or others, with educational offerings related to developing HT businesses and private practices, networking opportunities, liability insurance, and political news.[2]

The Healing Touch Worldwide Foundation (HTWF) develops funding for research and humanitarian projects, including sending HT instructors to other nations such as Nepal and South Africa where community interest in learning HT has become established.[3] To round out the new organizational structures, the Healing Touch Certification (HTC) board supervises autonomous administration of the certification process for graduates of the five-level course.

Significantly, HT practitioners benefit from their practice as well. Their health and well-being seems to increase in the sharing of HT methods and through the self-care component that is an essential part of the practice.

***

As HT continued to grow and develop, it became a leader in the new field of energy medicine. As we shall see, HT is also a substantial participant in the emerging concepts of integrative health care.

CHAPTER THREE

Healing Touch as a Major Participant in Today’s Integrative Health Care

A Brief History of Healing

5000 BC—I have an earache and go to see the village healer who gives me herbal teas and holds his hands over my ear. I feel better.

500 BC—I have an earache and go to the Greek dream temple where I watch a drama about my problem, and a chorus of advisors known as theraps (the root of today’s word “therapist”) helps me to feel better.

1870 AD—I have an earache and am advised to go to a surgeon who drains out the infection. I feel a lot of pain but later the ear is better.

1970 AD—I have an earache and am given an antibiotic. Very quickly, I feel better.

2011 AD—I have an earache but the bacteria are resistant to all antibiotics. I’m instructed to see an herbalist who gives me herbs and teas. I also visit a therapist who releases emotional issues related to the earache, and I consult with an energy-medicine practitioner who passes her hands over my ears and body. I feel much better and also gain new insights about preventing future earaches.

—adapted from an anonymous note

The little parody given here summarizes some of the major phases in the evolution of medical care. It seems we’ve come full circle, back to traditional treatments such as herbs and hands-on interventions when usual medical approaches or medications are not sufficient. Although conventional Western medicine has come to focus almost exclusively on surgical or chemical techniques to effect cures, the need for methods to address long-term issues has steadily grown with increased life spans. Because of growing resistance to drugs in most populations, we are again considering additional avenues to relieve suffering—psychotherapy, herbal or homeopathic interventions, and approaches that work with the human energy system. Ultimately the goal of all effective treatments is to prevent further recurrence of a disease and minimize future disabilities. Prevention through education is a central focus in current health-care planning.

The conventional medical model focuses on elimination of an illness by countering its effects on the body. The term allopathic describes this orientation to “oppose” the pathological disease process directly. For example, an infection is usually treated with an antibiotic, literally meaning anti (against) bios (life). This approach generally works well for most acute conditions, with total eradication of the causative agents. This is deemed a cure. Surgery also removes the cause of some health problems. As many are beginning to realize, however, the missing element is that patients may never learn to prevent future infections or understand the many ways they can maintain high-level wellness.

Other models of health care are becoming more prominent as public interest mounts for enhanced well-being throughout the human life span. Initially, these approaches were labeled “alternative” medicine, but currently such approaches are called “complementary” or “adjunctive” medicine, suggesting their function within a more inclusive health-care model.

The term integrative health care has come to the forefront to describe medical clinics and offices that acknowledge and encompass the best of both allopathic and complementary modalities. Thus, integrative health care may involve conventional medical providers such as medical doctors, physician’s assistants, and advanced registered nurse practitioners as well as related practitioners such as counselors, herbalists, massage therapists, and energy medicine practitioners. The emphasis in integrative health care is not only on relief of symptoms but on client education and self-care. “Healing,” as differentiated from “curing,” deals with the whole person. Clients in integrative facilities learn from their pain and find ways to address underlying issues, to gain psychological insights about their stresses, to improve thinking and belief patterns, to connect with their inner wisdom, and to honor and respect their unique humanity.

Current estimates show that more than 80 percent of the American population turns to one or more complementary modalities to find physical and psychological relief.1 This trend toward use of complementary modalities is significant, especially since most payments for services have to come out of pocket as many insurers do not cover them.

Developments Toward Integrative Health Care

A bit of history is helpful in understanding the evolution of holistic, integrative thinking as a reflection of growing consumer interest. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has been the organizational bastion for conventional medical care in America. As a result of consumer-led demands to legitimize other approaches, NIH established a small office of alternative (non-allopathic) medicine in the 1980s. This office grew steadily, and by the beginning of the twenty-first century, a joint panel of leaders in conventional and holistic care practices decided the word “alternative” implied limited “either/or” choices to the patient. Use of the word “complementary” came into prominence as it captured the meaning of complement, an adjunctive modality that fills out or completes conventional practices. Thus, the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) was established to acknowledge, standardize, and initiate study of the diverse elements of non-allopathic endeavors. The NCCAM defined seven areas of these adjuncts to conventional medical care. They include:

1.
Bio-electromagnetic applications

2.
Alternative systems of medical practice, including Oriental medicine, acupuncture, ayurvedic medicine, homeopathy, and Native American medicine

3.
Manual healing methods such as massage, somatic therapies, and chiropractic interventions

4.
Pharmacological and biological treatments not yet accepted by mainstream medicine

5.
Herbal medicines

6.
Treatments focusing on diet and nutrition in the prevention and treatment of chronic diseases

7.
Interventions that bring about integration of body and mind such as yoga, prayer, mental and emotional healing, and energy medicine modalities[2]

The last category, energy medicine, is based on new understandings of minute electromagnetic information systems within the human body. Since some forms of this energy system cannot as yet be objectively measured, energy medicine has also been labeled “frontier medicine.” The NCCAM budget is thin by comparison to the massive budgets for other NIH centers such as the Center for the Study of Heart Disease, but it has been steadily gaining increasing public interest since its inception. The inclusion of energy modalities as part of a national center is significant mainly because it acknowledges that HT, as one of the leaders in energy medicine, has a nationally acknowledged place within complementary modalities and the larger framework of integrative health care.

Because energy medicine is such a newly emerging field, students and practitioners of energy modalities must take care to base their work on current knowledge and evidence-based practice. The Healing Touch Program leads the way with its careful attention to theory, scientific exploration, ongoing research, and by creating effective organizational and ethical structures. This kind of leadership is essential. Michael Cohen, a leading complementary legal advisor and health-care ethicist, warns, “Make no mistake: energy therapies still occupy a legal gray zone for many professions and in many states.”[3]

Because of the need for caution, the HT Program has carefully considered ethics and practice guidelines (further discussed in chapters 14-16). In addition, HT is expanding its credentials beyond certification to include accreditation from a national organization that oversees and validates hundreds of healthcare certification programs. As of 2011, Healing Touch will be the first program in the United States to be nationally accredited within the pioneering field of energy medicine.

Healing Touch as a Vital Component in Today’s Integrative Health Care

Healing Touch is a vital component within the integrative health-care movement. It shines brightest as a complement to conventional and other complementary treatments because it is based on integrative, holistic principles derived from the social sciences, the nursing process, and Dr. Jean Watson’s internationally known theory of caring.[4] HT also has a growing body of scientific understandings and research to support its presence in mainstream health care, as we shall find out.

For hospitalized patients, HT offers compassionate and intentional human caring from skilled professionals or trained volunteers to help alleviate pain, diminish pre- or post-procedural anxiety, and effect needed relaxation. In other medical facilities, such as one-day surgical centers and outpatient clinics, HT practitioners can serve as the human connection between high-technology interventions and patients’ emotional needs. In palliative or hospice settings, HT practitioners—who may be nurses, social workers, or lay volunteers—provide deeper levels of emotional and spiritual care to people suffering serious long-term illness or who are in the process of dying. In many institutional settings, HT practitioners are closely aligned with physicians and ancillary health-care personnel as part of the full treatment team.

In private care settings, which are attracting more and more HT caregivers, practitioners can offer individualized energy-based treatments to address a number of issues related to client well-being. To increase their effectiveness, these practitioners also establish strong professional referral networks to manage specific client issues.

Many helpers who use HT spontaneously uncover emotional trauma of which the client had only premonitions or was totally unaware. This can occur because trauma appears to be stored energetically in the body’s “biofield,” its layers, meridians, and/or energy centers, and can therefore surface spontaneously during a session. Therefore, HT methods can also gently and successfully support those who have experienced emotional trauma, a subject discussed further in chapter 13.

The intention in HT is to assist client welfare by aligning with the unlimited supply of energy in the universe through the practitioner’s centered focus. In a recent personal communication, HT practitioner and instructor Janna Moll clarified: “What we are doing is holding a space for clients where they can connect to their divine and perfect expression—and inviting them into this as much as possible [for themselves]. It is not about my information or my consciousness, and certainly not my goals for the client, but about their own needs and desires—from a place of wholeness.”

Models of Integrative Health Care

Integrative health-care models have already been studied and evaluated by American veterans administrations to find the best pathways for helping veterans with chronic pain, stress-related depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). A recent two-year study conducted in Salt Lake City, Utah, showed that the city’s Veterans Affairs Integrative Health Clinic and Program effectively diminished patient symptoms without using extensive medication—instead focusing on psychological and sociological approaches.[5] Additionally, interest in helping veterans with complementary approaches is rapidly growing because of the complexity of the problems that cannot be resolved with conventional medicine alone.

As of 2010, several VA hospitals have already incorporated HT as part of their integrative health services. HT practitioner Lynne O’Donnell reports that the Veterans Administration hospital in Chicago approved HT to be included in its daily interdisciplinary pain clinic, which has embraced regular HTP class offerings for staff.[6] The project includes data collection for research to officially measure the effects of HT in pain reduction. It is to be hoped that, with more such initiatives, we will see an increasing number of veterans receiving HT. Administering HT within veteran care facilities is a most nurturing and supportive way to welcome our servicemen and women back from the war fronts!

Another example of a dynamic integrative health-care model is taking place at the Scripps Center for Integrative Medicine located near San Diego, California. The center offers instructional courses in six-week programs for preventive care as well as for post-coronary recovery using the integrative medical model of well-known cardiologist Dr. Dean Ornish, in addition to HT. Basic HT treatments, similar to the ones you’ll learn in this book, are taught to the many patients enrolled in the Scripps Center programs.[7]

The integrative health-care model with HT involvement is also catching on in many other parts of the country. Lourdes Lorenz, director of Integrative Medicine at Mission Hospital in Asheville, NC, has been able to galvanize the nursing staff into learning all levels of HT and applying it to patient care in all parts of the facility.[8]

Another example is the Minneapolis General Hospital, which implemented HT for its heart patients and also supported comprehensive research on the role of HT in patient recovery after cardiac surgery. The study demonstrated a half-million-dollar savings to the hospital in reduced length of hospital stays.[9]

Many other models exist that combine conventional medical care with complementary modalities to provide an integrated practice for optimal patient benefit. A successfully operating integrative center, Whole Health Chicago, is an independent medical clinic in which a large complement of practitioners unites to formulate the best outcomes for their clients. The staff includes an internist physician, a chiropractor, an acupuncturist, a clinical psychologist, a nutritionist, a homeopath, a massage therapist, an herbalist and flower essence expert, a physical therapist, and an HT practitioner, Katie Oberlin. Clinical psychologist Dr. Larry Stoler combines his academic skills with expertise in energy psychology and medical qigong. This collaborative staff has worked together for nearly a decade to bring patients the best from both conventional medicine and complementary approaches.[10]

Expanded Roles for Healing Touch

The advent of the integrative health-care model has meant an expansion of roles for anyone interested in learning about Healing Touch practice. The public is actively seeking new ways of resolving health problems encountered in all stages of the life cycle and especially of addressing the progressive physical and emotional issues of aging. Thus, we’ll learn about HT participation in community centers, prenatal clinics, family education, senior centers, and retirement communities as we proceed. HT training courses are also being offered in thirty-two other nations, so its caring influence is literally visible worldwide.

***

You might be wondering: How does a nonpharmaceutical, nonsurgical intervention work to help the body to heal? Why is there such a strong response from people all over the world to a noninvasive process that is basically free of cost and readily available?

We’ll explore some of the clues as we look in the next three chapters at the theories underlying the energy medicine model, its scientific framework, and the available research about these fascinating methods.

PART II

THEORY, SCIENCE, AND RESEARCH SUPPORTING ENERGY MEDICINE

CHAPTER FOUR

Energy Medicine’s History and Theory

“Western civilization is virtually unique in history in its failure to recognize each human being as a subtle energy system in constant relationship to a vast sea of energies in the surrounding cosmos.”

—CANADIAN SOCIOLOGY PROFESSOR EDWARD MANN

Since the beginning of the human story, reaching out to help one another has been a natural response. We can infer that injured people in many early cultures received care because they continued to live within their communities despite handicaps that can be noted in skeletal evidence. Caring for one another is undoubtedly one of our finest human traits.

It is likely that our ancestors found that their life energies could best be protected and enhanced by living in harmony with natural surroundings. Native Americans, for example, identified closely with nature and intuitively responded to environmental forces. They attributed special meanings and powers to wind, sun, stars, water, plants, and animals. They learned to survive by drawing on nature’s powers to assist in dealing with injuries and finding sustenance. Information was shared orally as people experimented and succeeded in using empowering thoughts, symbols, and herbs to facilitate healing. Over time, the people who were especially intuitive and caring became designated as healers or shamans in their tribe. Women healers were particularly sought out to assist with childbirth and in maintaining family health. Healers were highly respected and necessary to the tribe’s survival.

Historical methods of enhancing the human energy system have been documented worldwide. More than four thousand years ago, healers in ancient Egypt used energetic symbols such as the ankh to facilitate breath and vitality. This symbol can still be seen at many Egyptian temple sites. At least five thousand years ago, Eastern Indian traditions called the human life force prana and studied the breath to enliven the body and calm the mind. Practices of pranayama (working with the breath to harmonize body, mind, and spirit) are still taught in yoga today.

Work with energy-flow pathways, called meridians, and their related acupoints was well known thousands of years ago. The Chinese called the vital life force qi (pronounced “chee”) and, with their knowledge of energy systems, refined the practice of acupuncture.

In ancient Greece, Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine, acknowledged the human energy field that surrounds the body, currently referred to as the biofield. This multilayered envelope was used as a resource for healing even then.

In the Christian era, Jesus was known as a healer who inspired a deep legacy of human caring and hands-on healing among his followers. To this day, the ancient Christian church’s term for human energy, spiritus, is used to represent higher aspects of human consciousness; it forms the root of modern words such as “spirit” and “spiritual.”

More than six hundred years ago, medical practice became more scientifically oriented with the practice of alchemy. Later, apothecaries and educational programs were established to develop herbal or chemically specific treatments for certain illnesses. Surgery became a more exacting science as well, and it began to be taught in universities. In a long stretch from the days when most surgeons were also barbers, providers of medical care became highly educated and well-respected community members. Traditional hands-on methods, herbal preparations, midwifery resources, and electrical stimulation continued to be available to the public until early in the twentieth century.

Then, in an effort to stamp out what was deemed to be “nonscientific,” powerful medical practitioners in Western Europe and America actively campaigned to dismiss the use of traditional “folk” remedies and the European medical practice of homeopathy. Western-style medicine became the standard of care with emphasis on surgical and chemical treatments focused on the physical body, all of which were practically divorced from the mind, emotions, and spirit. Eastern knowledge for promoting health with prana or qi was virtually unknown in the West until the 1960s.

Today, energy-related modalities are gaining wider acceptance, for many reasons. With mainstream medicine’s emphasis on pharmacology, one pressing reality is that most medications have serious side effects, and many are found to be downright harmful, especially if used over a long period. In many cases, multiple drug interactions, overdoses, and bacterial resistances to antibiotics have themselves become causes of illness and premature death. Another reality is the skyrocketing cost of the ever-better machines, drugs, and devices required for administering basic medical care and for ruling out more serious diagnoses. Finally, the reality of our much longer lifetimes leads many people to seek out additional possibilities for health maintenance beyond the conventions of pharmacological thinking.

With Einstein’s pioneering work in physics, present-day science is coming to understand that everything in our world is actually a form of energy, and all matter is organized into energetic fields. New discoveries are opening the doors to innovative energy-based resources for medical diagnosis and treatment, as we’ll see later in this book. The use of energetic modalities in current practices of Western medicine validates the presence of electromagnetic fields within and around the human body. Measurable, veritable human electromagnetic fields include human emanations of gamma rays, X-rays, ultraviolet light, visible light photons, and other vibrational frequencies.[1]

“Subtle energy,” a term first coined by Einstein, is present throughout the universe and is relatively more dense and complex within living organisms. Subtle energies and the fields they create are now considered key factors in restoring wholeness to the human organism. These fields are recognized as exemplars of our true essence while the physical body is just the temporary residence for the human soul or spirit. The subtle energies that underlie our vital life force are more difficult to verify, but with new discoveries, scientists have learned to measure frequencies of the energetic field as it relates to health and recovery from illness.

The known subtle energies within and around the human body include:

1.
The multidimensional biofield that interpenetrates and surrounds the physical body

2.
The major energy centers that exist in relation to the spinal column and serve to receive and send out vibrational energy

3.
The meridian pathways that course through the body and major organs

4.
Basic grids and flow patterns

5.
Subtle electrical and magnetic fields

6.
Subtle thought fields

7.
Morphogenetic fields, which are believed to transfer intergenerational information[2]

External energy sources from solar emanations, the earth’s magnetosphere, and geological features in the earth affect us as well. The electromagnetic fields of high power lines, microwave towers, and cell phones are also known to have a direct, often harmful influence on the body and its bioenergy.

We are not closed, isolated circuits or stand-alone islands. Instead, we are “interconnected, brilliant beams of energy” in constant interplay with the vibrational world around us.[3]

The Human Energy System as Understood in Healing Touch Practice

While energy medicine in its various forms may include work with several of the subtle-energy forms mentioned above, Healing Touch practice predominantly focuses on the energy centers and the related biofield, which appears to be created by the spinning and vibrational frequency of each center. The theoretical model stems from the more than five-thousand-year-old tradition of yoga and what has been seen or sensed by intuitive healers throughout human history.

Since each living organism has an electromagnetic vibrational field, many people, especially young children and those with open minds, actually can sense the varying energies of plants, animals, and humans. As a simple exercise, you may want to go to a forest to experience the calm sense of peace that large trees create. Or, you may go to a family farm to notice the different vitalities emitted from contented animals. Connecting with another person in silence and with caring intention can allow you to note that individual’s field or even his emotions. Usually, wide variations in vibrational intensity make it easier to sense the energy of another person. The most marked differences would be apparent in someone who is ill or very tired because her vital life force will likely be more diminished or constricted than that of a healthy person.

As energy medicine is still very new, you will most likely describe the experience of someone’s energy field in your own words since there is no agreed-upon “correct” language. In Healing Touch classes, students learn to assess the energy fields of classmates with their hands after carefully centering themselves. Student descriptions of the felt sense of a partner’s energy field range from noticing temperature or textural differences, to asymmetry between left and right sides or front and back of the field around the body. They have also noted energetic disruptions, and visual or auditory perceptions of energy movement. There is no right or wrong description because each person’s perceptive modes for their experience will differ.

You may wish to try assessing a friend’s field for practice. First, become peaceful inside and then just allow yourself to notice where there are differences within your friend’s field as you scan with your hands from a few inches to about eighteen inches above your partner’s body. When I was new to HT, I practiced assessing all my friends’ biofields, including the field of a colleague’s husband. Not knowing him whatsoever, I was surprised to find that one leg was very cold and seemingly “dead.” It turned out that he wore a prosthesis after losing that leg to a war injury.

For our purposes in this book, assessing the field of a person you wish to help is not necessary, but it’s helpful to know that assessment is part of the entire HT process (as presented in chapter 9). “Energy field disturbance” is an accepted nursing diagnosis that lends validity to the professional practice of HT methods in institutional settings. “Higher sense perception” of others’ fields comes with practice and the development of intuition.[4]

Healthy human biofields have many variations that may feel different over various parts of the body. They can, for example, feel full, vibrant, thick, light, dense, congested, or prickly when assessed. HT students learn that assessing hundreds of biofields will help them to understand the qualities of a balanced, open, and symmetrical field. In contrast, inflammation in a specific part of the body may feel very hot or tingly, and a field that is bumpy, dull, or sticky may accompany a systemic disease. A location where a traumatic blow occurred might feel locally expanded, contracted, or even painful to the practitioner. One colleague told me her nine-year-old son sensed gray, crumbly material around her jaw. Five days later, she had a tooth abscess in that area. This demonstrates an important point, which also has scientific support: energetic disruptions often precede physical illness and a noted change can help to identify very early stages of a disease process.[5]

The human biofield is composed of multiple layers. A simplified illustration is depicted in figure 4.1. The layers surround and interpenetrate the physical body to provide a magnificent network of subtle energies. They are also interrelated to the human energy centers, which we’ll learn more about shortly.

The personal biofield is full, vibrant, and expanded when we feel happy and healthy and can be contracted, distorted, and closer to the body when we experience sadness, depression, or health problems. The physical body and our emotions and mental/spiritual patterns are thus closely aligned through the biofield network. The whole biofield appears to function as an energetic information system, while the physical nervous system handles informational input from our five senses. The field is dynamic and can change moment to moment based on one’s thoughts, emotions, health state, and environment.

FIGURE 4.1 The Human Biofield with Its Major Layers

The biofield also interacts with the environment to receive and send information. Very engaging speakers or famous people radiate an energy that captivates and envelops their audiences. Good musicians transfer the energy of the composer through their vibratory fields and musical interpretations. Artists often sense subtle energies beyond the usual perceptions attributed to the eyes. Painters of classical religious art represented their sensitivity to biofields by showing emanations of light from the body of a highly revered teacher or a halo around the head.

As we explore biofields, we note that all communication with others is really supported by the presence of interacting fields. Hence, we may feel drawn to certain people whom we do not know yet or shy away from those who hold less “light.” Clairvoyance is the gift of seeing light, shapes, or colors around another person. While being clairvoyant is helpful to some practitioners, it is not a requirement for engaging in HT, which is accessible to everyone. Most students learn to sense the biofields of others kinesthetically, that is, with their hands moving lightly above the client’s physical body.

FIGURE 4.2 The Seven Major Energy Centers

The biofield also contains major and minor energy centers, which move energy from the environment into the layers of the field, integrate nonmaterial prana with thousands of cellular messaging systems, and allow for the outflow of energy in the form of self-expressive arts and caring endeavors. Each of these focused energy centers or vortices of energy was called a chakra in ancient Sanskrit texts, a word that literally means “spinning vortex.”

Seven major centers in relation to the human spinal column have been confirmed by recent scientific measurements, and intuitive healers often sense five more that reach beyond the crown of the head. Minor energy vortices are located at all joint intersections in the body, including the small ones at the fingers, wrists, ankles, and toes. As the chakras spin, they appear to create corresponding fields, which are seen as the layers of the aura or biofield.6 (See figure 4.2.)

Memory appears to be encoded in these seven major energy-transmitting stations. Each major chakra relates to essential body organs and endocrine glands. Psychological functions have also been associated with the energy centers since ancient times, and they are best understood as “centers of consciousness” because of their relationship to the developmental stages of the human personality.

Table 4.1 summarizes some of the predominant physical and psychological aspects of the major energy centers, which include emotional, mental, and spiritual levels of consciousness. Healing Touch practitioners learn to assess the energy centers in order to assist in restoring balance to impaired function in each of the chakras.

Toward a Theory of Healing with Healing Touch

Practitioners of energy medicine and Healing Touch affirm that the human body is the “home base” for the interacting vibrations of the biofield and energy centers. The body is also the densest part of the biofield and is perceived by the five basic senses of sight, sound, touch, taste, and hearing.

Human biofields interact all the time, whether we are aware of it or not. To make themselves more conscious and to help alleviate suffering, HT practitioners learn to keep their personal fields moving at strong vibrations so that energy can move to enhance the depleted fields of their clients. This is the reason that centering and grounding, working with the breath, and energy self-care practices, as presented in chapters 7 and 8, are so essential. For those who are open to positive shifts in their health state, it is believed that HT practitioners can bring about a repatterning of energy to a disturbed area that is congested or otherwise blocked by providing a higher frequency of vibrant energy. When this occurs spontaneously, it is called “miraculous” or “mysterious” because the exact mechanisms lie outside the framework of current scientific knowledge.

TABLE 4.1 The Energy Centers and Their Predominant Physiological and Psychological Aspects

Chakra Name

Location

Physiological Aspects

Psychological Functions

Root or base Base of spine Stress responses, adrenals, survival mechanisms Sense of safety, security, trust. Will to live.

Sacral Below navel and at sacrum in back Lower digestive system, reproductive organs Feelings, sexuality, ability to attract others and release unwanted attention. Will to feel.

Solar plexus Below the sternum (breastbone) and at the back Upper digestion, pancreas (including cells that produce insulin), liver, and spleen Clear thinking, self-esteem, healthy self-interest, effective assertiveness. Will to think.

Heart Mid-chest and corresponding area on back Heart rhythms, circulation, immune system, thymus gland Unconditional love, forgiveness, reaching out to others, altruism. Will to care.

Throat Front and back of neck Breath, vocal cords, speech, hearing, thyroid glands Self-expression, creativity, speaking one’s truth. Will to express.

Brow Mid-forehead and back of head Lower brain functions, sight, taste, smell Compassion, insight, imagination, intuition, inspiration. Will to see with insight.

Crown Top of head Upper brain function, symbol-making, cognitive processes Aligning with spirit, connection with one’s true nature and purpose. Will to be.

After exploring the nature of these interactions for many years, it becomes apparent that under the right circumstances many patients repattern their own fields. The practitioner is the facilitator for creating optimal conditions in which change becomes possible. If the client’s field is depleted and lacks the vitality for initial clearing, the caregiver may help to release congestion from the biofield or to break up dysfunctional patterns. After such interventions, the client is freer to move toward healthier vibratory patterns and can begin self-care methods to keep them that way.

Use of the breath is an important amplifier of healing. The breath acts like a billow and increases the flow and volume of prana in the helper’s field. Pain, for example, may be more easily released when both client and caregiver exhale emphatically after taking a deep in-breath. Perhaps a key component is the client’s participation and will to help in the creation of change. Rhythmic deep breathing also helps to keep the caregiver’s biofield clear and charged.

After available conventional medical and complementary interventions such as HT have been given, it is vital for clients to take time to let outcomes emerge from their own beings. Dr. Sharon Scandrett-Hibdon, a leader in HT practice and its certification program, has identified five essential elements in the healing process that are based on her many years of experience and observation:

awareness of a disturbance in the body-mind field

attunement to evaluate the impact of the disturbance and assess its importance in relation to desired health

setting goals and intention to deal with the presenting condition in relation to desired health

aligning with the goal by seeking out possible interventions

yielding when all possible avenues have been explored by allowing outcomes to emerge[7]

As an example of these interrelated steps, I’ll share the story of Bob, who suffered from severe food allergies, including bouts of systemic shock when exposed to the most offending substances. As often occurs with allergies, he also craved some of the very foods he could not tolerate. Bob decided that running to emergency rooms and grabbing for epinephrine injections was not the way he wanted to live ( awareness, attunement, and assessment ). He determined that there must be ways to find relief and explored available resources in both conventional and complementary health care ( setting goals and intention ). He learned about the most powerful allergens from an allergy specialist who gave him extensive tests. He then underwent a clinical desensitization process from an endocrinologist. Because he felt jittery and uncertain about himself during this time, Bob sought out psychotherapy and followed a friend’s suggestion to experience HT (all steps taken were forms of alignment with his goal ). The HT sessions calmed Bob and he added affirming self-statements such as, “I now hold peace in my body when under stress ... My body is learning to handle irritating substances in new ways ... My body and mind release attractions to foods I cannot utilize.”

Armed with the combination of these tools, Bob trusted that he was doing all he could do to help himself ( yielding ). Bob waited with hope for an improvement in his health. After several weeks of practicing the new mental patterns, he noticed increased self-confidence and a greater sense of personal power. It became easier to avoid the most offending foods. It was as if he no longer needed them, and the cravings dissipated.

Sometimes individuals get stuck in one or more aspects of the multidimensional healing process by focusing on a single goal with fierce intensity. They may not know or comprehend that the body is intricately programmed to self-regulate so that it can respond to a variety of interventions. Demanding a single outcome, such as wishing for rapid pain relief, does not allow for energies to shift and for new integrations to happen. In effect, these patients strangle their goals by forgetting to open the door to additional options.

Repatterning toward healthier functioning can occur at both the energetic and physical levels if the doors to hope remain open. Yielding and allowing help to create change may take some time. Once the direction toward healing has begun and becomes established, cells and chemical responses in the body begin to shift toward healthier and more effective patterns.

***

Could it be that the biofield and its interacting energy centers provide an essential linkage between the body and the realms of our minds? Can we effect change in a positive direction with our beliefs, attitudes, and thoughts? Can we help others with our healing intentions and mental clarity?

We’ll consider these and other fascinating possibilities through the eyes of current scientific discoveries in the next chapter.

TABLE 4.1 The Energy Centers and Their Predominant Physiological and Psychological Aspects
Chakra Name	Location	Physiological Aspects	Psychological Functions
Root or base	Base of spine	Stress responses, adrenals, survival mechanisms	Sense of safety, security, trust. Will to live.
Sacral	Below navel and at sacrum in back	Lower digestive system, reproductive organs	Feelings, sexuality, ability to attract others and release unwanted attention. Will to feel.
Solar plexus	Below the sternum (breastbone) and at the back	Upper digestion, pancreas (including cells that produce insulin), liver, and spleen	Clear thinking, self-esteem, healthy self-interest, effective assertiveness. Will to think.
Heart	Mid-chest and corresponding area on back	Heart rhythms, circulation, immune system, thymus gland	Unconditional love, forgiveness, reaching out to others, altruism. Will to care.
Throat	Front and back of neck	Breath, vocal cords, speech, hearing, thyroid glands	Self-expression, creativity, speaking one’s truth. Will to express.
Brow	Mid-forehead and back of head	Lower brain functions, sight, taste, smell	Compassion, insight, imagination, intuition, inspiration. Will to see with insight.
Crown	Top of head	Upper brain function, symbol-making, cognitive processes	Aligning with spirit, connection with one’s true nature and purpose. Will to be.

CHAPTER FIVE

Scientific Support for Energy Medicine

“Happiness is what we feel when our biochemicals of emotion, the neuropeptides and their receptors, are open and flowing freely...

It is a scientific fact that we can feel what others feel.

The oneness of all life is based on this simple reality.

Our molecules of emotion are all vibrating together.”

—RESEARCH BIOLOGIST CANDACE PERT, AUTHOR OF THE BESTSELLING BOOK MOLECULES OF EMOTION

Because we human beings are so interrelated from an energetic perspective, there is a refreshing optimism in energy-medicine approaches and in the practice of Healing Touch. In essence, the presence of a focused, intentional practitioner facilitates healing and movement toward well-being for someone who is in distress. The work offers a beacon of hope in relieving physical and/or emotional pain. It serves as a fine complement to conventional medical interventions and is an essential component for preventive and integrative healing practices.

Current science does not yet fully understand all the dynamics involved in achieving the effects noted in energy medicine, but relief from human suffering abounds in the clinical reports of HT practitioners. Even though the exact mechanisms are not yet fully known, use of this well-recognized practice is sought out and welcomed.

Take, for example, people who are very anxious about diagnostic tests or specific medical procedures. It’s common knowledge that anxiety and worry by themselves can increase pain symptoms and block the flow of biochemicals essential for a procedure to be effective. Psychological concerns and expectations, either positive or negative, decidedly help to shape outcomes. The presence of a caring HT practitioner can help promote much-needed relaxation as patients think of new ways to anticipate a procedure and focus on positive outcomes.

In this chapter, we’ll consider the growing scientific evidence for seeing the human body as a series of vibrating electromagnetic fields that can be positively influenced without the invasion of foreign substances such as chemicals or drugs. We begin with the realities of current medical practices that point to the vibrational nature of the body for diagnosis and treatment. We’ll continue with a brief discussion of modern physics with its views toward unlimited, open-ended possibilities as opposed to ideas of direct cause and effect. Emerging concepts in neurosciences such as neuroplasticity will be explored with an eye to the vast capabilities of the human mind to influence health and wholeness. And, perhaps most exciting of all, we’ll look at the new biology that demonstrates the direct effect of thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors on cellular messaging and expression of genetic material.

Scientists describe their understanding of the world through theoretical models. The concept of human energies as a vibratory matrix of nonmaterial structures, such as those described in the previous chapter, gives a useful starting place. These vibratory structures seem to interact with identified physical structures such as cells, fluids, and organs to facilitate the flow of information throughout the body. We might think of this informational system as a flowing river that can be impeded where there are blocks to its flow pathways. Such impeded areas can cause disturbance, congestion, and subsequent illness in our bodies. The concept of energy-flow patterns is thus a useful model for understanding human illness and how we might alleviate further suffering. For example, determining how energy flows in a given part of the body is already a part of conventional medical diagnostics. As we shall learn, medicine is becoming more and more energetic in practice, even though the mechanisms for its effects are not yet fully explainable. Other more effective models, theories, and inferences will undoubtedly emerge as science evolves.

Vibrational Medicine

Practitoners of Western medicine are becoming more interested in understanding how energy moves in the body as medical science considers the electrical and magnetic qualities of the human organism.[1] For diagnosis, a variety of noninvasive scanners can now give feedback about molecular exchanges within soft tissue. Sophisticated scans such as CT (computerized tomography), PET (positron emission tomography), and MRI (magnetic resonance imaging), show areas of constriction or obstruction that interfere with healthy flow patterns within cells and organ tissue.[2]

The EKG (electrocardiogram) and the EEG (electroencephalogram) measure the electrical outputs of the heart and brain and then compare those outputs to normal electrical outputs in healthy persons. Newer tools, such as the EMC (electromagnetic cardiogram) and EMEG (electromagnetic encephalogram), additionally measure the magnetic outputs of heart and brain, which give even more accurate details of deviations from normal function in these vital organs. Technology using SQUID (superconducting quantum interference device) allows scientists to measure the human biofield and evaluate relative bodily strengths.

Medical treatments are also becoming less invasive as comprehension of the electromagnetic nature of the body increases. Orthopedic surgeon Robert O. Becker began to explore the electrical circuitry of the human body to treat complex bone fractures that did not heal with known methods in the late 1960s. He identified numerous direct currents of electricity that flowed throughout the body and found they reversed their flow pattern or direction at the site of an injury. When this “current of injury” was supported with a small amount of electrical stimulation, bone healing occurred.

Over the next several decades, Dr. Becker mapped out the energetic grids of the body and surmised that the energy system paralleled the nervous system in providing the communication of information to all parts of the organism.[3] Unlike the nervous system, however, this system is nonmaterial and electromagnetic in nature. Thus, humans and higher life forms have dual information systems: 1) the nervous system with its many physical components such as nerve cells, dendrites, axons, and the spinal cord, and 2) the subtle energies that are electromagnetic in form, which I like to call the human vibrational matrix. These dual systems seem to augment each other to ensure optimal functioning. If a part of the body is diseased or surgically removed, other cells learn to take over missing functions as much as possible through our energetic information networks.

Almost every day, new concepts for stimulating electromagnetic areas within the body are being developed to treat illness. Current energy-related treatments include high-frequency sound waves to break up kidney stones, electricity to relieve pain and shrink tumors, focused radiation to pinpoint and destroy specific cancers, electromagnetic fields to accelerate bone healing, laser surgeries to minimize tissue damage, and magnetic fields to alleviate inflammation associated with arthritis. Further explorations in modern medicine continue to study the presence of differing electromagnetic frequencies within the body to find new and more effective treatments.

The energy resources of the body can also bring about balance within body and mind to prevent illness or further disability. Working with HT is known to bring about relaxation, relief from anxiety, a sense of well-being, and enhanced wound healing and immune system function. (These effects are confirmed by ongoing and extensive research cited in the next chapter.) Because of these effects, many physicians are now encouraging their patients to explore energy therapies as part of treatment planning.

Quantum Interrelationships

The presence of subtle energy was proposed in physics initially to describe the minute, ongoing relationships evident between subatomic particles even when separated over great distances. The presence of invisible, nonmaterial energies is now confirmed by particle astrophysicists who observe that at least 95 percent of the universe is made up of matter and energy that cannot be seen or measured.[4] Called “dark energy” and “dark matter” for lack of better words, these subtle energies are also present in each one of us. Allied to our vital life force, such subtle energies are part of the qi (life-force energy) that can be noted in the many interactive functions within our bodies.

Einstein’s famous equation for the interrelationship between energy and matter (E=mc² ) also predicted the existence of energy beyond the known constant of the speed of light. Such extremely rapid frequencies are not yet measurable but exist in the theories of leading physicists, especially those who consider multidimensional models of the universe.[5]

Matter, energy, and human consciousness are profoundly interconnected. New concepts in quantum mechanics suggest the universe is made up of a succession of vibrating particles, or “strings.” In a similar fashion, the human organism appears to consist of interactive vibrational patterns in the differing frequencies of the vast electromagnetic spectrum. Light that is visible to the human eye is but a very small frequency range within the huge array of known wave frequencies. They range from very slow patterns such as radio waves to very rapid ones such as gamma rays.

The remarkable world of interrelationships between subatomic particles that influence one another beyond space and time was proposed by physicist John S. Bell and later confirmed in particle experiments.[6] Much of the presumed interrelationship between linear events, the traditional cause and effect brought forth by Newtonian physics, has been superseded in modern physics by an understanding of the vast array of possible outcomes for any given event or treatment. Nonlinear inconsistencies, such as the dual nature of light as both wave and particle depending on circumstances and observer effects, are now seen as part of a much larger picture that is not yet fully understood.

The possibility exists that a minute change in direction of a single subatomic particle, such as an electron, can influence a whole series of vibratory changes. This appears to be true within both the microcosm of molecules, atoms, and subatomic particles and the macrocosm of stars and galactic clouds. Global weather is an example of a large, well-known, but unpredictable and nonlinear system that responds to minimal perturbations. Minor temperature changes in one part of the ocean tend to produce massive changes in outcome patterns across the planet.

As we think of the human mind and body, we know that a single psychological insight or new “aha!” or idea can generate far-reaching emotional shifts and many new options. The body and our world function as large holograms in which change in one aspect or dimension can create wide-ranging effects throughout the entire system.

The biofield as a whole and the energy centers have been studied extensively and their existence is steadily confirmed by science. Several experiments additionally show that a positive thought held by a strong adherent of meditation can cause a specific field of the body, such as one of the energy centers, to increase its vibratory rate.[7]

Other studies with functional MRI demonstrate that tapping or stimulating specific acupoints can bring about activation of differing parts of the brain. Combining this stimulation with a self-affirming statement can shift a depressed person’s limited brain patterns to a more effective utilization of all parts of the brain. Activating other parts of the brain via such stimuli can relieve depression and open pathways to more adaptive thinking. The likelihood that subtle energy components of the body can influence cellular structures and genetic material is also becoming more evident in the biological sciences, as we’ll learn shortly.

A medical device known as pulsed electromagnetic field therapy (PEMF) is currently in use to “jump-start” and accelerate wound healing and severe bone fractures. This device emits an extremely low electrical and magnetic vibration ranging from 0.5 to 30 hertz. In a study of Therapeutic Touch practitioners and related hands-on healers, Dr. John Zimmerman was able to show that the emissions from the hands of the centered practitioners fell in the same frequency range of 0.5 to 30 hertz. In the case of the practitioners, the frequencies would vary according to the needs of the clients, while the PEMF machine cycles through these frequencies in a more random fashion. The human interchange between the fields of practitioners and clients thus facilitated more specific outcomes than the machine could.[8]

Since the advent of quantum mechanics, science is moving to a much more fluid understanding of the delicate interrelationships in nature and in human societies. Earth’s environments constitute whole interactive ecosystems, which, when permitted, always evolve toward increasing balance and stability. Systems theory based on the interactive networks within any given system also affirms these self-organizing, self-regulating potentials. Computer imagery and modeling further enhances and supports comprehension of global changes and can offer information about desirable, possible outcomes for worldwide systems.

At a recent social function, a lively retired physician asked me about my interests and career. When I mentioned my affection for energy medicine, he shook his head and stated firmly, “If something is not measurable, it does not exist.” It appeared he was speaking from the model of physics that has been outdated for more than a century, yet was likely taught in his medical training.

I could not resist jumping into the fray and replied, “My understanding now is that if something is not measurable and it has known effects, it probably does exist in the form of subtle energy we can’t yet measure.” We went our separate ways in peace, but I wondered if he might also think love does not exist because we can’t yet measure it directly. The most interesting aspects of human life seem to be full of intangibles.

In fact, we live in an open-ended, evolving world alive with possibilities and vastly more complex than realized heretofore. Let’s find out what the neurosciences and the new biology of epigenetics can tell us about the great potentials within human consciousness.

Neuroplasticity and Neurogenesis

Both neuroplasticity and neurogenesis represent concepts that were unheard of before the last decade. The neuroscientist studying the human nervous system believed until recently that the mind did not have the power to change itself and that mental belief patterns, once established, were set. The newly discovered flexibility of brain cells that enables them to take on different functions is called neuroplasticity.

The number of neurons, the nerve cells within the brain, were believed to be static after one’s birth and to degenerate and diminish in number as one ages. The concept of neurogenesis describes the capacity for neural cells to regenerate and increase their numbers under certain conditions.

Neuroplasticity has become the new buzzword in neurology, because the human mind and its major organ, the brain, do indeed change constantly.[9] For example, the flexibility of the human mind allows brain cells to interpret electronic signals understandable as human speech. This is evident when someone with total loss of hearing is treated with a cochlear implant in which the entire auditory nerve is removed and a small electronic chip is implanted in its place. Sound is activated by a magnet outside the person’s skull, and over time, his brain learns to interpret the electronic pulses as communication from another person. Many other examples abound as technological advances facilitate recovery from incapacitating conditions such as strokes and blindness.

Consciousness is defined as the total impressions, thoughts, and feelings of an individual. Everything in our lives is influenced by the nature of the patterns of consciousness we choose. Willingness to learn and respect our unique interests can profoundly influence and direct outcomes in our lives. However, lack of willingness and lack of flexibility limit our potentials.

Fixation on repeated thinking patterns and compulsive activity is the other, less desirable side of neuroplasticity. One can choose either direction with apparent ease. Thus, we experience people who are highly functioning in their advanced years and who engage in lifelong learning with enthusiasm, while other people seem “burned out” and uninterested by midlife.

Focused intention to help oneself and others is a most powerful force for change. In Healing Touch, students learn to direct consciousness in creative directions as a central theme. When practitioners speak of the dramatic changes in their lives after learning centering and self-care practices, they are in fact engaging the flexible capacities of their neurological wiring through willingness to learn and explore new dimensions of themselves.

Additionally, neurons have most recently been shown to multiply in the presence of novel and creative thinking.[10] Repetitive patterns of thought and activity tend to inhibit or limit the generation of new nerve cells, or neurogenesis. Repeated activities and ruminating thoughts are especially prevalent in those who believe “it’s all downhill after fifty” or those who believe aging is a time of misery and ill health.

A study of 2,700 older men over a ten-year period showed that those who engaged in regular volunteer activities had significantly lower death rates and better quality of life than those who did not.[11] The study suggests that doing good is also good for the helper. Noted effects of altruism were reduced stress; improved immune function; and a sense of joy, peace, and well-being. The body is known to produce hundreds of feel-good chemicals called endorphins, which relieve pain and mitigate stress responses. When endorphins are activated, our minds come alive and brain cells tend to reproduce.

Research into the nature of consciousness and its influences is ongoing. Although we appear to be individuals, we are also part of a larger whole known as humanity. Directed intention to help each other is a special form of consciousness. As we reach out to others with caring, we activate the various resources of our subtle energies and connect to a wider consciousness beyond that of the personal self.

The Genius in Your Genes

One of the most fascinating interrelationships between consciousness, energy, and matter is found in the new science of epigenetics, first identified in 2001.[12] This new field within biology focuses on the study of the many signals that activate or suppress gene expression within cells and in an entire organism. Until the advent of knowledge about gene expression, it was assumed that genetic material, stored in the double helix of the DNA molecule, was received at conception and did not vary throughout one’s lifetime.

Gene expression, as it is currently known, varies with the electromagnetic energy flows shaped by each person’s intention and consciousness. To put it simply, genetic material can turn “on” or “off” depending on circumstances and influences from outside the sheath that surrounds and protects the DNA strands. Hence, the prefix epi refers to effects from beyond the DNA genetic structures that can influence whether a given gene will be activated or not.

Get this: these outside influences can be our emotions, which produce identifiable chemicals such as the molecules of emotion that Candace Pert, PhD, described in the quotation at the beginning of this chapter. Other influences are our thoughts, beliefs, actions, attitudes toward life, and our choices. What our parents gave us in the form of genetic material is simply the stuff with which we start. We modify this material through our daily choices, intentions, and consciousness. Seemingly major life events such as trauma, war, and political influences also have some effect on our genetic material, but our internal choices are the ultimate lens through which events external to the body are perceived. In effect, our consciousness is the filter through which the on/off switch of genetic material operates.

To give an example, consider what happens when you cut your finger. The traumatized tissue sends a quick signal via the body’s two informational systems to the genes that are associated with wound healing, such as those that generate fibrins to create a blood clot to stem bleeding. These signals tell the proteins that are wrapped like protective sheaths around DNA strands to unwrap so that each gene associated with wound healing can be released. If there is a strong negative emotion such as anger present at the time the finger is cut, the signals to the protein sheath flow less rapidly or effectively. The messages may be garbled or altered because dealing with the emotion diverts available energy in that moment. Consequently, wound healing becomes delayed or compromised.

In his popular book The Genie in Your Genes, author-publisher Dawson Church, PhD, writes: “Epigenetic signals suggest a whole new avenue for catalyzing wellness in our bodies.”[13] To this extent, the psychological and biological factors involved in our daily stress reactions directly affect gene expression hundreds of times a day. If positive thoughts prevail, or if we have means to release blockages quickly, genes express their messages by unwrapping the proteins and genetic material needed at each given time for cellular healing. If negativity prevails in the form of a limiting belief or by hanging onto resentments, the expression will either be missing, incomplete, or delayed.

Among the many current studies of genomics, the nature of gene expression and its relationship to states of consciousness is one that actively demonstrates the effects of Dr. Herbert Benson’s well-recognized “relaxation response.” Systemic changes in the organism produced by relaxation and meditation methods have been documented for more than thirty years. These effects include release of muscle tension, increased oxygenation to tissues, and empowerment of the immune system. The exact mechanism for these broad changes at the cellular level was not understood until a recent study showed that a large number of genes express when a subject is centered and relaxed. The corresponding opening of the protein sheaths permits genetic material to initiate wide-ranging changes such as activation of the body’s immune response teams, effective coping with inflammation, regulation of cellular life spans, and absorption of free radicals.[14] The new research provides the first compelling evidence regarding what actually happens inside our cells when we engage in focused breathing, meditation, centering, prayer, or positive self-statements.

The interaction between body and mind is indisputably clear with the emerging science of epigenetics. The work leads us to see ourselves as the key to gene expression via attitudes and beliefs. We have the power to select the interests, actions, and lifestyles that nurture gene expression. Each of us is indeed the genius behind the unique patterns that emerge from the billions of options possible within our biological make-up!

***

We have looked at the growing scientific evidence for practices of energy-oriented therapies. They include the reality of energetic diagnostic testing and treatment within the most current medical technology, the framework of interrelationships and subtle energies known to physics, the emerging science of human consciousness, and the actual confirmations within the science of epigenetics. It remains now for us to consider some of the most relevant research studies in relation to Healing Touch and associated energy-medicine modalities.

CHAPTER SIX

Research about Healing Touch and Related Energy-Medicine Practices

“The voyage of discovery lies not in seeking new horizons, but in seeing with new eyes.”

—FRENCH AUTHOR MARCEL PROUST

The expansion of integrative health-care facilities and programs mandates research into all complementary modalities, especially those that are directly affiliated with the “frontiers” of energy medicine such as Healing Touch. Increasing costs of health care, the reality of an aging population, accelerated levels of chronic illness, desires for improved quality of life, and fears of sham or fraudulent practices—all these issues contribute to the need for accurate information through the known pathways of scientific investigation. Fortunately, substantiated research exists and continues to grow as knowledge about the science behind energy medicine interventions increases.

Therapeutic Touch (TT) has pioneered research efforts since the early 1970s, as it was the first energy-oriented modality to establish a presence in mainstream health care in North America. Although much of the early research was conducted with small sample sizes and had limited computer analysis tools, many of the results are being confirmed through repeated recent studies within TT.[1]

In 1994, the Healing Touch Program created a department of research to document and summarize HT and related energy medicine studies.[2] We’ll explore the most pertinent current research related to HT in this chapter. In a nutshell, more than a hundred studies of HT over more than a decade have demonstrated these promising and encouraging outcomes:

marked and rapid relaxation with associated changes in breathing rate, release of muscle tension, and a sense of inner calm

pain relief from symptoms associated with both physical and psychological distress

reduction of anxiety, especially worry related to medical procedures and diagnoses

increased function of the immune system, as measured by salivary proteins and a sense of increased overall well-being and health

accelerated wound healing in post-surgical and long-term decubitus ulcers (bedsores)

enhanced sense of personal efficacy, flexibility, and creative thinking[3]

We’ll consider each of these topics and related research in turn, but first let’s have a brief discussion to demystify research for readers who might be new to investigative concepts. Initiating a new approach to treatment requires that the process is evidence-based, not just the product of wishful thinking or imaginary desires. Research is needed to validate any new field of endeavor and is essential for HT to be recognized as a viable practice.

Links between Research and Science

The quest for treatment knowledge is part of our human desire for more effective and compassionate ways to relieve suffering. The acceptance of new treatments is not only based on learning from scientific discoveries, such as those discussed in the previous chapter, but also on testing for outcomes under controlled and repeated circumstances.

Until recently, it was presumed that objective clinical measurements to compare before-treatment and after-treatment states were the best way to establish credibility. Thus, research methods such as randomized clinical trials and double-blind studies have been accepted as the gold standard of research.

Unfortunately, numbers in the form of quantifiable data tell prospective users of a method very little about the actual lived experience of a modality. The effects of HT described in the chapter 1 stories would be exceedingly dry and depleted of their human interest if they were merely converted to numbers. (Imagine reading this: thirty elderly helped by HT, which raised the levels of three major endorphins for pain relief; forty new babies calmed by their fathers with HT, and so on.) Newer methods therefore support research that is directed by the kind of questions being asked. For example, a project to find out the impact of a method such as HT on diminishing arthritic pain would require a different research approach than one that asks about the lived experience of someone receiving HT for pain relief. Therefore, qualitative research related to the changed quality of life would better fit explorations of the latter question.

Depending on the issues to be studied, many current research projects combine aspects of both quantitative and qualitative research methods. Such combined “mixed method” studies are now surfacing in many research journals because they capture both numerical comparisons and the lived experience of how a specific form of holistic care, such as Healing Touch, impacts the quality of recipients’ lives in body, mind, and spirit. Rigorous research for all inquiries, especially those linked with human health, should give evidence of such combined study efforts. Unfortunately, many so-called experiments in medical research are only based on numerical results from laboratory tests and do not evaluate the tolls on human life such as psychological impact and related personal expenditures of time and energy.

As a consumer of medical care involving both conventional and complementary modalities, you are encouraged to ask the following questions of those who cite “proof” or “strong research evidence” for the method, medication, or procedure they recommend:

Was the study done with a large number of participants (at least thirty) to reduce the possibility of chance or skewed outcomes?

Was the study done with a randomized group to decrease influence of cultural or age-group distortions?

Was there effective control for variables such as prior knowledge or external influences?

Is the study directed toward answering specific questions?

Are the resulting claims of the study made for a specific, limited number of outcomes or linked to a wide number of results?

Are the results given for a specific age group and population or given for a whole population?

Are results given for animals assumed to be relevant to humans?

Was there a control group that received another form of treatment or no treatment for comparisons with the group receiving the treatment method?

Are real-life impacts and applications considered?

What future studies are recommended? Does the study “prove” something or does it suggest that a treatment is worth further consideration?

Was the study led and implemented by known experts in the field?

In summary, the best research utilizes a large, randomized study group; is conducted by experts in the field; cites quantitative and qualitative data; gives outcomes for a selected population and age group; makes strong recommendations for further research; and suggests the treatment is worth further consideration. A good research project by these standards does not “prove” anything in the sense of naming it as indisputable, but rather it offers some limited answers to research questions and points the direction for future exploration.[4]

As research evidence mounts over time, a process or method is presumed to be safe and worthy of implementing on a larger scale to meet specific needs. In many studies of HT methods, the bulk of evidence suggests that positive outcomes are occurring and that these results are due to considerably more than chance—despite design flaws of fewer subjects than is desirable.

“Both rigor and relevance need to be maintained in studying holistic therapies such as Healing Touch, which include complex body and mind effects,” states PhD candidate Kathy Layte, the lively and talented co-chair of HTP’s Research Advisory Board. “Many studies have methodological issues so they have not been done as well as current standards demand. Biofield research is still in its infancy, but it continues to improve,” she adds.[5]

It is noteworthy that only a small percentage of mainstream medical treatments have been adequately researched, by the currently established standards for research. With these tensions in mind, Layte cites three recent HT research projects reported in premier peer-reviewed journals for integrative health care.[6] Brief summaries of these three studies and related research on HT’s effects will now be given as we consider each of HT’s major known outcomes: relaxation, pain relief, reduced anxiety, improved immune function, accelerated wound healing, and positive outlook.

Marked and Rapid Relaxation

While some HT research reports the onset of a rapid, effective relaxation response in patients, the well-designed clinical study conducted by Cynthia Cook, PhD, RN, and colleagues is one of the best in demonstrating the wide-ranging effects of relaxation. The study explored the health-related quality of life of women who received HT while they were undergoing radiation treatment for gynecological and breast cancers in Cleveland, Ohio. The sample consisted of sixty-two newly diagnosed women randomly assigned to receive either HT or a mock form of therapy. The participants received the treatments weekly for a total of six weeks immediately after their radiation sessions. The participants were not aware of which non-contact treatment was being given because practitioners were behind a screen. Those receiving HT reported improvement in all nine areas related to life quality that were measured. Statistical significance for the HT group was noted in enhanced vitality, pain reduction, and improved physical functioning including movement, eating, and sleeping.[7]

Other as yet unpublished studies report similar outcomes in women receiving HT during their cancer treatments, in which the patients’ views of themselves and their disease changed from discouragement to positive expectancy. The sense of hope led to recognition of personal strengths, ability to meet self-care needs, and altered perceptions of their environments. These enhanced perceptions helped the women to get through the treatment protocols with a minimum of psychological distress.

Pain Relief

Pain relief is one of the most reported effects of energy medicine, and because of this, HT and TT have been introduced into a growing number of hospitals and health-care facilities. According to HT practitioners, those receiving HT regularly report pain relief and increased effectiveness of pain management with medication.

The Cochrane Database conducts systemic reviews of multiple studies to determine validity of claims in medical practice. Its 2008 analysis of studies related to a number of touch energy therapies, including TT and HT, concludes that these therapies “may have a modest effect on pain relief” and that additional well-conducted studies on these therapies are needed.[8] In other words, the possibility of pain relief with energy therapies is not being officially refuted or denied by expert scientists reviewing a compilation of all strongly- and weakly-designed studies. Thus, we can conclude that energy therapies are worthy of further consideration for pain relief.

Reduction of Anxiety

Worry related to medical procedures and diagnostic tests can create a climate of anxiety and high stress in most patients. Interventions affecting the heart, the central organ for physical life and emotional well-being, make even the most stalwart people aware of their mortality. Receiving coronary bypass surgery—with all its stages before, during, and after surgery—could be deemed one of the most stressful events in anyone’s life.

A dedicated group of cardiac care professionals, led by Barb MacIntyre, RN, enrolled 237 study subjects undergoing coronary bypass surgery to evaluate whether HT therapy could improve six different outcomes in comparison to two other groups who did not receive HT. The outcomes compared among the three groups were:

1.
Length of hospital stay

2.
Incidence of postoperative atrial fibrillation

3.
Use of antinausea medication

4.
Use of pain medication

5.
Ability to move and care for self

6.
Incidence of psychological anxiety

Each participant received the standard coronary bypass care provided in a St. Paul, Minnesota, hospital, and the selected participants received HT treatment the day before surgery, immediately prior to surgery, and the day after surgery. The researchers found no significant difference among the three groups for outcomes 2, 3, and 4. However, the relief of anxiety as measured on several scales was remarkable in those patients who received HT. These patients functioned better postoperatively and had a reduced length of hospital stay by almost a day. Hospital administration calculated this to be a cumulative savings of more than half a million dollars.[9]

It appears that HT is calming not only to patients but also to hospital budgets!

Increased Immune System Function

Enhanced functioning of the immune system is presumed when people who receive HT report feeling healthier, more robust, and more readily able to shake off colds and flus. This effect has been noted in both HT clients and practitioners.

Janet Quinn, PhD, RN, an early Therapeutic Touch researcher, conducted a 1993 pilot study involving energy-healing practitioners who had been in practice a decade or more. She established that practitioners of these modalities live longer and have better quality of life than their counterparts (nurses in traditional medical/surgical settings).[10]

A more recent study by Dawn S. Wilkinson asked whether HT enhanced health in a sample of twenty-two clients who had never experienced HT. It did so by measuring salivary-secreted immunoglobulin A (IgA), a protein produced by the body related to enhanced health and immune-system function. The saliva of each participant was measured for the protein before and after receiving HT treatment. Other data reflected information about the participants’ stress levels and perceptions of their health status. Statistically significant quantitative results and review of the qualitative data confirmed that HT treatments enhanced health through increased IgA concentrations and lowered perceptions of stress. Fifty-five percent of the group also reported pain relief.[11]

Some of the most compelling evidence for hands-on energy therapy and its effects in increasing immune function comes from the newly published work of sociology professor William Bengston, PhD, author of The Energy Cure. Although he is not involved directly with the practice of HT, Dr. Bengston studied healing methods with a colleague and began using his hands-on energetic technique to help friends who were suffering from cancer. Remarkably, all who persisted with him through several treatments had total remission of their cancers. Dr. Bengston then instituted ten years of carefully conducted experiments with laboratory mice injected with lethal doses of a virulent form of cancer. All mice treated by Dr. Bengston, and/or the university students he instructed in energy therapy methods, had full remission of their cancer. During the treatments, the mice never showed the signs of debilitation or depression clearly visible in the injected mice that did not receive hands-on therapy.[12]

Understandably, we cannot demonstrate that the effects of hands-on interventions with cancer-injected mice would have similar effects on people. Human subjects would most certainly not be available for such experimentation, but we can conclude from studies like Bengston’s that energy modalities have a valid place in addressing a disease as complex as cancer. Total remissions are being reported—especially in cases of early onset of aggressive cancers—after surgical removal of a tumor when treatments were followed by hands-on healing practices. Bengston considers radiation and chemotherapy less desirable for the people he treats because of their devastating effects on the human immune system.[13]

Accelerated Wound Healing

It is logical to presume a speeding up of the body’s self-repairing mechanisms in relation to the enhanced immune functions described above. That is indeed the case, and accelerated wound healing in patients who received Healing Touch has been reported in the clinical literature.

Wound healing is currently being studied in many parts of the country because treating decubitus ulcers (bedsores) is a large factor in the health-care budgets for elderly and immobile Medicare and Medicaid patients. These persistent, large wounds are especially difficult to resolve because the elderly often have friable, delicate skin and poor circulation. Diabetes lowers blood supply to a wound area, a major obstacle to wound closure even in younger people.

HT-certified practitioner Ellen Laffey has participated in wound-care studies at St. Luke’s Medical Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She has treated many difficult cases and reports remarkable changes after several treatments with HT. Recently, she has presented this research at health conferences. Ongoing studies can be viewed at the Hyperbaric and Wound Care Associates website. One report there concludes, “Healing Touch should be considered a viable adjunctive therapy that can easily be added to wound care protocols.”[14]

Increased Sense of Personal Efficacy

Personal efficacy refers to the ability of an individual to successfully negotiate life’s challenges. It includes a personality style that is positive, open-minded, hopeful, flexible, and willing to learn as opposed to a limited or negative orientation toward one’s issues.

Whenever there is a debilitating illness or severe psychological stress, one’s sense of personal power can become severely impaired. Due to its profound relaxation effects, HT offers the mind an opportunity to rest. In addition, clients often report seeing their issues in new ways and engage in creative thinking styles and new options for themselves after a treatment.

The possibility of new, enriched thinking was directly studied by HT practitioner Pamela Hughes, who initiated a research project in an adolescent psychiatric care unit. The volatile, severely acting-out teens reported increased feelings of self-esteem after learning to center themselves and receiving an energy therapy. After several sessions, these effects became more established and resulted in increased ability to plan ahead and make better choices, along with a decrease in self-destructive, self-defeating behaviors.[15]

In 2010, a very different study explored whether HT training could have an impact on the subjective measures of stress and heart-rate variability in a group of twenty nurse managers. These highly functioning individuals were evaluated two weeks before an HT Level 1 class and again four weeks after receiving the training. The authors of the study reported significant improvement in the nurses’ self-reports of perceived stress, depression, and anxiety, as well as an enhanced sense of well-being, restful sleep, and an appreciation for inner personal strengths.[16]

***

Although research may seem a somewhat remote enterprise to some readers, I want to share with you my sense of excitement. Without the painstaking efforts of these researchers, we would not have documentation that energy medicine practices are of direct value to all who seek them. Many patients and health-care practitioners are convinced of the benefits of HT from direct case management experiences. However, health-care institutions, health insurance companies, and consumers at large require that new forms of treatment be backed up with scientific studies to determine efficacy and safety. Although I’m not a researcher myself, I honor the persistence of the men and women who are willing to set up studies, secure participants, evaluate outcomes, and carefully prepare their materials for the rigors imposed by research review boards and the staffs of peer-reviewed journals to bring their work to the public.

To all questions you might receive about the safety, value, and effectiveness of Healing Touch, your answer can now be a resounding yes!

PART III

HEALING TOUCH SKILLS FOR YOU AND THE PEOPLE YOU CARE ABOUT

CHAPTER SEVEN

Setting Healing Intention with Self-Care

“We have to treat ourselves with loving-kindness and equanimity, gentleness, and dignity before we can accept, respect, and care for others...”

—DR. JEAN WATSON, NURSE THEORETICIAN OF THE CARING-HEALING MODEL

Since all movement toward wholeness comes from within each person, caregivers must first and foremost provide effective care for themselves. Gone are the days when forgetting oneself was believed to be a necessary ingredient for helping others. Today’s effective caregivers have learned they must establish a right, purposeful relationship with themselves before attempting to reach out to those in need.

Education about what is called “compassion fatigue” or burnout is still in its infancy. However, its symptoms—exhaustion, preoccupation with being busy, losing a sense of purpose and direction, and discouragement—have become recognized as some of the greatest risk factors among those whose occupations address public distress. This includes not only hospital-based personnel but also firefighters, emergency medical technicians and paramedics, police officers, rescue workers, and, for this book’s discussion, volunteer caregivers in family and community settings.

Strong examples of burnout or compassion fatigue abounded in news reports about emergency personnel in the 9/11 World Trade Center disaster. Severe fatigue and despair resulted not only from the attack, the tragic loss of lives, and the trauma’s immediate aftermath but also from finding so few to actually help. The highly charged desire to save lives was thwarted when survivors were increasingly difficult to find. Everyone, including the uninjured, was in a state of shock. Many emergency personnel continued to search with feelings of hopelessness and helplessness, suffering deepening emotional depression for months and years later. Even the rescue dogs at the disaster scene began moping about and becoming listless. Creative search and rescue personnel set up fake situations where the dogs could find a live person. The trained canines could then feel the satisfaction of success, and they released cheerful yelps, which helped dispel their gloom.

Although there is a growing body of literature and research to confirm the reality of compassion fatigue and its many symptoms, few medical or social service programs actually teach ways of preventing or treating its effects.[1] The nursing profession, always at the forefront of human caring, has been perhaps the most visibly affected by caregiver burnout and compassion fatigue.[2] New graduates are leaving the profession, often within just one or two years after graduation, or they are seeking out less demanding jobs such as insurance evaluation or office nursing. Many leave nursing entirely to go into other branches of human relations work or real estate.

Caregivers in family settings are especially vulnerable to the growing discouragement that characterizes compassion fatigue because the physically and emotionally challenging tasks of helping a family member are so frequently undervalued in our society. Helpful relatives are undoubtedly seen as useful by the families of a failing elder, but they are seldom acknowledged for the immense personal sacrifices their tasks require. Additionally, caregivers are often overly altruistic and idealistic people who tend to dismiss their personal needs. Like many in service professions, they may be wounded healers who seek to help other people as a way of avoiding their own needs.

Since its inception (and possibly with my strong encouragement as a psychotherapist), the Healing Touch Program has focused on attending to personal self-care to dispel or minimize burnout. The material given in this book is taught with increasing depth in each level of the HT basic, standardized curriculum. In addition, a separate course called Healing Touch Self-Care has been developed for students who desire more concentrated learning experiences on the topic.

Essential themes for personal development that we’ll explore in the following chapters include:

attending to the body

listening to feelings

noticing and upgrading inner self-talk

meditating or focusing on the chakras’ gifts

practicing the Self-Chakra Connection

protective energetic practices

writing down personal learning experiences

You may notice how the first four activities are closely aligned with the holistic, integrative health-care perspective discussed earlier, which identifies the needs of the whole person—physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. Meditation that visualizes the human energy centers moves us to a different level of awareness, and evokes a sense of connection with that which is greater than our personal egos. The HT method known as the Chakra Connection (see chapter 11) involves imagery of the human energy matrix to help us activate the energy centers at major joints of the body. Another valuable resource is creating a conscious, protective envelope to shield us from potentially harmful vibrational influences from others. Finally, writing in a diary or journal helps make your inner self-care and its successes tangible. Reading passages from your journal about insights you’ve gained becomes a vital gift to yourself.

Making Friends with Your Body

One of the most pressing realities of twenty-first century life is that most people are sadly disconnected from the awareness of their own bodies. While biologists and epigenetic researchers proclaim the wonders of intelligence in each single physical cell, most people seem to live in their heads. Ask people where their identity is located and most will point to the forehead, the part that is activated when thinking, working with computers, and texting.

This tendency to disconnection leads many people to seriously override bodily signals such as tiredness from overstimulation, hunger from low blood sugar, and sluggishness from sitting too much. The mind keeps going and can fool such individuals into thinking they’re fine until truly disturbing symptoms hit, such as obesity, chronic pain, or a disease. The body can speak to us directly with much less drastic signals—if we’re willing to listen.

Self-care directions for optimal health and aging are not new, but I repeat them here because they are so essential to your becoming the healthy, whole person you were meant to be. It is difficult to accomplish your heart’s desire if your body is ill or no longer with you.

When you feel tired, either from muscle tension or from doing too much, change the activity and get some rest. Living well for a healthy lifetime requires knowing when to stop and when to change course. For the immediate moment, take time out with a power nap. Getting off your feet for thirty minutes may be all that’s needed to revitalize your immune system. If you don’t, your body may well pay the price later on.

Eat well at least three times a day and take time to enjoy each meal. Food is fuel for the body, with proteins providing the most staying power. Fresh fruits and vegetables provide potent cellular rebuilders. Unprocessed grains are rich in protective nutrients. Stay away from processed or manufactured foods. Read labels with care because you need to know what you’re putting into your precious body-friend.

Drink more water. Water purifies and provides the fluids needed for good circulation and delivery of nutrients to the cells. Coffee and sodas don’t count as liquids that nourish because they deplete the body of nutrients. Green teas or other antioxidant drinks are supportive of health and vitality.

Exercise daily in moderation. Aerobic movement that increases heart rate also helps move the lymph—a key component in the immune system—and dispels the sluggish feeling we get when we sit too long. Stretching tones and strengthens muscles and tissues. Enjoying exercise rather than making it “work” will help stimulate the production of endorphins, the body’s own feel-good chemicals.

Get regular, restful sleep. Recent studies have shown that some forms of unusual weight gain occur when the body does not receive sufficient sleep. Research confirms that almost all adults—regardless of what they choose to believe—need at least six to eight hours of sleep for brain cells to function optimally each day.

As you can see, building a quality life starts with the body. If you befriend your body and listen to its signals, you may never have to experience the painful limitations that so many people suffer as they age. Building a strong connection with your body is a lifelong project. The body is your vehicle, your transportation, for this lifetime.

Paying Attention to Feelings

The emotional realm is a mystery to many people and there are many misunderstandings about human feelings. While the word “love” points to one of the noblest expressions of our human capacities, it is also used and misconstrued for many less lofty purposes. The deep human emotion of caring for another human being is not the same as appreciation for a car brand, a favorite city, or a pet. Advertisers know only too well how to manipulate the word “love” to attract attention and persuade people to buy.

At their most basic, feelings are signals from within to know what is comfortable and what creates discomfort. In human interactions, feelings tell us which people we like and enjoy. Feelings also tell us when we need to be cautious or seek help in understanding someone’s actions. Trust in another person is not something we should give without question; it may require time to know whom you can trust with your body, your intimacy, your wishes, and your dreams.

One of my friends, family health educator Daryl Trowbridge, works with teens in the public schools. He recently told me, “Self-esteem is essential to making good choices for friendships and partners in later life. Most kids today have low self-esteem and play with sexuality like a toy. A few kids are instigators who are also quite often dispassionate or sociopathic. Unhealthy relationship patterns, such as codependency, constructed in the teenage years may be repeated throughout life. Several of my students have been so distraught and emotionally confused due to bullying and sexual harassment in school that they have been on the verge of suicide.”[3]

Since feelings don’t just “happen,” learning about the sources of one’s feelings opens doors to self-understanding. Emotions have a purpose and that purpose is to awaken the individual. If a strong negative feeling puzzles you or prevails for more than two or three days, get the help of a qualified counselor. In the field of energy therapies, a growing number of skilled emotional health practitioners are now available. In addition to conventional modalities, these counselors have learned chakra, biofield, and meridian interventions that quickly release blocked emotions, and these therapists can teach energetic tools to lighten your emotional burdens.[4]

Noticing and Upgrading Inner Self-Talk

Most people experience ongoing inner self-talk. (The exception might be experienced meditators who have learned ways to redirect the wandering mind.) The real question is: What is the nature of this inner dialogue? Is it kind and friendly or is it judgmental and critical?

Once you notice the nature of the thousands of thoughts that pass through your head in an hour, you can begin to redirect them. A good place to start is with a positive affirmation of self-worth such as, “I am a lovable and capable person.” Repeating this self-statement while gently massaging the heart area makes the statement even more powerful as a message to both body and mind.

Affirmations need to be brief, in the present tense, and life-enhancing. Remember, your intelligent cells are all listening to what you’re telling yourself. Memorizing and repeating a helpful phrase begins the process of inner transformation to healthier mental patterns.

If you think or express negative thoughts such as, “I can’t do this ... I’m limited ... I’m unworthy” in any form, the body also responds. Studies show that positive self-statements enhance immune system function while repeated negative ones actually cause the immune system to begin to shut down.[5]

Always state your strong intention for yourself as if you already have it. It does not work to say, “I will stop overeating carbs.” Instead, begin to create a series of positive statements around an issue such as eating more consciously. For example, here are some affirmations to help establish control over your weight:

I now resonate with the foods that are right for my body.

I now attract the knowledge I need to release surplus weight.

I now enjoy smaller portions.

I now eat with love for my being and my body.

The more I love myself, the more I can love others.

The more I love myself, the more I can grow into my full potential.

The more I love myself, the more others can love themselves.

In addition, you may wish to memorize and practice this meta-affirmation, which gives a strong suggestion to change internal mental patterns: “Each negative thought is now automatically replaced with three positive thoughts.”

Of course, it is a good idea for you to have a long list of positives readily available and memorized. As the subconscious mind resonates with repeated use of powerful suggestions, you will begin to feel more joyous and vibrant.

Meditating with the Chakras

As described in chapter 4, the human energy vortices called chakras embody developmental patterns that range from the essential quality of basic trust and safety to the more complex qualities of acceptance and forgiveness, intuitive higher sense perceptions, creativity, and connection to the transpersonal/spiritual dimension. Thus, the chakras offer a pathway to higher levels of consciousness.

Here is a meditation sequence I use to lift my spirits. I also hold or spin the hands over the chakra while focusing on each sentence. The wording may vary each time I repeat the pattern but these are the core words. You may change the words to correspond to your own beliefs or personal style.

Exercise 7.1 Chakra Meditation

While comfortably seated, standing, or lying down, touch and focus on each of the seven major chakras as follows:

First Chakra (at the base of the spine): “I feel vital and alive. I am safe and secure in the hands of peace.”

Second Chakra (under the navel and at lower back): “I accept my feelings as helpful signals. I notice what I appreciate and release what does not fit for me.”

Third Chakra (at the solar plexus below the sternum and behind the solar plexus at the back): “I honor my strengths, my ability to communicate with clarity and assertiveness. I take charge of my life rather than believing I’m a victim of outside forces. I make decisions that are good for me.”

Fourth Chakra (heart area in mid-chest and behind at the back): “I accept and forgive myself as much as I accept and forgive others readily. I radiate heartfelt caring.”

Fifth Chakra (at front and back of the throat): “I am a creative being. I find joy in sharing and communicating my gifts and talents.”

Sixth Chakra (at the brow between the eyebrows, and at the back of the head): “I see with caring and compassion. My intuition grows as I see others without judgment.”

Seventh Chakra (above the crown of the head): “I connect with the unlimited energy of the world around me. I am one with Creation.”

Let the words resonate for several minutes as you feel the strength of your central core. Allow yourself to move into the next activities of the day with confidence and joy.

Practicing the Self-Chakra Connection

The Self-Chakra Connection is a personalized adaptation of the Healing Touch method known as the Chakra Connection, illustrated and described in chapter 11. It is an empowering self-care resource for increasing your sense of vitality. The Self-Chakra Connection can be used in the morning to energize for the day, during the day for a boost when you feel depleted, or in the evening or at bedtime for calming. Touching each area as you hold healing thoughts may enhance the experience, but just focusing your attention on the area will also suffice. Sitting or lying down are the best positions, and a quiet location will support the experience. The Self-Chakra Connection can be combined with the Chakra Meditation given in exercise 7.1 as well.

Exercise 7.2 Self-Chakra Connection

First, set a positive intention for your best friend—yourself. Invite thoughts and feelings of appreciation to each body area as you lightly and lovingly touch yourself. Hold each area for thirty to sixty seconds or longer, in as your body needs, while focusing on that part of your body. Give yourself the gift of time so that you can enjoy each step.

Start by taking several deep, conscious breaths and feel the flow of energy into your body. Bring this flow to your heart and feel it filling your body with warm light. Let the flow of warmth and light now go into your hands and bring them to the ankle and sole of the left foot.

While holding the ankle, move one hand up to the knee and sense the flow of warmth and light between ankle and knee.

Next, use your hands to connect the knee and hip on that side of the body.

Repeat the same pattern on the right leg starting at the right foot and ankle.

Now hold both hips, feeling the flow of warmth between both hips and in your lower body.

Connect the first and second chakras by holding your hands lightly above the juncture of the legs and just below the navel.

Connect the second and third chakras by holding the hands lightly just below the navel and over the solar plexus at the base of the sternum.

Connect the center below the sternum to the heart center.

Keeping one hand on the heart, bring the other hand to the wrist, elbow, and shoulder of the opposite arm.

Change positions and bring the other hand to the heart while connecting to the other wrist, elbow, and shoulder.

Hold both shoulders and give yourself a loving hug!

Continuing with the deep breaths, connect the heart center to the throat center with one hand over each area.

Connect the throat to the brow center.

Connect the brow and the crown of the head.

Allow the breath to flow through all of your body, feeling your inner core and all the places that you’ve touched. Extend your arms and image the entire field around your body.

Gently return to the present moment feeling relaxed and refreshed.

Creating a Protective Envelope

As described in chapter 4 and sensed in the previous exercise, your energy field interpenetrates with and surrounds the body like a protective egg. With practices such as the self-care suggestions we’ve explored here, the field can become stronger and more vibrant. The human biofield actually seems to prevent harm from affecting us. When we are feeling healthy and whole, we can handle physical or emotional impacts more readily.

A friend relates this experience: “My daughter Amy is a vibrant, lively teenager who rides her bike to school every day. Recently, I saw a car hit her, and she flew through the air and landed, bike and all, on the car’s hood. The driver and I expected she would be injured, but she just laughed and walked away. I think Amy’s field was so strong, the whole incident just bounced off. I remember she used to climb trees and fall many times without damage.”

Contrasting examples may be seen in hospital emergency rooms. For example, a frail or troubled person makes a wrong step and falls a few inches. Such minor falls can result in bad bone breaks or numerous injuries if the person is in an energetically weakened state.

The following exercise may make images of the human biofield more real to you. It is given with the intention of increasing your sense of healthy protection from harm. However, it definitely does not give you permission to invite harm or put yourself in harm’s way!

Exercise 7.3 Sensing Your Protective Field

While standing, sitting, or lying down, feel the breath resonating in your body ... Feel how the body moves with each breath ... See or sense your inner core, upward from the feet to the base of the spine, up the spinal column, and continuing through your head and out the crown ... Feel the inner core expanding to activate each cell in your body and your vital organs ... Sense your skin and the area above your skin ... Move the hands above the skin and notice how you can feel the movement even though you’re not touching yourself ... Move the hands further away from the body and notice how you can still feel something spongy or fluffy ... Imagine the colors of this area as all parts of your biofield are supported by the energetic vibrational patterns of each of the chakra’s rainbow colors: red for the first, then orange, yellow, green, aqua, indigo, purple, and expanding to gold and silver ... Imagine the outer edges of your egg-shaped biofield to be a protective shield, an envelope of protection that allows helpful vibrations to nurture you and keeps harmful intrusions away.

Writing Down Your Personal Learning Experiences

The most rapid way to increase the self-awareness that leads to personal growth is by writing down your learning experiences. A diary or journal should be only for yourself, a way of communicating with your inner being. You will not be writing for anyone else, therefore there is no pressure about what to write. Simply allow your thoughts to flow and to recall the most significant events, emotions, dreams, or insights of a particular day.

In my experience, many people put off journaling because it seems to be a “project.” Others get compulsive and make it a “job,” instead of seeing it as an enjoyable way of getting to know themselves. Whatever hang-ups there may be, please set them aside and treat yourself with an affirmation such as, “Even though some part of me thinks I can’t do this, I deeply love and respect myself ... I am a lovable and capable person ... I choose to write for myself.”

Getting a nice notebook and keeping it near your peaceful place at home is a start. The rewards of reflecting on what you’re learning about yourself as you contemplate and practice the methods of Healing Touch will be many.

Positive intention for helping other people begins, as we’ve seen, with ourselves. Within the holistic framework, each of us must know how to take care of our precious body, emotions, thoughts, and spiritual nature as integral learning for helping others. We must recall the transparent reality of interacting biofields between helper and client. If caregivers are not “walking their talk,” or if they are in some way insincere or incongruent, clients will sense this. Clients deserve to get the positive, healthy interactions that help them to move into their own self-healing process.

***

Although extensive self-care is essential for any practitioner of a discipline such as Healing Touch, I would be remiss if I did not mention that there are certainly limitations to self-care. Some issues are too thorny for us to handle single-handedly. For example, even though many of us have ideas about how we might repair our cars, it is really more effective to consult a good mechanic. It is essential to have resources for physical or emotional problems beyond our capacities and to seek help before more severe forms of distress develop.

In the next chapters, we’ll see how specific methods taught in the Healing Touch classes can also be further applied for your personal care.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Centering and Grounding: “E.T. Phone Home”

“The caregiver’s neutral, nonjudgmental attentiveness builds client trust, which facilitates the healing process.”

—CYNTHIA HUTCHISON, HT PROGRAM DIRECTOR

In the movie E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, E.T. receives the essential message of connecting with his home planet to get reoriented and return to his galaxy. Whatever our dilemmas are, the connection with inner wisdom and intuition is nurtured by the desire for inner calm. The human body appears to be wired with its own homing device that we can call the “return to center.”

Reconnecting to one’s own center is both the easiest and the most challenging endeavor. Though the Healing Touch techniques for centering are easily learned, it takes most people a lifetime of practice to be able to access their center quickly when it’s most needed and to stay focused on helping themselves or others in need.

Think of a recent situation when you felt overwhelmed or befuddled: you misplaced a needed object, had a flat tire when you were in a hurry, got a costly traffic ticket, received a surprising medical diagnosis, heard about a loved one’s distress, or listened to bad news about another oil spill or environmental disaster. This is just a sampling of events that can move people off their center, their place of steady confidence that things can work out. In truth, it takes very little for most people to lose their bearings and become “unglued.” Without being overly pessimistic, it is a truism that anything can happen to anyone at any time.

Centering as the Essential Caring Ethic

Feeling fragmented, pulled, or pushed describes the energetic image of the human biofield when people are disconnected from home base. Intuitive teachers have been able to “see” these states of mind in others with their higher sensory perceptions. Most of us can usually sense when someone we know well is out of sorts. Even then he might say, “I’m fine, nothing is wrong.”

Knowing these states of disconnection within ourselves requires self-awareness and practice. Personal signals of being off-center include sensitivity to inner states such as:

backing away or wanting distance from others

feeling distracted or disconnected from the present moment

daydreaming

excessive worrying or feeling anxious

having difficulty focusing

misplacing important items

bumping into objects

dropping or breaking things accidentally

wanting to escape, to “get away from it all”

For a practice such as Healing Touch to be effective in helping someone in need, practitioners must know how to center themselves quickly. Centering is essential to the ethic of caring because energy always flows from the fuller field to the more depleted one. For example, a hose full of water under pressure will fill an empty container even when it’s at the same level as the bucket. Speaking within the energy-linked metaphor, the intentional and stronger field of the facilitator is needed to facilitate flow of positive energy into the client’s impaired field. If the energy in each container or person is the same, not much can happen. Alternately, connecting with the biofield of a strong but damaged client may actually weaken the helper temporarily.

Here is a sampling of some quick centering exercises you can use for yourself before reaching out to others with your desire to help.

Exercise 8.1 Life-Giving Breath

Seat yourself comfortably or lie down and take a few deep breaths ... Notice how the abdomen shifts with the breath, moving out slightly as you inhale and contracting as you exhale ... Let the exhales gradually become longer as if blowing out a candle ... Note how the in-breath becomes deeper ... If you wish, count slowly, making the out-breath longer than the in-breath. (For example, count to four as you breathe in, and count to eight as you breathe out.) ... Let all distractions simply melt away, and come back to the breath ... Note how you feel after three to five minutes of this exercise.

Exercise 8.2 Imaging a Peaceful Place

While seated comfortably or lying down, take a few centering breaths. Give yourself five to ten minutes for quiet time and think of a truly peaceful place in nature ... It may be a place you’ve visited or a picture from a calendar or postcard ... Step into the scene ... see the colors, notice the time of day ... listen to the sounds ... feel the breeze on your skin ... notice where sunlight falls ... sense the peacefulness around you ... thank your inner being for going to this place ... Bring your awareness back slowly to the present with appreciation for the flexibility of your mind that can give you this “mini-vacation” without having to make extensive travel plans.

Exercise 8.3 Bringing Consciousness into Every Activity

The busy mind likes to move into the future or into thoughts about the past, especially when we’re doing something mundane or repetitive. Such activities might include brushing your teeth, washing your hands, cleaning the stove or sink, taking out the garbage, folding your clothes, or other daily, menial tasks. Bringing mindfulness to these routines allows you to come into the present moment more fully.

For example, try washing your hands for at least thirty to forty seconds ... Notice the sound of the water ... feel its texture on your palms ... smell the soap ... note how it moves into each crevice of your hands ... Move the hands together as if they are greeting each other ... be aware of the powerful vortices of energy in the middle of the palms ... imagine light flowing from one hand to the other ... Hum a tune ... have fun playing with the elements of soap and water ... When you feel complete, thank the elements for their gifts to you ... Dry your newly bathed hands and enjoy how the fingers can move and dance.

As you practice each of the exercises, you will note what it’s like to be fully in the present moment. When that happens, it’s like catching a glimpse of who you really are. At first, these moments may be rare, but over time with repeated practice, you’ll note how life is richer as you become more aware of your immediate surroundings. Time actually seems to slow down when we put consciousness into the here and now.

Another way to increase your awareness skills is to recall the image of a person you saw earlier in the day. Think of what the person was actually wearing, what he or she said, and how you sensed the person’s presence. Was the person rushed, impatient, kind, curt, or attentive? Did you feel a connection with the person? What was significant about the interaction? Plan how you might like future exchanges with the person to go differently.

There are literally hundreds of ways of centering oneself. Meditation practices are powerful methods that remind us to tame fleeting thoughts that seem to run about like wild horses. Mastery of such techniques takes commitment and willingness. Meditation can become your life’s companion, a necessity like eating and sleeping. Yoga, tai chi, and qigong are meditative practices that bring unity to body, mind, and spirit through specific movements. For some, movement is more effective than sitting still as a way to experience deep connection with one’s inner being. All who practice HT—novice, apprentice, or full practitioner—are encouraged to find the path with heart for them to discover and nourish the easily distracted mind.

Centering in Healing Touch

Because Healing Touch is often shared on the spur of the moment with those in need, practitioners need to learn to center quickly. Many times, a single deep breath will help practitioners access the inner place of peace, especially if they have practiced meditative techniques over time. The energy-linked metaphors used in HT can be powerful allies in centering rapidly, as you’ll learn in the following exercise:

Exercise 8.4 Connecting with the Unlimited Supply of Energy

Think of a situation where you want to be of help, perhaps with a neighbor, a friend, or someone you just met ... Take a deep breath, let it go fully, and allow yourself to feel the unlimited supply of energy that is available all around you ... The sun, with its life-giving emanations to this planet, is an example of this unending energetic source ... Bring the energy into your body with the breath ... Feel it in the heart center ... Let it flow to your arms and hands ... Rub your hands together and notice the warmth ... Feel the support of the breath in your body ... After feeling the nurturing force of energy in your body, allow some of it to flow out of your hands ... Imagine this flow from your hands moving into the field of the person you wish to assist ... Imagine helping the person with one or more of the hands-on methods you’re learning ... Continue to feel your center ... Take a breath to release your focus on the situation and come back into the present.

This kind of preparation for reaching out to another person may take three to five minutes at first, but most participants in HT Level 1 classes can do this quite readily after completing the first weekend course. The benefits of this preparation are many.

First, you are creating a safe place for bringing about positive change. If, for example, someone’s home is the setting for your sharing, you are creating an energetic bond in a selected space. There is a sacredness in this intentionally-set environment that becomes palpable. The client will feel your honoring and caring presence. HT is not a casual method of flapping hands over someone else; rather, it is an intentional, focused movement of vibratory patterns to bring about increased well-being.

At the same time, you as the facilitator of healing energies receive the benefit of connecting with your own gifted, divine being. Practitioners of energy modalities are known to gain benefits from centering that go well beyond mere calming of the emotions. A study of practitioners involved with energy healing for twenty-five years showed that these caregivers lived longer and with fewer health problems compared to other people in their age group.[1] It not only feels good to practice this helping art, it actually does you good!

Grounding in Healing Touch

As part of HT practice, grounding is akin to centering. It is the act of sensing your body’s connection to the earth before, during, and after giving an intervention. While centering is the practitioner’s art of being fully present while focusing within, as well as being receptive to intuitive knowing, grounding provides the sense of physical balance required to hold your focus and to be fully alert so that you are aware of shifts in your client or the surroundings. Grounding prevents “spacing out” or being disconnected from reality. It also prevents temporarily taking on client symptoms from the biofield interactions.

When treatments are complete, practitioners also ground the client by either holding the client’s feet or shoulders, or making a statement that conveys, “I’m finished now.” This ensures that clients are aware of release from the caregiver’s presence, even though they may rest or move into sleep. Often, the best healing response occurs after an intervention is given, since the body-wisdom has its own innate timing for the integration of what has transpired.

In Healing Touch, both centering and grounding become part of what is called “effortless effort.” This is the ability to let go of any personal attachment to a particular outcome and the willingness to hold positive intention for the client’s highest good and to work with unconditional love and compassion. It is described as the quality of “being in the flow”—alert, present, and without effort.

Easy, yes. Profound, yes. Simple, no.

Story: Rescue from Hypothermia

One of my most dramatic experiences occurred on a fourteen-day rafting trip through the Grand Canyon on the Colorado River. A week into the trip, our group was running a final rapid before nightfall; we were well beyond the place where outside rescuers could reach us. Suddenly, an entire raft buckled and eight women fell into the forty-degree water. Most were able to get to shore on their own, but one woman struggled in the rapids and quickly became as limp as a rag doll from the cold. She hung supported only by her life vest. Several others were able to drag her ashore and take off her wet, cold clothes.

As the woman lay seemingly lifeless from hypothermia, I knew I had to center myself, especially because twenty overanxious adults surrounded me, all fearing the worst. Positive intention is vital at times when outcomes may be uncertain. Recalling all my training in that instant, I centered myself and started moving my hands in Magnetic Clearing (explained in chapter 9) over her body, head to toe, while directing others to bring warm liquids and dry clothing. I then placed my hands over each joint, starting at the foot and ankle, and moved gently upward. With each change of my hand position, I envisioned an inflow of energy from the source of unlimited energy, the sky above, to my body, heart, and hands. The color red, an indicator of the vital life force and heat, surrounded me. Gradually, the woman opened her eyes, smiled, and said, “Hey, I’m back.” The relief among all of us rafters was palpable.

Onlooker tensions are often a discernible energy force. This is true at the scene of highway accidents, hospital bedsides, or in care settings for the seriously ill or dying. Centering and grounding are two essential tools that keep caregivers from becoming depleted by the concerns or negative images of others. The tools also ensure that a caregiver holds positive thoughts toward clients who may be unable to respond or give feedback. Ultimately, centering and grounding allow the caregiver’s sense of inner strength to expand by taking in the unending source of energy in our universe.

Instead of feeling depleted from sleepless nights of bedtime vigils, caregivers, like Ben in our next story, have learned to feel more vital and alive. Through repeated experiences of centering, Ben could lend his quiet presence in a frightening moment.

Story: Ben Holds His Healing Light in Darkness

Ben learned about HT while studying to become a hospice volunteer. Because of his dedication in visiting the Jones family, they asked him to help at night with the care of their elderly father who was dying of cancer. Ben’s patient, Joe, told his family about one of those nights:

“Whenever Ben arrived, I felt like a light had entered the room. Because he cared for me, I felt safe. Whenever he put his hands over me, I felt like a cocoon of warmth and calm was protecting me. I don’t know how he did that, because the other hospice people did their jobs just as well, but Ben’s presence was different in a special sort of way.”

“One night we had a thunderstorm and I woke up with a start. All the lights in the house were out and I was afraid ... I don’t know of what, because when you’re dying you don’t really have too much to be fearful about, except maybe about what happens when you cross over.”

“Ben came into my room, but before he spoke to me, he took some long breaths and seemed to make a connection with his guidance. I sensed he would know what to do. He came over and touched me lightly and said, simply, ‘I’m here.’ I swear the room lit up at that moment. Then we both just sat in comfortable silence and listened to the thunder.”

Years after Joe’s death, the Jones family still remembers Ben as the caregiver with the “inner light” that could be sensed sometimes even by them. Ben grew throughout his experiences with hospice night service and told his supervisors, “I received so much more than I ever gave. That job changed my life.”

When we are conduits for an unlimited supply of energy, in alignment with Higher Power or Source and something greater than our personal selves, ego pressures and concerns simply fall away. Instead, we seem to connect with our deeper selves and move to a higher vibrational frequency. This empowers clients to move beyond the personal and, at the same time, to their more-than-personal knowing as well. Within that new context, the forces for movement toward successful immune system function or enhanced psychological awareness seem to become activated. A leap toward healing and renewed wholeness becomes possible.

***

The specific methods we’ll study in the next chapters are tools to begin your own practice of HT. Although nothing is quite as good as learning with a group of kindred spirits who share your desires or with the help of a skilled teacher, these tools will give you starting points and help you build on what you know now. In Healing Touch, the caregiver’s centering and grounding are the essential resources that must be in place for effective change to happen.

Table of Contents

Praise for Healing Touch

List of Energy-Related Exercises and Methods

Exercises

Methods

List of Illustrations

Figures

Table

Foreword

Acknowledgments

Introduction

About This Book

THE ADVENTURE OF HEALING TOUCH

Healing Touch Stories from Everyday Lived Experiences

Responding to Emergencies

Story: Grandma to the Rescue!

Dealing with Family Dramas

Story: Mother Increases Family Peace

Reducing Caregiver Burnout

Story: Susie Gets Her Bearings Back

Helping to Decrease Pain

Story: Mother Relinquishes Her Cane

Facilitating Transitions

Story: Dad Creates Family Bond

The Healing Touch Landscape Today

A Dream Comes to Life: How Healing Touch Happened

Setting the Stage for HT

Healing Touch Gets Its Name

Expansion of the Course Networks

Janet Passes the Baton to New Leaders

New Developments within the Healing Touch Program

Healing Touch as a Major Participant in Today’s Integrative Health Care

A Brief History of Healing

Developments Toward Integrative Health Care

Healing Touch as a Vital Component in Today’s Integrative Health Care

Models of Integrative Health Care

Expanded Roles for Healing Touch

THEORY, SCIENCE, AND RESEARCH SUPPORTING ENERGY MEDICINE

Energy Medicine’s History and Theory

The Human Energy System as Understood in Healing Touch Practice

Toward a Theory of Healing with Healing Touch

Scientific Support for Energy Medicine

Vibrational Medicine

Quantum Interrelationships

Neuroplasticity and Neurogenesis

The Genius in Your Genes

Research about Healing Touch and Related Energy-Medicine Practices

Links between Research and Science

Marked and Rapid Relaxation

Pain Relief

Reduction of Anxiety

Increased Immune System Function

Accelerated Wound Healing

Increased Sense of Personal Efficacy

HEALING TOUCH SKILLS FOR YOU AND THE PEOPLE YOU CARE ABOUT

Setting Healing Intention with Self-Care

Making Friends with Your Body

Paying Attention to Feelings

Noticing and Upgrading Inner Self-Talk

Meditating with the Chakras

Exercise 7.1 Chakra Meditation

Practicing the Self-Chakra Connection

Exercise 7.2 Self-Chakra Connection

Creating a Protective Envelope

Exercise 7.3 Sensing Your Protective Field

Writing Down Your Personal Learning Experiences

Centering and Grounding: “E.T. Phone Home”

Centering as the Essential Caring Ethic

Exercise 8.1 Life-Giving Breath

Exercise 8.2 Imaging a Peaceful Place

Exercise 8.3 Bringing Consciousness into Every Activity

Centering in Healing Touch

Exercise 8.4 Connecting with the Unlimited Supply of Energy

Grounding in Healing Touch

Story: Rescue from Hypothermia

Story: Ben Holds His Healing Light in Darkness