I Have the Touch: The Alternate Treatment Modality of Therapeutic Touch
an article by David C. Marble
A Brief History Of Therapeutic Touch
The Beliefs and Claims of TT Practitioners
Anecdotal vs. Scientific Evidence
Setting the Scene: A Brief History of Therapeutic Touch Practices
The healing power of touch has been a resonant idea in the human mind into the annals of recorded history. Often aligned quite closely with spiritual or religious beliefs, the ability of certain privileged persons in the community to heal through bodily contact or close proximity is repeated in culture after culture. Faith healing in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, te-ate in ancient Japan, pranic healing in India, shamanistic rituals in tribal societies across the globe, the royal touch in medieval Europe; all hold as their central belief the tenet that mere physical contact between two human beings can effectively cure disease, heal wounds, and remove infirmities.
These beliefs receded to mystical obscurity in Western culture during the Industrial Revolution and the following Scientific Revolution, during which the current drug and surgery based paradigm of Western medical science was firmly established. This paradigm ruled until the New Age movements in the 60's sought a return to older, less artificial means of healing.
In recent years the tension between Western medical science and so called "holistic" or "traditional" medicines and therapies has been increasing to a fevered pitch, as demand for these services forces hospitals to include theraputic touch or else lose patients to competitors. These treatments have unfortunately been viewed by many members of the Western medical community as competitive treatment modalities rather than supplementary techniques. These feelings of competition combine with a frustration about the lack of accepted experimental data concerning the manner in which these techniques work to invoke a great hostility in many doctors and medical practitioners. Despite determined opposition by the established medical community, these practices persist, and are slowly gaining converts in the hospital, especially among nurses. In 1994, the U.S. National Institute of Health awarded a research grant to study
Therapeutic Touch.
The Beliefs and Claims of Therapeutic Touch Practitioners
There are a number of therapeutic touch systems in use today; the most popular are Dolores Krieger's Therapeutic Touch, Reiki and Pranic Healing. The differences between these schools are primarily in the realm of terminology; the theoretical mechanisms by which the
systems work and the supposed benefits of these systems remain essentially identical. The use of therapeutic touch presupposes a belief in "life energy," which is interpreted variously as spirit, soul, yin/yang, electricity, magnetism, or Einstein's energy based universe theories. According to this system, all living beings produce life energy, and the combined total of the overlapping energy fields in an area creates an environmental life energy field in which we live, which is in turn a part of the limitless energies of the universe. Ideally, life energy is produced in the living and flows freely to and from the environment. However, this state is only maintained when an individual is at unity with itself. If desires are being repressed, rejected, fought, or frustrated, the individual falls out of harmony with his environment, either absorbing too much energy or releasing too much. Equally damaging, irregularities may develop in the individual's field which channel too much energy to one part of the body at the expense of others. The damaged energy field reflects its ailments in the physical body as "dis-ease," which is not the bacterial/viral/syndrome version of disease connoted by popular usage, but instead simply a state of imbalance that impairs the natural, proper functioning of the organism. Generally, this results in the weakening of the immune system, a slowing down of the healing process, the appearance of various psychological disorders, and an across the board decline in faculties.
The purpose of therapeutic touch, then, is to remove the irregularities of the energy field which cause dis-ease, both as a preventative mechanism and as a treatment for manifested
illness. Therapeutic touch practitioners attempt to smooth out irregularities in the human energy
field and attempt to center the energies of the individual, diverting excess energies back into the
environment. Alternatively, the therapist may channel some of the limitless energy of the
environment through themselves to "jump start" the weakened energies of the individual. It is this
recentering and smoothing that is the operative technique of therapeutic touch; the practitioner is
not actually healing the patient, but instead orienting the patient's body correctly so that it
operates at peak levels of efficiency.
One of the most interesting claims of therapeutic touch practitioners is that the therapy can work on ailments which neither the therapist or patient are conciously aware of. This statement has two interesting implications. First, it removes the need for diagnositic training of the part of the practitioner, as the energy knows exactly where it should go without being guided. Thus, therapeutic touch may be learned and used outside of the professional health care arena. Second, it removes the onus of curing any particular ailment from the patient. A patient may go into a session hoping for a cure for a persistent backache and instead come out of the session with a more positive outlook on life in general.
In addition to claims of increased healing, some schools of therapeutic touch claim an ability to heal others from great distances, and particularly to center areas of negative emotional energy from a great distance. In addition to providing healing services for the local community, practioners of Reiki and Pranic healing attempt to better the world at large by projecting positive energies into areas international conflict and turmoil, attempting to quell violence and promote peace. While this seems like a radical and completely insupportable idea, a 1976 study discovered a statistically significant lowering of rates for crime, accidents, and illness in areas in which at least one percent of the population practices transcendental meditation, a school of meditation dedicated to bringing the mind and body into balance and attaining inner harmony and quiet. While similar studies have not been conducted on the effect of distance reiki, the transcendental meditation study must be taken seriously as a reminder that logical skepticism, while vital for scientific inquiry, must never rule out any claim as impossible without testing.
For a comprehensive listing of Reiki links on the Web, click here.
For more information on Pranic Healing, click here.
Anecdotal Evidence vs. Scientific Evidence: Pros and Cons
There are two major types of material used to in the battle over therapeutic touch; anecdotal evidence and scienctific evidence. Anecdotal evidence is simply stories which pertain somehow to topic matter, while scientific evidence is supposed to be the product of a rigorous set of standards and methods which are collectively known as the scientific method. Scientific data is usually thought of as unbiased, reproducible, and therefore it is regarded with great respect, while anecdotal evidence is though of as mere storytelling and useless. However, these self-aggrandizing categories created by the scientific community completely fail to recognize that the personal stake of the experimenter nearly always determines the results of a given experiment. When an experiment has the expected results, it is recorded and left as correct; if it does not, the scientist presumes experimental error and repeats the experiment. Those persons involved in the research on therapeutic touch often have the greatest personal stake in the outcome. Doctors have a vested interest in remaining the sole healers in our society; nurses have a vested interest in finally being accorded respect as healers in their own right as opposed to simply aides to the stars of the show; therapeutic touch teachers and practitioners have a vested interest in their own economic investment in learning therapeutic touch (for example, becoming a Reiki III master costs $10,000). Both skeptics and believers have a vested interest in maintaining their world views, as reorganizing one's mind can be quite painful. All of these biases place an unwanted influence on both the manner in which an experiment is conducted and in the interpretation of the resulting datum
Even if the scientific method is not compromised by the personal biases of those running or funding the experiment, there are methodologies inherent in the scientific method itself which makes it less than ideal for the study of therapeutic touch. The practice of therapeutic touch is based on an Eastern medical paradigm, which places great value on the spiritual and emotional status of its patients and is not structured around dramatic physical and chemical interventions (i.e. surgery and drugs). Subjecting therapeutic touch to Western style inquiry is therefore difficult. Classically, the Western method requires understanding of every aspect of the medical process (whether that be drug development or a new surgical method) through repeated experiment. We study the drug first, and then its effect on people. The source of the power behind therapeutic touch (if indeed there is power at all) is not remotely understood in a measurable sense-- the healers know that they can heal, and try to understand it later. Without understanding the mechanism for healing outside of personal faith, scientific inquiry has nothing to measure, chart, or challenge, except to the actual healing itself. The drug, so to speak, is invisible.
Contrasted to the cold, careful, and (ideally) rational view of scientific inquiry are the simple day to day experiences of therapeutic touch which are recorded in anecdotes. Anecdotes make no pretense at scientific method; they are simply descriptions of what happened in a particular circumstance. Anecdotal evidence of therapeutic touch is quite well documented, going back several thousand years for certain systems. As powerful and moving as an anecdote may be, there are many inherent weaknesses involved in using anecdotes to support an argument. The names of persons involved are often changed to protect their
identities. While this is certainly a good practise from the standpoint of our constitutional right to privacy, it does make it absolutely impossible to track down the sources of these stories. There is no way to prove that any of these stories occurred in the manner related, if they occurred at all. Another problem with anecdotal references is the lack of scientific controls. Even if these stories did occur in the manner described by the texts, there is no reason to believe that they would not have turned out the exact same way without the intervention of a touch healer.
Finally, the real life practise of therapeutic touch occurs with the knowledge that the healing is occurring, therefore making it impossible to rule out the placebo effect as the operative mechanism of the healing. Although the placebo effect can be an incredibly powerful medicine (recent studies about persons infected with HIV who dramatically exceed their projected lifespan's indicate that these patients are universally possessed of a strong desire to live and a positive outlook), if the full power of therapeutic touch is derived from the placebo effect alone then therapeutic touch is more of a psychological empowerment technique than mystical healing art.
Anecdotal Citations
"Kathy lost over 60 pounds without trying after getting Reiki.1"
This is a complete citation of a piece of "anecdotal evidence." It is also completely meaningless,
for a number of reasons. Firstly, there are no dates, no time period, no record of what other
methods Kathy used to lose weight. Secondly, even the weight loss was relatively effortless,
there is no reason to attribute the weight loss to the mystical power of Reiki. Reiki attunement
costs $150 and most of a weekend. Although both sacrifices are well within the range of the
average American, they nevertheless represent a significant expenditure of resources. Kathy's
willingness to pay the necessary costs is an indicator of her commitment to losing weight; with
sufficient desire, many people can lose significant amounts of weight.
"Pamela said she had been suicidal every day of her life since age 4 or 5. She had
always been under a psychiatrists care and on medication that helped her depression somewhat,
but never really lifted it. Several times she almost succeeded in committing suicide. Within 3
weeks of taking 1st degree she was totally off her medications and her life began turning around.
Several months later, after getting second degree, she was self-supporting in her own business."2 This anecdote suffers from the same weaknesses as the first story; even if we assume that her
change in behavior was due to her learning Reiki, there is no indication that the healing powers of
Reiki are at work here. Pamela may have found meaning for her life through Reiki; the belief in a
universal healing force may have filled in a void in her life that had been weighing her down. She
could have made some new friends during the process learning Reiki. Perhaps her newfound
ability to heal allowed her to discover a new sense of self-worth.
"In one instance I worked with two gay men to do healing for a young AIDS patient near death in the hospital. He had a fever of 107.8 degrees Fahrenheit and was not expected to live longer than that night. He was unconscious and hallucinating, and very restless...During the healing I somehow knew that his fever had dropped three degrees...We waited half an hour and did a second session and this time the fever broke. We watched the digital numbers on the monitor actually shift while we were working. The young man regained consciousness while we were still in the room, and he talked with his mother for the rest of the night. There was unfinished business to resolve, and the healing gave them both time to resolve it. The man died the next morning in a calm, deep sleep."3 This story is more convincing, given the amounts of personal detail involved in the telling and also the non-miraculous nature of the healing performed. The young man was not cured of AIDS or given a new lease on life; he was simply given a little time of clarity. Although the rigor of scientific controls were not observed, here, at least, the potential placebo effect is avoided by the unconscious state of the patient.
"In another instance, a woman came to me with three large lumps in her breast, ranging from walnut to lemon sized. I tried to convince her to go to a doctor, but she had made the clear decision not to allow the medical system to operate on her and amputate her breast. I felt at first that the lumps were too far advanced for successful holistic healing, but with two other Reiki III healers we began doing weekly healing sessions...After a month, a dark circular area developed on her breast that we felt would abscess...the breast finally developed the largest abscess I have ever seen, about two inches across. It drained for several weeks and by the end of that time all three lumps were gone. I asked her to get an antibiotic for the infection from a doctor she knew, and she did so."4 This anecdote manages to convey a miracle story and still make it sound believable by including the description of the abcess in tandem with the miracle. The abscess is grotesque enough to make the thought of the process as a miracle difficult; only when it is laid alongside years of chemotherapy and the probable removal of the diseased breast does a huge abscess for three months fade into insignificance. However, far more interesting than the story itself is the prejudice against the medical community contained within the text. The "clear decision" to "not allow the medical system to...amputate her breast" not only makes the choice seem quite reasonable but also dehumanizes doctors into a monstrous system which were not there to remove the tumor but instead simply to mutilate the subject. Although there are carefully placed pro-medical messages in the beginning and end of the selection, this is all window dressing for the powerful subtext of the message, "Do not trust scientific medicine."
Scientific Studies
There are a number of classic templates for studies pertaining to therapeutic touch techniques. One of these templates involves an attempt to alter hemoglobin levels in the blood by the intercession of a therapeutic touch practitioners. Although these studies are fairly easy to conduct, the interpretation of the data gained causes a great deal of friction between the promoters of therapeutic touch and its detractors. The ideology of balance within therapeutic touch allows for a great deal of leeway within the interpretation of results, as a wide variety of changes may all be interpreted as a centering or balancing of the system. Scientists who are not already convinced of therapeutic touch's efficacy object to this interpretation of the results as blatantly self serving and not useful for inquiry into the true nature of therapeutic touch.
Another template-experiment for therapeutic touch involves the treatment of surgically administered wounds by therapeutic touch practitioners. Dermal wound studies are powerful, easily interpreted studies which require the use of a few simple protocols in order to be done correctly. Both of the following experiments have quite clear answers to the question "How does therapeutic touch affect the healing process?" Unfortunately, they do not come to the same conclusion.
"Daniel Wirth of Healing Sciences International in Orinda, California conducted a tightly controlled experiment involving a (Therapeutic Touch). Forty four male college students received identical minor wounds deliberately inflicted by a doctor in the right or left shoulder. Twenty-three then received (Therapeutic Touch) and the other twenty-one did not. The treatments were given in such a way that the possibility of a placebo effect was ruled out. All forty-four students extend their arms though a hole in the wall. In the other room, a trained healer was present for those who received healing and administered healing from a distance without touching. For those who did not receive healing, no one was present in the room. Both the students and the doctor who administered the wounds and later also evaluated their healing rate had been told that the experiment was about the electrical conductivity of the body. Neither knew that the experiment was about healing. Eight and sixteen day follow-up measurements of the rate of wound healing were done. After eight days, the treated groups wounds had shrunk 93.5 percent compared with 67.3 percent for those not treated. After sixteen days, the figures were 99.3 and 90.9. After debriefing, the students stated they did not know the true nature of the experiment and had felt no contact with the healer. The possibility that expectations of the students caused the healing was ruled out." 5 The conclusions of this experiment are firmly pro-therapeutic touch. Placebo effects on the students were ruled out by concealing both the true nature of the experiment and the treatments themselves. Similar concealment from the doctors removed the possibility of tampering with the experiment. The dramatic increase in healing (138%) is more than significant; it is staggering. A similar across the board decrease in the amount of recuperation time required after injury or surgery would benefit both the patient (less time spent in the hospital is not only emotionally better but also economically a better option) and the hospital (less patients using hospital space to recover from surgery equals more room to operate and an increased flow of patients overall).
"The effect of non-contact therapeutic touch (NCTT) in isolation and in combination with Reiki, LeShan, and Intercessory Prayer on the healing rate of full thickness human dermal wounds was examined utilizing a randomized, double blind, within subject, crossover design. The protocol incorporated an integral biofeedback, guided imagery, and visualization/relaxation component in order to assess the influence of psychophysiological factors in the healing process. Biopsies were performed on the lateral deltoid in healthy subjects and assessed by two independent physicians for the rate of reepitheliazation at day 5 and day 10. Subjects met as a group on odd numbered days for a one hour visualization/relaxation session which incorporated guided imagery with either a specific intent to heal their biopsy wound or a specific intent to relax. Treatment intervention included to NCTT healers or two mimic practitioners who worked in-person for a duration of 6 minutes per subject. LeShan and Intercessory prayer healers worked at a distance and a Reiki healer worked in person with the NCTT healers on specific intent to relax. Results show significance for the treated versus the control group but in the opposite direction from that expected."6 This study shows that those patients who were treated actually took longer to heal than those who were not. This might possibly be described to a sort of reverse placebo effect, in that the doubt of the patients may have acted as a negative factor in their healing processes. Beyond this possible effect, there are two main problems with this experiment.
First and foremost, there are too many variables involved in the equation. In addition to the guided imagery sessions, there are four separate schools of healers working with the patients. Second, the Reiki and NCTT healers were working with specific intent to relax the patients, not to encourage the healing of their arm wounds. These experimental weaknesses hint at a basic anti-therapeutic touch bias on the part of the experimenters. The use of four types of healing indicates that each is not taken seriously in its own right. If the healers were taken seriously, then they should have treated separate subjects; if a scientist wanted to learn whether any one of a group of four drugs will speed healing, the last thing he would do would be to mix all the drugs together and see if the combination worked. At best, any results gained could be attributed to any of the four; at worst, the drugs would combine in such a manner as to produce effects that would never be created by a single drug, or perhaps the drugs would all cancel each other out. This "drug cocktail" effect is another possible explanation for the reverse significance.
Although the two studies here contradict each other, we may place greater weight on the first experiment because of the sloppy manner in which the second experiment was conducted. Nevertheless, scientific inquiry as a whole has not come down firmly on either side of the debate.
For further information on scientific studies of therapeutic touch, click here.
The Moral and Ethical Dilemma of the Modern Healthcare Provider:
To Include Therapeutic Touch or Not?
The growing popularity of therapeutic touch is of an issue of great concern to the health care community. On one hand, it is economically advantageous for hospitals to include therapeutic touch on their facilities, else patients desiring such services may go elsewhere. It is also important to include therapeutic touch in the hospital so that the two may be unified in the minds of the public, thus removing either-or equation that occurs sometimes between medical science and therapeutic touch. On the other hand, therapeutic touch does not have conclusive scientific support, and therefore its inclusion in the hospital would give it the appearance of legitimate practice which it may not deserve. If therapeutic touch is seen to have the implicit support of the scientific community, then for much of the public the question of its efficacy is essentially laid to rest. Administrators are therefore rightfully wary of lending their support to therapeutic touch, for fear of patients turning away from proven practice in favor of this new, easier treatment. How many persons would truly choose to engage in the demanding regimen of chemotherapy if they believed that touch could cure their cancer? Although the miracle story related above in the anecdotal section has a happy ending, one can easily imagine a much, much darker scenario in which a patient forgoes conventional therapy in favor of the easier therapeutic touch and dies for their trouble. Currently, most hospitals are still erring on the side of caution, but as therapeutic touch continues to grow they will have to make a difficult choice. Hospitals may choose to include therapeutic touch in the hopes that careful regulation of its use will make up for the prestige they grant it by including it, or they may not choose not to include it so that it might remain in the category of "New Age Mysticism" and never gain official acceptance.
For an insightful, pro-therapeutic touch essay on the responsible use of Reiki in the modern hospital, click here.