Therapeutic Touch for Psychological Disorders

Learn about therapeutic touch as a treatment option for anxiety, stress, Alzheimer's dementia and other psychiatric disorders and fibromyalgia pain.

Before engaging in any complementary medical technique, you should be aware that many of these techniques have not been evaluated in scientific studies. Often, only limited information is available about their safety and effectiveness. Each state and each discipline has its own rules about whether practitioners are required to be professionally licensed. If you plan to visit a practitioner, it is recommended that you choose one who is licensed by a recognized national organization and who abides by the organization's standards. It is always best to speak with your primary health care provider before starting any new therapeutic technique.

• Background
• Theory

  advertisement

• Evidence
• Unproven Uses
• Potential Dangers
• Summary
• Resources

Background

Therapeutic touch (TT) was developed by Delores Krieger, R.N., Ph.D., and Dora Kunz, a natural healer, in the early 1970s. Therapeutic touch is a modern adaptation of several religious and secular healing traditions and is most commonly used in nursing practice for a wide range of health conditions.

When administering treatment, therapeutic touch practitioners hold their hands a short distance from a patient, without making physical contact. This technique is believed to help detect a patient's energy field and allows the practitioner to correct any imbalances. A standardized technique is taught by Nurse Healers - Professional Associates, Inc., the primary training organization for therapeutic touch. The treatment protocol consists of a sequence of four steps:

• Centering — to focus attention on the patient and calm the patient's mind
• Assessing — to evaluate the patient's energy field for irregularities
• Intervention — to facilitate symmetrical flow of energy through the patient's energy field
• Evaluation/closure — to verify the effects and conclude the treatment

Treatment sessions typically last five to 20 minutes, but they may take up to 30 minutes. To date, there is no formal certification or competency-based credentialing in therapeutic touch.

Therapeutic touch is taught as a secular approach with no religious connotations, although its core concept of "life energy" or "life force" has sometimes been compared with spiritual rather than scientific principles. Critics have argued that because of its religious roots, therapeutic touch should be treated as a religion rather than as a therapeutic intervention. Skeptics have sought to eliminate therapeutic touch as a nursing practice, based largely on perceived questions surrounding the mechanism of action. Nonetheless, positive results suggested by a few studies in humans, clinical anecdotes and case reports have led to increasing use of therapeutic touch and related practices based on an energetic paradigm.

Since therapeutic touch was first described in the 1970s, several variations have emerged from the original treatment. Healing touch was founded in the 1980s by Janet Mentgen and is based on the principles of therapeutic touch. (The terms therapeutic touch and healing touch are sometimes used interchangeably.) Healing touch focuses on several concepts in addition to those of therapeutic touch, including patient empowerment, practitioner self-care and the effect of the practitioner-patient relationship on healing.

Theory

The mechanism by which therapeutic touch may affect the body is not known. It has been theorized that healing touch affects patients through the connection of energy fields within and outside of the physical body. The treatment of symptoms is thought to occur when the movement of energy stimulates internal mechanisms. Therapeutic touch is asserted to have varying effects on different body systems, with the autonomic nervous system being particularly sensitive. The lymphatic, circulatory and musculoskeletal systems are also thought to be affected. Female endocrine disorders are believed to be more sensitive than male endocrine disorders. Anecdotally, manic and catatonic patients have been reported to respond to therapeutic touch. Most studies of therapeutic touch have examined effects on pain and anxiety.

A controversial study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1998 reported that blindfolded therapeutic touch practitioners were unable to detect which of their hands was closer to the hand of an investigator. The authors concluded that this demonstrated an inability of therapeutic touch practitioners to sense energy fields. The study was later criticized by some therapeutic touch providers who thought that the study did not truly test the clinical applications of touch therapy or assess outcomes such as improved symptoms.