Energy healing, a noninvasive complementary treatment, is offered in more than 50 hospitals and clinics throughout the U.S., according to a recent review article published in Orthopaedic Nursing (2005; 24 [4], 259–69). Energy healing treatments include therapeutic touch, Reiki, chi kung, shamanic healing and healing touch, among others. According to the article, these therapies are based on the notion that all living things possess life energy and that certain healers can tap into universal healing energy or the energy of “God, Christ or another spiritual source” to direct this life energy and create a healing result.

Currently, the National Institutes of Health are funding studies to evaluate the effectiveness of these therapies and to identify the mechanisms that may be behind their ability to achieve results. There is growing evidence that energy-based treatments such as Reiki can relieve pain and accelerate the natural healing process. While researchers continue to study the appropriateness of these practices in healthcare settings, more and more hospitals and clinics are offering energy-based therapies, owing to consumer demand and widely acknowledged anecdotal reports of their effectiveness.

TECHNIQUES:

Chiropractic was started as a hands-on neurologically based technique but, for many years, the idea of chiropractic as a form of energy healing was dismissed by many—including part of the profession itself.

With the renewed interest in energy medicine, chiropractors need to make sure they retain their position as the "traditional" energy healers.

That was the advice given by Terry A. Rondberg, DC, founder and CEO of the World Chiropractic Alliance and publisher of The Chiropractic Journal.

“We veered off into a strictly musculoskeletal paradigm, in keeping with the popularity of the ‘body as machine’ view,” he stated. “But that mechanistic model is being overturned now that the vitalistic view of the original chiropractic is being validated by modern science. And we can’t afford to be left back with the followers of Descartes who see the body as nothing more than a bunch of bones and muscles.”

Dr. Rondberg’s statement was made in response to the news that yet another allopathic institution is recognizing the efficacy of energy healing. On Aug. 4, Greenwich Hospital in Connecticut (a major academic affiliate of Yale University School of Medicine and a member of the Yale-New Haven Health System) announced that its surgical, labor and delivery, and oncology patients were receiving “a healing boost through a form of energy therapy known as Healing Touch.”

The hospital is among a growing number of medical facilities utilizing Healing Touch, a gentle, non-invasive therapy shown to facilitate the relaxation response to enhance the healing process. Research shows that, in addition to inducing a deep sense of calm and relaxation, Healing Touch helps to reduce pain, decrease anxiety, promote sleep, and improve an overall sense of well-being.

At Greenwich and other hospitals, Healing Touch-trained volunteers place their hands on or above a person’s “energy centers” of the body. The patient is fully clothed. The goal is to strengthen the body’s ability to heal itself by restoring balance and harmony to the body's energy system.

“Energy healing therapy involves the channeling of healing energy through the hands of a practitioner into the patient’s body to restore normal energy balance and, therefore, health, as described by the National Institutes of Health’s National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine,” Greenwich hospital stated in a press release.

“It’s great to see hospitals incorporating the type of energy wellness techniques that chiropractors and other non-medical practitioners have used for years,” Rondberg added. “But we have to guard against this type of energy healing being co-opted by the medical profession. A medical, disease-oriented environment is not the best place for this type of healing to occur. Chiropractors and their allied wellness professionals need to step up their efforts to make sure we aren’t pushed out of the field altogether and confined in the musculoskeletal box!”

Sources:

http://www.ideafit.com/fitness-library/more-50-us-hospitals-use-energy-healing

http://www.thechiropracticjournal.com/news9.php?M=october&Y=2010