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Non-Contact 'Therapeutic Touch' May Indeed Have the Right Touch

June 21, 2000 (New York) -- "Distant healing" -- the use of prayer, spiritual healing, or manipulating energy fields to promote healing and wellness -- may actually be beneficial, according to a closer look at this growing field of alternative medicine.

Although many forms of this type of therapy did not fare well when tested, altering patients' energy fields through non-contact therapeutic touch may, in fact, have the right touch. But until now, there has been little agreement about whether or not such distant healing works, report researchers led by John A. Astin, PhD, of the complementary medicine program at Kernan Hospital Mansion in Baltimore.

Although "skeptics are convinced that the benefits being reported are due to placebo effects at best or fraud at worst," he writes in a recent issue of the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, the new review found that distant healing was effective in 57% of 23 studies.

In a recent study, 7% of people polled said that they had tried some form of spiritual healing, making it the fifth most popular type of alternative medicine treatment. And a 1996 study showed that 82% of Americans believed in the healing power of prayer and 64% said that doctors should pray with patients who request it.

To determine whether this type of healing was effective, Astin and colleagues reviewed 23 studies on distant healing, which is defined as "strategies that purport to heal through some exchange or channeling of supraphysical energy."

Five of the studies looked at the healing power of prayer, and 11 looked at non-contact therapeutic touch, or using the hands to manipulate a "human energy field" around the body. Seven were based on other forms of "distant healing," such as paranormal healing and psychokinetic influence, the latter of which is control of motion, purportedly by the exercise of psychic powers.

More than half of the studies showed a significant effect, nine studies showed no effect, and one study even showed a negative effect -- the people who did not receive therapeutic touch healed more quickly than those who did.

Overall, however, therapeutic touch seemed to come out the winner, with almost two-thirds of the studies on this form of healing showing a positive effect.

Even those who practice it, including Janet Ziegler, RN, MN, a therapeutic touch practitioner and teacher in Pittsburgh, admit that therapeutic touch is hard to describe and that no one knows exactly how it works.

"We use our hands to scan the energy field or blueprint that runs through the body and beyond it," she tells WebMD. "When we scan the energy field, we look for symmetry, balance, rhythm, and flow. It should be the same on both sides of the body, but sometimes it's not."