What is Therapeutic Touch?

Therapeutic Touch is a contemporary interpretation of several ancient healing practices. It is based on the conscious use of the hands to modulate, for therapeutic purposes, the energies that activate the human body. It rests on the assumption of the wholeness and interconnectedness of all things.

Therapeutic Touch involves the explicit use of intent to affect natural human energies. It is non-invasive and can be used safely and effectively. Moreover, Therapeutic Touch works. It is helpful with a wide range of illnesses. Though it is recognized that in the final analysis it is the individual who heals him/her self. Therapeutic Touch is not a miracle cure. It is simply an opportunity to actualize the natural human potential to help or heal yourself or others. The healing act is a conscious one (not passive).

Therapeutic Touch draws from a substantive body of basic and clinical research, in which it is shown that therapeutic changes occur with remarkable consistency. Founder, Delores Krieger claims to have raised hemoglobin levels with the practice of Therapeutic Touch.

The prime goal of Therapeutic Touch is the alleviation of discomfort and the acceleration of the client’s self-healing abilities. Major effects of Therapeutic Touch are relaxation, pain reduction, accelerated healing, and alleviation of psychosomatic symptoms (the so-called “placebo” effect). Therapeutic Touch is also credited with promoting emotional and spiritual healing.

There are some basic assumptions around the subject of healing. The first is that human beings have natural abilities to transform and transcend their conditions of being. Examples would be the healing response and free will (choice).

Secondly is the belief in the Human Energy Field. All life sciences agree that physically a human being is an open energy system, and there is a basis for the belief that the symmetry that exists in the anatomical, neurological and skeletal systems of the body is reflected in the patterns of the Human Energy Field.

Thirdly, illness is an imbalance in an individual’s energy field and there is always an intrinsic movement toward correcting this imbalance in all living organisms.

Lastly, transfer of energy between people is a natural, continuous event and healing can be facilitated by a practitioner.

Delores Krieger and Therapeutic Touch

Delores Krieger is one of the contemporary pioneers in integrating the spiritual dimension of healing with mainstream professional nursing practices.

She is currently professor emeritus of nursing at New York University, and the author of five books on non-invasive healing. Following her pioneering studies into Therapeutic Touch in the 1970’s, Dr. Krieger has gone on to teach her innovative methods to more than 42,000 health professionals and thousands more lay people. She continues to explore and expand the possibilities of Therapeutic Touch, as she actively travels the world to share her knowledge and experiences. Co-founder, the late Dora Kunz was a well-respected natural healer, and Dr. Krieger’s mentor.

Therapeutic Touch was first conceived as an extension of professional nursing care and was taught by Dr. Krieger in a class aptly called “The Frontiers of Nursing”. These classes marked the first time in history that “laying on of hands” was taught as a full-time university subject. The practice grew primarily through a grassroots effort of nurses throughout the United States. Today Therapeutic Touch is taught at more than 100 hospitals and health centres worldwide, and is most commonly practiced by nurses.

In Canada Therapeutic Touch’s clinical acceptance is growing rapidly. It has been taught for over twenty years throughout the country – Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia, Manitoba, Alberta, the Atlantic Provinces, and in Saskatchewan. Therapeutic Touch “grew up” with the Nursing profession. As nurses who practised Therapeutic Touch advanced to Masters and Ph.D. programs, many of them based their thesis work on this healing modality, and an extensive body of research began to emerge. Overcoming scepticism in the “establishment” has been the biggest barrier, and validation and allowance of its use has been hard won. The Order of Nurses of Quebec, The Ontario College of Nurses, and the Victorian Order of Nurses have accepted Therapeutic Touch as a nursing modality. Therapeutic Touch has also moved into the community at large and at least half of all Therapeutic Touch practitioners in Canada are lay persons.1

1 Therapeutic Touch, A Healing Lifestyle, Crystal Hawk M.Ed.

http://www.northernsecondary.toronto.on.ca/therapeutictouch/tt1.html

You can find more information on TT (Therapeutic Touch) here at the www.therapeutictouchnetwk.com