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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."
Practitioners may sense heat, cold, sickness, or heaviness throughout the energy field, she says. Enter the healing power of therapeutic touch. "We try to rebalance the energy field and enable the patients to heal themselves," she says.
In the initial assessment, practitioners feel around the body -- without actually touching it -- to search for discord or imbalance in the energy field, but when treatment begins, they put their hands on parts of the body, she says.
The cost of therapeutic touch varies, she says. "It's important to make sure you're using a qualified practitioner who has had adequate training in therapeutic touch," she tells WebMD.
Still, not everyone is convinced. In fact, a highly publicized study in a 1998 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), found that 21 experienced therapeutic touch practitioners were unable to detect the human energy field surrounding the investigator -- a nine-year-old grade-school student.
During this study, therapeutic touch practitioners rested their hands on a flat surface to see if they could perceive the energy field when the investigator waved her hand over one of their hands. The practitioners should have been able to locate the investigator's hand 100% of the time, study authors write. A score of 50% would be expected through chance alone. But therapeutic touch practitioners identified the correct hand in only 44% of 280 tries.
"Their failure to substantiate therapeutic touch's most fundamental claim is unrefuted evidence that the claims of therapeutic touch are groundless and that further professional use is unjustified," study authors concluded.
One of the JAMA study authors, Stephen Barrett, MD, board chairman of Quackwatch, a consumer "watchdog" web site and organization based in Allentown, Pa., is an outspoken critic of therapeutic touch and other medical practices that he considers unproven. He calls the recent review's results "statistically preposterous."
Barrett tells WebMD that many of the studies viewed as positive were, in fact, not. "The conclusion is absurd and any more study of therapeutic touch would be a waste of money," he says.
One 29-year-old woman from South Salem, N.Y., who spoke on condition of anonymity, is inclined to agree with Barrett. She turned to therapeutic touch when she was experiencing health problems last year.
"At first, it helped me feel better mentally because I was proactively doing something to improve my health beyond seeing my physician," she tells WebMD.
She says that a practitioner came to her house once a week for several months. "To be honest," she says. "I don't think it did anything, and I wouldn't do it again."
But a 50-year old health care executive in Pittsburgh, who spoke on condition of anonymity, is a believer. "I had therapeutic touch while I was in the recovery room after a procedure to make sure I recovered as quickly as possible," she tells WebMD. "My doctors thought I would be there for at least two hours but within 40 minutes, I felt better."
Therapeutic touch has a "calming and relaxing effect and it helps you feel like you can work with your own body in a more comforting fashion," she says. "I would recommend it."
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