THERAPEUTIC TOUCH

Therapeutic Touch (TT) was developed by Dora Kunz, a natural healer, and Dolores Krieger, RN; PhD, a nursing professor at New York University in 1972 as an extension of professional skills in the health sciences.  Currently, it has been taught in more than 100 universities and practiced in as many countries.  It is not possible to give an accurate account of the large numbers of professional and lay people who have learned and practice this healing modality, as the numbers are continuously growing.  Its use in healthcare settings is also expanding.

The Krieger-Kunz method of Therapeutic Touch is a contemporary interpretation of several ancient healing practices.  It is a consciously directed process of energy modulation during which the Therapeutic Touch therapist usually uses the hands, at a distance of two to six inches from the body, as a focus to facilitate the healing process.  Actual physical touch is not required, although it can be used at certain times during the treatment. 

With its inception, Dr. Krieger initiated scientific investigation of TT, and has continued to insist that research to investigate TT is essential.  There have been many studies reported in the scientific literature, some funded by the National Institutes of Health, that have validated its usefulness in various physical and emotional conditions.  Many books on TT by Dr. Krieger, Dora Kunz, and others have been published (Krieger, D. Accepting your power to heal: The personal practice of therapeutic touch (1993).  Sante Fe: Bear & Company).

I have been fortunate to have studied continuously with both Dee (as Dr. Krieger likes to be called) and Dora since my days as a doctoral student at New York University.  My first workshop with Dee in 1977 was soon followed by others and in 1979 I took my first advanced study of TT with Dee and Dora at Pumpkin Hollow Retreat Center in Craryville, NY, well known as the home of Therapeutic Touch, where so many TT practitioners, like myself, have frequented workshops, often on a yearly basis to continue to advance their understanding and use of this process.  In 2008, I served as one of four mentors, guided by Dee, during the annual intensive Mentorship Program at Pumpkin Hollow.

Therapeutic Touch is based on the idea that human beings are energy in the form of a field.  When a person is healthy, that energy is freely flowing and balanced.  In contrast, disease is viewed as a condition of energy imbalances or disorder.  The person, as a human energy field extends beyond the skin and Therapeutic Touch practitioners attune themselves to that energy using the hands as sensors.

As mentioned, in the process of giving a TT treatment, there is generally no physical contact.  This non-contact TT begins with a centering (quieting) of consciousness of the therapist that needs to be maintained throughout the process.  The scanning phase follows with the hands placed two to six inches away from the healing partner’s skin or clothing and moving over the body in a symmetrical fashion from head to toe, front and back.  Next, the clearing phase focusing on dissipating what was experienced during the scanning as differences in the field, such as heat, cold, tingling, and congestion.  The smoothing, sweeping movements of clearing promote energy flow and are followed with the treatment phase where special attention is given to energy modulation and direction.  The final phase of evaluation tells the therapist that it is time to conclude the treatment.  Sessions usually last from 5 to 30 minutes, followed by a brief period of rest, if possible. 

Therapeutic Touch is a Power Prescription where the person and I are in a mutual process of participating knowingly in human-environmental change.  I simply am making the environmental healing energy that is all around us more accessible to the person I am working with.  It is important to understand that the TT therapist does not use his or her energy, but serves as a conduit for modulating and directing energy.  So you see, the TT therapist actually does not do the healing.  I believe that all healing involves self-healing, guided by what is known as higher power or God or simply – the universe.  Just as with other Power Prescriptions, there is no attachment to outcomes. 

I sometimes explain the process as working in a similar way as television.  The TV waves are always in the room, but someone has to turn on the set, and tune into the channel in order to view the picture.  Intentionality is critical to the process; the intention is to help or assist in healing the person participating in the session.  I also do Therapeutic Touch as distance healing with people who are having surgery or other healthcare procedures, usually looking at their photograph during the treatment.  In other situations I do distance healing over the telephone with people who live in locations that prevent in-person office visits.  Just as in imagery, Therapeutic Touch operates in a realm of existence where clock time and physical space are irrelevant.  TT is a nonlinear, acausal process.

Now I would like to focus in on a more specific way of understanding what power has to do with TT.  Obviously, we are talking about power-as-freedom.  One of the most interesting ways for me that power speaks to Therapeutic Touch is by exploring the relationship between TT and the four dimensions of power.  Therapeutic Touch enhances awareness of the client as it is a movement toward coming into order.  It creates a new vibratory possibility.  People experience a sense of harmony and often are aware of becoming calmer.  Therapeutic Touch provides a greater opportunity for making beneficial choices and clients use their self-motivated will in their own behalf by feeling freer to act on their intentions and the person receiving Therapeutic Touch is involving themselves in creating change in a very particular way.  TT opens the door for change.  It is a portal to accessing the universal healing energy that is all around us in the environment.  There is a mutual process, obviously, between the Therapeutic Touch therapist and the healing partner.  Neither surrenders power.  The TT therapist also uses a heightened sense of awareness throughout the treatment and makes aware choices continuously while remaining centered which is an aspect of feeling free to act on the intention to help or heal and the entirety of the process is an involvement in creating change without a focus on the outcome.  As Dora often reminded us, “the result is not in our hands.”  Therapeutic Touch, just like power-as-freedom, is a negentropic process of building up and coming into order versus the entropic, breaking down, and decaying process of power-as-control.  People who have a desire to control are involved in a process of deterioration as are those who surrender their power.  It would be an interesting study to explore further the relationship between the power dimensions (awareness, choices, freedom to act intentionally, involvement in creating change) and Therapeutic Touch.  The three pictures show:

Elizabeth doing Therapeutic Touch with a healing partner.

A mother doing Therapeutic Touch with her baby.

Participants in one of Elizabeth’s Therapeutic Touch workshops practicing an exercise to increase their sensitivity to detecting the energy field.  

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