Therapeutic Touch Ten Years Later

I was cleaning the barn today, a job that will take at least several days. I kept finding things I totally forgot about, like an old green urn that used to sit in the corner of the living room in the old home stead, which housed a large wooden protractor we used to draw circles with on the chalk board.

This urn is probably a good sixty years old, at least.

Then I found a letter I wrote to the New York Times in 1998 that I sent but was never published. I remember the feeling of disappointment at the time because it was a great letter and I enjoyed writing it.

The letter in question addressed a fourth grade science project that sought to disprove the validity of Therapeutic Touch and was written in the April 1998 edition of Jama (Journal of the American Medical Association), and was reviewed April 1, 1998 by the New York Times.

The New York Times stated that seeking to disprove or debunk at the onset of any scientific experiment is not the way of pure science. And the 9 year old fourth grader at the onset of her project set out to do just that. The article was entitled: "A Child's Paper Poses a Medical Challenge," written in response to the JAMA article, "A Close Look At Therapeutic Touch."

My letter addressed the JAMA article itself. At the time, I served an indigent population as a Nurse Practitioner in York, Pennsylvania. I practiced one form of energy healing, as taught by Leonard Laskow, author of "Healing With Love," in my practice "without the permission or knowledge of the attending physician."

The JAMA article made it obvious for all to see the appalling polarity that continues to exist between doctors and nurses. The article was indeed about Therapeutic Touch yet the undertone of scorn the editor/writer (Steven Barrett, MD) had for nurses showed me and my colleagues how doctors still believe that nurses are their hand-maidens.

And ten years later, these attitudes still exist.

Nursing at its heart has always been one of healer and healing. Our education is holistic in nature, teaching compassion and non-judgment.

Many physicians are proponents of energy healing called by various names. I doubt, as the conclusion of the JAMA article suggests, that the "claims of Therapeutic Touch are groundless and that further professional use is unjustified."

Add to this the method by which the practitioners were asked to sense the energy of their subject. A card board screen was set up by the disbelieving child through which the practitioners put their hands. With their sight blocked, the child asked them to identify which of their hands was near one of hers, which they were able to identify only 44% of the time.

When one is engaged with the energy from one human or animal to another, the idea is to remove blocks that impede synergistic flow. In the experiment, a cardboard barrier was placed between the healer and the skeptical child.

I dare say that this artificial prop did little to release the free flow of healing energy from one subject to the other. In fact, a 44% success rate is better than the medicine my father used to take for Alzhelmers, which supposedly helped patients only 25% of the time.

This medicine hasn't been taken off the market yet.

Dr Mehmet Oz was interviewed on the Peter Jennings evening news program 4/1998 in response to the JAMA article. He vowed to legitimize Therapeutic Touch in his Cardiology practice.

Ten years later, he accomplished that and more. Therapeutic Touch is used more widely now than it was ten years ago. Dr Oz uses Therapeutic Touch (TT) practitioners in his surgical rooms to hasten the recovery of his cardiac patients undergoing heart operations.

Dr Oz is widely loved. His best selling books have created a huge audience. I believe that the JAMA article served to strengthen resolve for healers everywhere to bring TT and energy healing out of the closet for once and for all.

The fourth grade science project was a success, after all, but not in the way Dr. Barrett had hoped.

Love coupled with healing intention triumphed over dry science; and triumphed over those seeking to discredit the great personal meaning a spiritual healing has in a person's life.