What is Therapeutic Touch?

Therapeutic Touch seeks to remove irregularities in the client's energy field that promote disease and illness.

herapeutic Touch—the name alone sounds so inviting and gentle. Therapeutic Touch (TT) was created by Dolores Krieger, Ph.D., R.N., a nurse, theosophis, and faculty member at New York University's Division of Nursing. She began using TT in the early 1970s and believed that the palms were chakras capable of channeling healing energy. There are a number of therapeutic touch systems in use today, some of the most popular are Reiki and Pranic Healing.

	The therapist may channel energy from the environment through herself and into the patient.

How does Therapeutic Touch Work?

The Goal of TT

Therapeutic Touch seeks to remove irregularities in the client’s energy field that promote disease and illness. The therapy can be used for preventative care or as a treatment for manifested illness.

What are Energy Fields?

The use of TT presupposes a belief in "life energy," interpreted as spirit, soul, yin/yang, electricity, and magnetism. According to this belief system, all living beings produce life energy, and the combined total of the overlapping energy fields in an area creates the environmental life energy field in which we live. Ideally, life energy is produced in the living and flows freely to and from the environment. However, this state is only maintained when an individual is at one with itself.

The Results of Unbalance Energy Fields: Dis-ease

Unfortunately, we are not always in unity and harmony with our planet. If desires are being repressed, rejected, fought, or frustrated, the individual falls out of harmony with his environment and either absorbs or releases too much energy. Both can be equally damaging—irregularities may develop in the energy field and channel excess energy to one part of the body.

The damaged energy field reflects ailments in the body as "dis-ease," which is not a bacterial or viral version of disease. Dis-ease is a state of imbalance that impairs the natural, proper functioning of an organism. Generally, dis-ease results in the weakening of the immune system, a slowing down of the healing process.

Claims of Therapeutic Touch

One of the most interesting claims of therapeutic touch practitioners is that the therapy can work on ailments unknown to both therapist and patient. This statement has two interesting implications:

1. It removes the need for diagnostic training of the part of the practitioner, as the energy knows exactly where it should go without being guided. This means that TT may be learned and used outside of the professional healthcare arena.
2. It removes the onus of curing any particular ailment. A patient could go into a session to cure an aching back and instead emerge with a more positive outlook (thoughts, feelings, ailments are all connected).

What Happens in a Therapeutic Touch Session?

As in Reiki healing, TT clients recline in a comfortable position and remain fully clothed throughout the session. Comfortable clothing is recommended to remove any distractions or discomfort. There is no physical contact between client and therapist. The therapist moves her hands over the client’s energy field to direct the flow of Qi (energy).

TT practitioners attempt to:

• smooth out irregularities in the human energy field,
  
• center the energies of the individual,
  
• divert excess energies back into the environment.

The therapist may channel energy from the environment through herself and into the patient to "clear or awaken weakened energetic areas of the individual.” The TT practitioner does not actually heal the patient, but instead tunes the patient's body correctly so that it operates at peak levels of efficiency.

How to Become a TT Practitioner

While originally developed for nurses, anyone can learn TT. Therapeutic Touch is considered an extension of healthcare skills, so most healthcare professionals are covered under the state medical practice act. The American Nurse's Association has workshops on TT at national conventions. TT classes are held for the general public through community education, healing clinics, and holistic schools. Check out www.collegeboard.com for colleges offering this education.