Healing from a Personal Perspective: Interviews with Certified Healing Touch Practitioners.  Kathryn Weymouth, PhD

 

The purpose of this study was to learn about Healing Touch practitioners. The study gathered information from interviews with 10 Certified Healing Touch Practitioners, and a questionnaire that was completed by 87 practitioners or students of Healing Touch. Results reflected a sense of being called to the work even if initially reluctant and a commitment to working on oneself. Transformational aspects of the work for both the practitioners and recipients were reported. Healing Touch was used for a number of problems with generally positive outcomes. The most common uses and highest efficacy included stress and anxiety reduction, promoting relaxation and relieve pain, promoting and maintaining wellness, accelerating healing, promoting personal and spiritual growth, and easing the dying process. Spiritual aspects of healing rarely reported in the medical literature were described. There was a desire to integrate energy healing with other types of medicine, and a belief that the principles of energy healing have the potential to positively impact the whole world.

 

Spirituality in Healing Touch Students and Practitioners.  Diane Wind Wardell, PhD, RNC, CHTI.

 

A study of over 400 individuals involved in Healing Touch training was undertaken to determine if there was any difference in perception of their spirituality. The study reviewed differences between the levels of training in relation to the measures of spirituality. There was no difference between the nurses and non-nurses on the spiritual scales used. There was a significant difference between the six levels of training in Healing Touch classes completed by the participants with the upper level classes having higher spirituality scores than the lower levels.

 

Electives in Complementary Medicine: Are We Preaching to the Choir?  Kathi Kemper, MD, MPH, Deborah Larrimore, RN, LMBT, CHTI, Jean Dorzier, BS, and Charles Woods, MD

 

This study was conducted at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, North Carolina for medical students concerning an elective on Healing Touch and Therapeutic Touch. The course was more popular with women. All participants in the course felt that being centered and compassionate was very important. The evaluation of students in this course compared to non-enrollers found that these students were no more likely than their classmates to believe it was important to be centered and to extend compassion. The conclusion of this evaluative research project was that it was felt that offering electives on HT/TT was not “preaching to the choir”.

 

The Transformational Experience of Learning and Practicing Healing Touch.  Joyce Rudenick and Sarah Reuben

 

This 2006 study explored the impact holistic education has on students who were Certified Healing Touch Practitioners or students of Healing Touch. A series of reflective questions were mailed to the participants regarding their personal experience of learning and practicing Healing Touch. Of 18 respondents, 17 described transformational experiences.

 

The Experience of Personal Transformation.  Norma Geddes, PhD, RN

 

Eight certified Healing Touch practitioners were asked to describe their experience of personal transformation. They described a journey, not a destination that is a process of making changes in all facets of life based on a perception of the self as a unitary, spiritual, self-caring and self-nurturing individual. The participants were increasingly less dependent on the approval of others. Three common structural themes were: (1) a perceived immediate “rightness” of the experience of Healing Touch despite mixed entree; (2) unanticipated personal implications and (3) a new lens through which to view one’s life and circumstances.

 

A Descriptive Qualitative Study on Why RN’s Learn Healing Touch.  Deborah Cassady, MSN, RN, HPT

 

This study describes why nine RN’s learn Healing Touch in order to determine if it would be conducive to teach Healing Touch as part of the nursing curriculum.  It was believed that Healing Touch would help reduce stress and burnout, and promote self-care and professional development. The study did not find a strong correlation between RN’s taking Healing Touch due to stress and burnout and lack of self-care. There was a correlation between RN’s taking Healing Touch and professional development, however, the transformational process that occurs after taking Healing Touch seems to be more important than the why of wanting to learn it.

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