Therapeutic touch involves five elements
Practitioners follow step-by-step process
Therapeutic touch was developed by Dolores Krieger, PhD, RN, a professor at New York University, and Dora Kunz, a natural healer. The two began teaching their techniques in 1972. Philadelphia-based Nurse Healers-Professional Associates, an organization that oversees this form of therapy, has defined the five aspects in the process of therapeutic touch as follows:
• Centering.
Bringing the body, mind, and emotions to a quiet, focused state of consciousness. Centering is using the breath, imagery, meditation, and/or visualizations to open one’s self to find an inner sense of equilibrium to connect with the inner core of wholeness and stillness.
• Assessing.
Holding the hand two to six inches away from the individual’s energy field while moving the hands from the head to the feet in a rhythmical, symmetrical manner. Sensory cues such as warmth, coolness, static, blockage, pulling, tingling are described by some practitioners.
• Unruffling (also called clearing).
Facilitating the symmetrical flow of energy through the field. Unruffling is achieved by using hand movements from the mid-line (vertical line down center of body from head to feet) while continuing to move in a rhythmical and symmetrical manner from the head to the feet (hands move from mid-line out to sides of body).
• Treatment (also called balancing, rebalancing intervention).
Projecting, directing and modulating energy based on the nature of the living field; assisting to re-establish the order in the system. Treatment is accomplished by moving the hands to the areas that seem to need attention; energy may be transferred where there is a deficit or energy may be mobilized or repatterned from areas of congestion.
• Evaluation.
Finishing the treatment — using professional, informed, and intuitive judgment to determine when to end the session. Reassessing the field continuously during the treatment to determine balance and eliciting feedback from the individual are cues as to when to end the therapeutic touch treatment.
Source: Nurse Healers-Professional Associates International, Philadelphia. Reprinted with permission.
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