Therapeutic touch (TT)
Therapeutic touch (TT) is a form of energy healing that involves placing the hands just above a person's body to facilitate healing without physical contact, often referred to as non-contact therapeutic touch (NCTT). Developed in the early 1970s by Dolores Krieger and Dora Van Gelder Kunz, TT is predominantly practiced by nurses across various healthcare settings, including hospitals and intensive care units. Though many individuals report benefits such as relaxation and emotional release during sessions, scientific evidence supporting its effectiveness remains weak. Research has shown that while TT may have modest effects on conditions like pain and anxiety, the underlying mechanisms of these benefits are not well understood, and the claims of energy transfer are not substantiated by rigorous scientific studies.
Sessions typically last about twenty minutes, during which patients are encouraged to relax while practitioners move their hands slowly above the body. While practitioners are often healthcare professionals, there is a lack of standardized regulations, and the main certifying body is the Therapeutic Touch International Association (TTIA). Importantly, no significant safety risks associated with TT have been identified. Overall, while TT is embraced by some as a complementary healing modality, its acceptance varies widely, and it is best approached with an understanding of its controversial standing in the medical community.
Therapeutic touch (TT)
- DEFINITION: Technique in which the placement of hands just above a person’s body is used for healing; also known as non-contact therapeutic touch (NCTT).
- PRINCIPAL PROPOSED USES: None
- OTHER PROPOSED USES: Anxiety, human immunodeficiency virus infection support, osteoarthritis, pregnancy support, promoting general wellness, sports injuries, stress, surgery support, tension headaches, wound healing
Overview
Therapeutic touch (TT) is a form of energy healing popular in nursing in the United States. In the words of its official organization, “Therapeutic Touch is an intentionally directed process of energy exchange during which the practitioner uses the hands as a focus to facilitate the healing process.” TT is used by nurses in a variety of settings, from the medical office to the intensive care unit (ICU). However, there is no meaningful evidence that it is effective.
TT was developed in the early 1970s by Dolores Krieger and a self-professed healer, Dora Van Gelder Kunz. Initially, TT involved setting the hands lightly on the body of the patient, but the method rapidly evolved into a noncontact energy healing method. Certified practitioners can be found in virtually all parts of the United States and in much of the world. TT is available in mainstream health-care facilities including hospices, hospital-based alternative health programs, and even ICUs.
TT is sometimes described as a scientific version of “laying on of hands,” a technique practiced by faith healers. However, there is more spirituality than science to this method; it makes use of beliefs and principles common in spiritual healing traditions but unknown to current science.
According to TT, the body has an energy field, and without physical contact, the energy field of one person can substantially affect the energy field of another. The practitioner is said to heal, balance, replenish, and improve the flow of a person’s energy field, thereby leading to enhanced overall wellness. However, there is no meaningful scientific evidence for any of these practices.
Scientific Evidence
There has been considerable research interest in TT. However, the evidence for benefit is no more than weakly positive at best. A 1999 review of all published studies concluded that much of the research had serious design flaws that could bias the results; in addition, the manner in which they were reported did not meet adequate scientific standards. A similar review in 2008 focusing on pain concluded that TT (along with healing touch and Reiki) may have modest effects on pain relief, particularly in the hands of more experienced practitioners, but the evidence was still fairly weak.
To be fair, proper study of TT presents researchers with some serious obstacles. The only truly meaningful way to determine whether a medical therapy works is to perform a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. For hands-on therapies such as TT, however, a truly double-blind study is not possible, as the TT practitioner will inevitably know whether he or she is administering real TT or fake TT.
The best type of study that can be performed on TT is a single-blind study with “blinded” observers. In such studies, participants do not know whether they received real or fake TT, and an observer who also is blinded evaluates their medical outcome. However, such a study still has potential bias; practitioners could communicate a kind of cynicism when they use fake TT or, oppositely, positively influence the patient when they are applying real TT, and this problem appears to be insurmountable.
Further problems are involved in the choice of fake treatment. In most of the studies described here, sham TT involved practitioners counting backward in their heads by subtracting 7 serially from 100. The intent of this method was to avoid any possibility of projecting a healing concentration. It has been pointed out that this somewhat stressful effort would cause the practitioner to communicate tension rather than relaxation to study participants, and this too could bias results. However, it is difficult to suggest what should have been used instead as a placebo.
Some studies compared TT with no treatment. However, it has been well established that any therapy whatsoever will seem to produce benefit compared to no treatment for various nonspecific reasons; because of this, such studies say little to nothing about the specific benefits of TT. Finally, numerous trials have simply involved enrolling people with a medical problem, applying TT, and seeing whether they improve. Trials of this type prove nothing. Given these caveats, a summary of the research available thus far is presented here.
At the time of the 1999 review already noted, many published studies of TT were of unacceptably low quality and the results were quite inconsistent. For example, in one trial, thirty-one inpatients in a Veteran’s Administration psychiatric facility received TT, relaxation therapy, or sham TT. The study was designed to evaluate the effectiveness of TT for reducing anxiety and stress. The results appear to indicate that TT was more effective for this purpose than the sham form. However, there are some serious design problems in this study that make the results difficult to trust. The real TT was administered by a woman in “street” clothes and the placebo treatment by a woman in a nursing uniform; to make matters more complex, the relaxation therapy was administered by a man dressed as a clergyman. These large differences in appearance could only be expected to considerably influence the results in ways that cannot be predicted.
In a better study, sixty people with tension headaches were randomly assigned to receive either TT or placebo touch. TT proved to be significantly more effective than placebo touch. However, in a reasonably well-designed study published in 1993, the use of TT in 108 people undergoing surgery failed to reduce postoperative pain to a greater extent than sham TT.
A series of studies evaluated TT for aiding wound healing. Some found TT more effective than placebo, others found no significant effect, and still others found placebo more effective than real treatment. These results suggest that the effects seen were caused by chance and patient circumstance.
Subsequent to the 1999 review, several better-quality trials were published. One such study compared real TT and sham TT in ninety-nine men and women recovering from severe burns. Researchers hypothesized that the use of TT would decrease pain and anxiety during that arduous and traumatic process, and indeed some evidence of benefit was seen.
In a smaller study (twenty-five participants), real TT appeared to reduce the pain of knee osteoarthritis compared to sham TT. Furthermore, in a study of twenty children with human immunodeficiency virus infection, the use of TT improved anxiety while sham touch did not. Another study found that an actor pretending to perform treatment similar to TT produced significant improvements in well-being in people with advanced cancer.
Taking all these studies together, it appears that real TT may be more effective than sham TT (using the serial subtraction technique). However, whether these apparent benefits are caused by the energy-healing effects claimed by practitioners or, more simply, through emotional communication, remains unclear.
Some studies provide preliminary evidence that TT does not work in the manner practitioners believe it does. For example, in one well-designed study, TT produced no effect when conducted without eye contact. The researcher, an influential person in the history of TT, had hypothesized that TT involved a kind of energy transfer that would not need eye contact. The fact that no effects were seen without the addition of eye contact suggests that it might be focused attention that makes the difference, not energy transmitted through the hands.
Furthermore, if TT actually involves contact with a person’s “energy field,” it would seem that the practitioners would be able to sense the presence of such a field. However, in a widely publicized study, twenty-one practitioners who had practiced TT for one to twenty-seven years proved unable to do this. In this trial, TT practitioners placed their hands face up through holes in a barrier. The experimenter (a nine-year-old student) held a hand above one of the practitioner’s hands, and the practitioner was asked to sense its presence. The practitioners’ guesses proved to be no more accurate than chance would allow. This study has been strongly criticized by proponents of TT. Some said that the experimenter was in the throes of puberty, and for that reason her energy field was too disturbed to detect; others complained about the disturbing presence of video cameras. While these criticisms are potentially valid, the burden is actually on proponents of TT to prove that there really is such a thing as a human energy field.
Nonetheless, the studies already performed do indicate that, at minimum, concentrated, positive attention provided by one human being to another is consoling and calming. This is a wonderful fact, even if there is no direct evidence of a special energy field.
What to Expect During Treatment
Therapeutic touch is generally administered in a session that lasts about twenty minutes. The patient will be asked to lie still, relax, and remain quiet. The practitioner will place his or her hands a few inches above the person’s body and move them slowly and rhythmically. Despite the fact that the practice contains the word "touch," no direct contact is made between the practitoner and the patient, which is why it is sometimes referred to as non-contact therapeutic touch (NCTT).
Some people experience a variety of subjective sensations while receiving TT, such as heat and moving energy. Most people find TT generally relaxing, but some undergo cathartic, emotional experiences.
Choosing a Practitioner
The original and most well-established TT organization is Therapeutic Touch International Association (TTIA). This organization certifies training programs in TT.
In general, there are a lack of state regulations in regard to TT certificates and credentials. However, TTIA policies state that practitoners must complete a twelve hour Basic Level workshop addressing the cognitive and experiential aspects of Therapeutic Touch, given by a Qualified Therapeutic Touch Teacher. Beyond that, TTIA defers to specific agency and state policies in regard to practing TT. Typically, TT practitoners are licensed healthcare professionals who use TT in conjunction with other practices. Non-licensed healthcare professionals are instructed by the TTIA to disclose their credentials and, at minimum, complete the certified training program.
Safety Issues
There are no known or suspected safety risks with TT.
Bibliography
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“Position on Credentialing.” Therapeutic Touch International Association, 2019, therapeutictouch.org/credentialing/policies/position-on-credentialing/. Accessed 26 Sept. 2024.
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