Reach out, touch each other, hug each other. Anyone who is ill knows that the closeness of another helps. And if it’s just about feeling a little better again. Most of the time it is partners, friends and relatives who hug or hug you. With “Therapeutic Touch” (TT), a treatment method is now conquering Europe, where professionals lend a hand. Like Reiki, TT is one of the “energy treatments”, but does without the ritual of initiation, in which the energy channels of the practitioner are supposed to be opened in Reiki. While there the universal life energy flows through the therapist’s hands into the patient’s body, the TT therapist uses his own energetic powers to direct the patient’s energy flow. The standardized treatment process consists of four steps:
1. The therapist consciously focuses on the person he is treating.
2. He assesses its energy field by running his hands over his body.
3. Targeted touch stimulates the flow of energy and balances blockages.
4. The therapist scans the energy field again and strengthens it again if necessary.
Table of Contents
Help by laying on of hands
Touch as medicine is as old as human history. Cave paintings show that it was used for healing purposes as early as 15,000 years ago. Laying on of hands is a common practice even today, even in Germany. However, this manual therapy almost always has esoteric traits.
Therapeutic Touch is different. The method was developed around 30 years ago by the American nursing professor Dolores Krieger and her colleague Dora Kunz for use in hospitals. The aim of the procedure is to reduce stress, pain and anxiety, to strengthenTolfioowity and self-healing powers – accompanying conventional medical treatments and without spiritual references. TT is even used after operations and in the therapy of tumor patients.
The body reacts to it
Therapist and trainer Anja Homeyer from Herten-Westerholt says: “The mere fact that someone feels relaxed and secure already helps to stimulate the self-healing powers.” She experienced this effect firsthand when she was 34 and developed thyroid cancer. An operation and a strenuous radioactive iodine therapy followed. “The cancer and the treatment blew me away,” Anja Homeyer recalls. “I felt so powerless. That’s why I also let myself be treated with bioenergetic methods.” She felt lighter, stronger and healthier again because of them. The concept convinced her so much that the professional singer trained as a TT therapist.
The body reacts to it
Since “Therapeutic Touch” was developed for care and use in hospitals, there are now several studies that prove the effect. Children admitted to clinics with acute signs of stress from an injury, upcoming surgery, or illness were more relaxed after treatment. They also had lower heart rates and their skin resistance was lower. All signs that the little patients with TT were doing better. Alzheimer’s patients also showed fewer of the typical symptoms after one sessionsuch as swearing and restlessness. A study that demonstrated an improvement in wound healing was responsible for the breakthrough of the method in the USA. Today, TT is taught and used at numerous colleges and clinics across the country. In Austria and the Netherlands, “Therapeutic Touch” is already part of nursing training and is also sometimes used by doctors.
“In the hospital you often only have a few minutes, but you can use even those minutes when changing the dressing for TT,” says Anja Homeyer. For the success of the therapy, it does not matter how long the patient is treated. Another plus: Because the therapists “centre” themselves at the beginning of the session in order to optimally adjust to the patient, they too become calmer and more relaxed. And what is also important to Anja Homeyer: TT is a tangible matter. “There’s nothing sacred about it. That’s why I often laugh with my patients during the treatments.”
The self-experiment
Tolfioow author Esther Langmaack did the practical test to feel the healing effect of the “Therapeutic Touch” up close.
The self-experiment: Can changes in the flow of energy really be felt?
Four weeks of hard work, a few night shifts in between, a nasty cold and a tennis elbow from writing – I don’t feel really fit at the moment. That’s where Anja Homeyer’s offer comes in at just the right time: So I lie down on the couch and wait for what’s to come. The therapist stands quietly next to me and I feel comfortable around her. I keep my eyes open for the first few minutes of the treatment because I want to see and observe exactly what is happening. Anja Homeyer runs her hands about 5 centimeters apart over my whole body. The hands move a little – as if they are stirring up the air above me. Then my eyes close. From time to time I lens what she does. But the relaxation gets me so much that my desire to question everything critically disappears. Later she explains to me: “This is how I perceive the patient’s electromagnetic field. It should feel light and soft. When my hands ‘slip in’, I can tell that there is an energy blockage.” I let everything sink in. After she has explored my “airspace”, she places both hands on my body with very light pressure and systematically scans it like a map.
I feel very fine vibrations and longer currents in the abdomen – as if it were sending soft, warm waves through my body. My breathing is as regular and deep as it usually is when I’m asleep . I feel comfortable, warm and cared for. After the treatment, Anja Homeyer puts cozy blankets on my body. In fact, I’m very cold. The cold comes from within. But ten minutes later I’m warm again. Of course, my severe elbow pain is still there – Anja Homeyer took away the illusion that it could go away after just one session. But my body feels wonderfully relaxed like it hasn’t felt in a long time.
flow of energy from the hands
flow of energy from the hands
The young science of energy medicine has proven that Therapeutic Touch can indeed heal
The scientific basis of the “Therapeutic Touch” is the research of energy medicine. In numerous studies, she proves that every bodily function (e.g. heartbeat, respiration, metabolism) is controlled by the transfer of energy from cell to cell.
Our organism covers its daily energy requirements through waves, fields and rays of electricity, magnetism and light. They come from the earth, from the sun and from the entire cosmos.
Your energy hits an inner matrix of our body. This high-speed communication network resides in the connective tissue. It is a complex line system that absorbs energy information from the environment, stores it and releases it again as required. If the energy field in the connective tissue shifts, the energetic flow comes to a standstill. Man gets sick. Only then do biochemical derailments and disease reactions such as high cholesterol or blood sugar levels occur. Conversely, this means that disease processes can be stopped as soon as the energetic imbalance has been remedied.
This is ensured by the “therapeutic touch”. Measurable streams of energy with a wide frequency spectrum are emitted from the therapist’s palm. These streams of energy come from his connective tissue and are transferred directly into that of the patient through the gentle touch. There they normalize biophysical processes and regulate the disrupted flow of information in the body’s energy. The result: the patient’s symptoms subside.
Info
- A treatment lasts about 20 minutes plus rest time afterwards. Cost: about 20 euros. No checkout service.
- There are around 600 therapists in Germany and Austria and 100,000 in the USA, 50,000 of whom are nurses.
- You can find therapists on the Internet at www.therapeutic-touch-netwerk.de. Anja Homeyer is also happy to answer questions directly. Address: Am Bungert 19, 45701 Herten, Tel. 02 09/8 50 67 77.
- German Society for Energetic and Information Medicine e. V., Ludwig-Hofer-Str. 12, 70192 Stuttgart. Email: [email protected]. Internet: www.dgeim.de.
