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There is a big spiritual and mystical component to therapeutic touch (TT), it has been used by many people and cultures over time as a healing modality. My exposure to it is through the nursing profession. It is one of the many energy therapies that have long been used, but it has only been in the last 10 years that the energy healing therapies have received the interest of the public and main stream medicine. I will give you a brief scientific basis of the energy healing therapies and talk more specifically on TT and my experiences with it. This essay is not intended to teach the reader how to use TT , it is intended to expose the reader to an energy healing technique. In 1939 a Russian scientist named Semyon Kirlian, accidentally shocked himself with high voltage and saw an electrical discharge from his hands. Amazed by this brilliant release of energy from his hands, Kirlian decided to see if he could use a camera of sorts to capture the energy field of humans, plant life, and animals. These photographs looked like halos or spikes being discharged off the body. Kirlian then investigated if this camera could be used as a diagnostic tool, to determine if various states of health would have different energy fields. He spent time categorizing the various fields and found that indeed, emotions and physical states changed the vibrance and colors of the field. Western scientists dismissed Kirlian's work until very recently. In the 1970's a biophysicist named L. Konikiewicz, from Polyclinic Medical Center in Pennsylvania, determined that various emotional and physical states created different coronas ( similar to an aura or halo). When the human body is ill or emotionally wrote, the corona appears brighter and more diffuse rather than a tight, bright corona of a health person. So as you can see, the body is an electrical unit and that health is influenced and dependent on electromagnetic energy. You have the ability to heal yourself by altering or boosting your energy , and you also have the ability to help others by boosting their energy field. We use energy language all the time, for example, he has a strong presence, or she is a comfort to me. These people never may even say a word and their physical size may be petite. Where others, make you feel agitated , jumpy, annoyed. We may say I got really bad vibes from him/her. In each of these cases we are reacting to their energy field. We intuitively sense it, although we have been taught to discount theses feelings as children. Intuition is something that we all have but have not used it because, in our western culture those rely on their intuition are considered feabile minded. The human energy can be seen by the eye, but requires some degree of training and focusing. It is like those pictures that came out years ago, where if you changed your eyes focus slightly and stared you could see the picture within the abstract forms. If you squint your eyes, the image you are looking at becomes slightly blurred and you can see a heat like wave rising of the body. It looks as though you are looking at a heat wave rise off of a hot pavement or barbecue. It can have a soft blue gray color. It is best seen when the person you are looking at is up against a light colored back ground. Try this exercise, center yourself, and then rub your hands together, place the tips of your fingers together and pull them apart slowly. While you do this squint your eyes till the image is slightly out of focus. Once again, it is best to do this against a white wall or light background. You will be able to see a slightly blue hue connect the finger tips. Another exercise you can try, is after you center yourself and rub your hands together, place them together as though you are cupping a ball in your hand. You will feel something like resistance, a spongy, bouncy, rubbery ball between your hands. This is what is called an energy ball. Your energy body surrounds your physical body and extends about 2 - 4 feet from it. Think of it as a cotton ball that surrounds you & is egg shaped. It is this energy field that people are talking about when they refer to an aura. It is a brilliant rainbow color in 7 layers starting from the body and working it's way out. Dolores Kreger a nurse, used Martha Roger's theory of energy and created the nursing intervention called therapeutic touch. A healing modality that is an accepted practice in nursing . TT is used by many people not just nurses and one does not need be a nurse to use it. TT acknowledges that the human energy can be felt, by using your hands to scan a persons body. The hands never actually physically touch the person, but come in contact with the energy field. By sensing the changes in the field one can assess the field. You may feel intense heat or coldness, increased resistance or a void. These changes in the energy field correspond to physical changes the person may have or is going to experience. Changes in the energy field occur before changes in the physical body. A health energy field has very little variation, and feels smooth and even.
TT has been used on cancer pain, immune deficeincies and chronic pains, such as back and neurological. It has been used to minimize post operative pain and labor pain. It can be used with traditional medicine as well. TT can be used preventively to maintain health and emotional well being. A TT session is short about 15 - 20 minutes. A short history of the persons health, and emotional status is obtained so the areas of focus are identified and an understanding of what the client expects is communicated. Then the practioner scans the body moving slowly from the head, moving down the back to the feet and then repeating the process by scanning the front. This is done to to assess for variation of the field. Assessing the field is a brief process and should not be done repeatedly, because with each pass through the field with the practioner's hands, the energy field is slightly altered. Once it is assessed, the energy field is worked on to even it out. There are 2 main techniques that are used:unruffling and modulation. Unruffling dissipates areas of congestion and increased heat. This is done by moving the hands repeatedly downward over the area until that sensation is diminished. Modulation redirects energy to an area of coolness or emptiness by placing the hands above the area. The field is then re - assessed for an evenness, and the session ends. The person experiencing this enters an extreme relaxed state. In some cases, they may feel a relief of their symptom at the end of the session or several hours later. In other cases, it may take several sessions for the person to feel some relief. The key here is the practioners intent to heal, you can not hurt the client, the only patients in which caution needs to be used is head injuries, heart patients, and infants. If you
are interested in finding out more about TT here are some
URLs with more information. If you would like to be able to
learn to use it you should take a class on it. Meditation
 For a free home page in Geocities
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