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Healing Touch

by Traute Klein, biogardener

Touching is healing and reassuring if it comes from the heart. Many therapeutic practices are based on this principle. Here is the story of a chiropractor who understands this principle.

Forms of Healing Touch

What pictures come to mind when you think of healing touch?

• A baby being cuddled in his mother's arms?
• A back rub from a loving friend?
• Laying on of hands in a religious setting?
• Feeling the warmth of the garden soil on your hands?
• Letting a jet of hot whirlpool water massage your back?
• Being surrounded by the comfort of a water mattress like by the warmth of the mother's womb?

Every culture practices traditions of healing touch. All of them have grown out of the basic human need for warmth and reassurance. A few years ago, the world was shocked to see the pictures of underdeveloped children in Romanian orphanages. Deprived of human touch, they suffered irreversible emotional and physical damage.

Touching plays a vital role in the healing arts. In my native Germany, the benefits of massage are recognized by government-run health insurance. In Manitoba, chiropractic adjustments are covered by provincial health care. Oriental cultures may be more likely to practice shiatsu which is also called acupressure. All of these methods are based on human touch.

Effective Healing Touch

I want to illustrate the importance of healing touch with a story from my own experience. After a serious motor vehicle accident, I received regular chiropractic care, yet my condition continued to deteriorate. I did not understand the problem, because I believed in the efficacy of this healing method. After five years of wasted treatments, another chiropractor was recommended to me. In desperation, I agreed to see this young man, and within a week, my family physician did not recognize me. He became an instant convert to chiropractic, and the two practitioners now cooperate in my rehabilitation.

What had happened? Why did the second chiropractor succeed where the first one had failed. Both of them graduated from the same institution and use similar methods.

The first chiropractor treated only my physical problems without regard to my emotional well-being. Not once did he inquire about my background or my feelings. He lectured me as though I were a grade school dropout. He openly discussed my problems with other patients in French, taking for granted that I would not understand his native tongue. How was he to know that I had taught languages prior to the accident? He never bothered to ask about my pre-accident background.

The second chiropractor, on the other hand, befriended me. We have many common interests, including a love of art. When his hands touch my body, I feel the warmth of his personality.

My conclusion? Healing touch cannot be learned at a college. It grows out of an attitude of the heart.