Michael's Hands

What is Therapeutic Touch?

Therapeutic Touch is an energy therapy which was developed to promote healing and reduce pain and anxiety. Therapeutic Touch practitioners have shown that by placing their hands on or near the patient they can detect and manipulate the patient's putative energy field. The detecting of an energy field takes practice and time just as does learning to walk or ride a bicycle. Practitioners are taught to work with what is termed the person's "biofield" or "bioenergetic field."

This technique was originated by Dora Kunz, a one-time president of the Theosophical Society of America, and Dolores Krieger, Ph.D., R.N., nursing educator at New York University, who developed Therapeutic Touch in the 1970s.

Therapeutic Touch relates that it has its roots in ancient healing practices, such as laying on hands, although it has no connection with any religious beliefs. Dr. Krieger claims that, "A basic recognition upon which Therapeutic Touch was developed initially was exactly that in the final analysis, it is the healee (client) who heals himself. The healer or therapist, in this view, acts as a human energy support system until the healee's own immunological system is robust enough to take over."