Healing Touch is a holistic therapy using touch to promote health and healing, according to its proponents.

   "As a healer we work with the aura which is the energy that is around the body," said Dr. Dorothy Lawse of Mason City, an emergency medical physician and certified Healing Touch practitioner.

The philosophy is that in order to maintain health the aura and an individual's seven energy centers, found along the body's midline, must be balanced and in harmony, she said.

"You're looking at a person as a whole person not only physical, but emotional, mental and spiritual," said Carol Boring, a registered nurse from Rockford who is also certified in Healing Touch.
The rhythm of nature is perfect but "we are not always in harmony with that rhythm and I think that's what illness is," said Rosie Schlueter, a certified practitioner. "It's a natural means that God has given us. This is very ancient practice. It's recapturing something that is very Eastern and very ancient."

The stress of working in emergency medicine originally prompted Lawse to explore the gentle, complementary therapy.
Lawse has practiced emergency medicine since 1977. She previously worked at Mercy Medical Center-North Iowa and currently commutes to Allen Memorial Hospital in Waterloo.

"Initially, I got into Healing Touch on my own for my own self-care," Lawse said.

Training is a multiple-level process concluding with a year of mentorship in which a practitioner reads about 15 to 20 books and performs at least 100 documented treatments, she said.

Lawse took her first class on a weekend in 1999. She earned her certification as a practitioner last year and is now working on becoming an instructor along with Sharon Enabnit.

Enabnit, a nurse practitioner at Mercy Medical Center-North Iowa, for six years, began practicing Healing Touch at the hospital three years ago.
She currently manages nursing services at Hospice of North Iowa, and works part time with the Mercy Pain Center at Mercy Cheslea Creek.

At the hospital, Enabnit provided Healing Touch to patients when requested. As hospital patients, Healing Touch was considered part of their nursing care, she said.

There have been one of two instances where a doctor has written an order for Healing Touch, Enabnit said. Mostly, patients who ask about it are already aware of the complementary therapy.

Enabnit has been involved with a study involving Healing Touch through the University of Iowa with some breast cancer patients receiving radiation therapy at the Mercy Cancer Center.

"They have daily Healing Touch sessions after their radiation," Enabnit said.
A retired chaplain at Mercy Medical Center-North Iowa, Schlueter said she has led Healing Touch retreats where groups of men and women explore the concepts of this complementary therapy and look at healing stories in Scripture.

"I have become aware of the really incredible way that God has created us and that there is so much within ourselves to promote our own well-being," she said.

Boring works as a registered nurse at Floyd County Memorial Hospital in Charles City. At first, she was cautious about using elements of Healing Touch with patients, but she has had many positive experiences and the hospital has adopted a policy regarding the use of the therapy .

Once, Boring said, she worked with a patient who had a hip replacement who perceived that she was putting an ointment on the surgical area when she performed a Healing Touch "unruffling" procedure to improve relaxation and control pain.

When a young woman came into the emergency room for chest pain, she had a complete heart workup, Boring said.

"The more we talked I realized she was under an enormous amount of stress," Boring said.

When Boring told the patient she was studying Healing Touch, she was familiar with the therapy and responded so enthusiastically that Boring said she spent about 15 minutes clearing her energy field and making energy-center connections. The woman's chest discomfort was completely alleviated.

Reach Julie Birkedal at 421-0535 or julie.birkedal@globegazette.com.

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Does touch therapy work?

By BOB STEENSON, Of The Globe Gazette

Touch therapies sound good, but do they work? It depends on who you ask.

According to the program's Web site, healingtouch.net, Healing Touch "uses touch to influence the human energy system, specifically the energy field that surrounds the body, and the energy centers that control the energy flow from the energy field to the physical body."

The Healing Touch certification process involves up to five levels of instruction, beginning with "basics of the chakra and energy systems, assessment of the energy field, centering techniques, intervention techniques for stress, pain and balancing, and principles of self-healing," the Web site says.

It has been known for decades that the human body produces electrical fields. The electroencephalogram (EEG) displays brain wave activity. The electrocardiogram (EKG) displays the electrical activity in the heart.

But is there an overall body "energy field"? Can a human be trained to sense such an energy field? And more importantly, if this field does exist, can movements of the hands influence it and affect physical health?

The theories and practices of Healing Touch appear to be similar to Therapeutic Touch, which was conceived in the early 1970s by Dolores Krieger, a faculty member at New York University's Division of Nursing.
In 1998, JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association, published an article reporting on a test to see if practitioners of Therapeutic Touch could sense a "human energy field."

Twenty-one practitioners with TT experience from one to 27 years were tested to see if they could correctly identify if an investigator behind a screen was holding her hand close to the practitioner's right or left hand.

In 280 trials, the practitioners were able to correctly tell where the hand was 44 percent of the time, a result close to what would be expected from random chance.

Proponents of TT as well as some skeptics later criticized aspects of the test, however.

There are thousands of people who say that touch therapy has helped them. However, such reports are considered anecdotal by scientists, and not conclusive.

Stephen Barrett M.D. is a retired psychiatrist who runs the Quackwatch.org Web site, dedicated to "combat health-related frauds, myths, fads and fallacies."

In an article exploring Therapeutic Touch and research on it, Barrett concludes, "There is no scientific evidence that the ‘energy transfer' postulated by proponents actually occurs. It is safe to assume that any reactions to the procedure are psychological responses."

Skeptics of various "energy level" forms of healing point out numerous studies that have shown patients report favorable results when a personable, empathetic caregiver spends time with them, regardless of the therapy employed.

In other words, personal contact and the power of suggestion have been long-recognized as capable of producing perceived or sometimes even real results.

A search for Healing Touch or Therapeutic Touch in Internet search engines results in hundreds of sites that either back the practice's claims or attempt to debunk them.

The bottom line, according to many skeptics, is that no one has yet proven scientifically that touch therapy does or does not work.

Reach Bob Steenson at 421-0530 or by e-mail at bob.steenson@globegazette.com.

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Touch called helpful for many maladies

Proponents of Healing Touch say it is a complementary therapy that may be used as an adjunct to conventional medicine.

Becky Hall, navigator for the American Cancer Society, lets people know about various programs available through the American Cancer Society and the Mercy Cancer Center. Healing Touch is one of them. She also has a list of area practitioners.

Some cancer patients say that Healing Touch helps alleviate side effects of chemotherapy.

It helps promote acceptance and peacefulness, said Dr. Dorothy Lawse, a certified practitioner.

It can help people be ready for surgery and to recover with fewer complications, proponents say. They say it accelerates healing.

It can improve the sense of well-being in people dealing with depression or other psychiatric challenges, Lawse said.

Proponents say it works for pain control in people with arthritis or fibromyalgia and other health conditions that cause chronic pain.
Those suffering from headaches may also find relief.

People affected by back and neck pain, head injuries, bone fractures, grief, viral infections, high blood pressure may also find it beneficial, according to information made available through the cancer center.

Additional information on Healing Touch is available at www.healingtouch.net.

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Healing touch ‘helps people heal selves'

By JULIE BIRKEDAL, Of The Globe Gazette

Soft music plays in the quiet room as a woman wearing comfortable workout clothes reclines on a bed during Healing Touch.

"It's different than massage, but it creates that calm, kind of relaxed feeling," said Jolene Galligan, of Mason City.

Galligan began using Healing Touch as a complement to traditional cancer treatments for lymphoma three years ago.

With a light blanket covering her for warmth, Galligan closes her eyes.

Fingers and hands of Dr. Dorothy Lawse, an emergency medical physician and certified Healing Touch practitioner, appear to lightly float above Galligan's body from head to toe, over and over, to clear her energy.

Healing touch practitioners clear or smooth the energy field of clients as they seek to improve balance.

A Healing Touch treatment takes about an hour. Practitioners often exchange treatments with one another.

"As healers we call ourselves facilitators," Lawse said. "We don't heal people."

Rather, a practitioner of Healing Touch helps people to heal themselves, Lawse said.

There is a important distinction between healing and curing, she said.
"Sometimes healing is accepting and coming to peace," Lawse said.

Cure of a disease may be part of a healing, but it is not the goal, she said.
The therapy draws on universal energy, Lawse said.

Galligan has had Healing Touch with Lawse in Mason City, who charges a flat fee for treatment, but also at St. Marys Hospital in Rochester when she was going through the stem cell collection process. There, it was covered by her medical insurance.

"I think it helped keep me calm and it helped the pain control," she said.
It typically takes an average of five days to collect enough stem cells for a future bone marrow transplant.

"I did it in about a day and a half," Galligan said. "Some patients never were able to collect what they needed."

There are different vibrational frequencies in nature. Healing Touch increases the vibrations, Lawse said. A physicist measured the frequency during Healing Touch and found it comparable to the electrical energy needed to heal bone.

"It makes you feel very relaxed or calm and sometimes you can feel tingling or warmth or heat," Lawse said.

The practitioner performs Healing Touch with the intention of only the highest good, Lawse said.

"I continued it to help my body heal mostly because my blood counts were really low," Galligan said. "I continue it now for pain because there's side effects left from treatment."

Hands of the Healing Touch practitioner may lightly touch the client or hover gently over them about a half inch to an inch from their body.
There are about 10 Healing Touch practitioners in North Iowa.

"I think it is pretty amazing for our little rural spot in Iowa that we have as many practitioners as we do," said Carol Boring, a registered nurse and Healing Touch practitioner from Rockford.

Lawse maintains office space for Healing Touch in the same building as Anastasi Counseling Services, 1520 Sixth St. S.W., where she seeks to offer treatment one day a week while also continuing to work in emergency medicine.

In five to 10 years, Lawse said she thinks people will consider Healing Touch as an integral part of their medical treatment.

At Woodwinds Health Campus in Woodbury, Minn., a collaboration between HealthEast and Children's Hospitals and Clinics, Healing Touch is offered to every patient, said Dina Fassino, marketing director.

Reach Julie Birkedal at 421-0535 or julie.birkedal@globegazette.com.