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What Can Be the Harm?

Donal P. O'Mathuna

{This article was published in the Journal of Christian Nursing, vol. 15 (Winter 1998) pp. 6-7, to supplement a longer article entitled The Subtle Allure of Therapeutic Touch. This journal is a publication of Nurses Christian Fellowship, and this issue included a number of related shorter pieces. Another one written by me can be read by clicking on its title: What Does the Research Really Show? If you'd like to return to my home page and see some of the other papers I've written, my interests, or get in contact with me, click on my name above.}

Let's assume someone can practice Therapeutic Touch (TT) and avoid occult involvement. Let's ignore the controversy over TT's effectiveness. What could be the harm in letting people try something which others claim is helpful? If practitioners are only waving their hands over a person's body, it's hard to envision any harm occurring. However, the more prominent proponents of TT claim it can cause physical harm--many presentations on TT fail to mention this. If students and patients are to make informed decisions about TT, the potential risks must be presented.

Dolores Krieger warns that patients can experience "restlessness, irritability, increasing anxiety and perhaps hostility or pain" since they "can overdose on human energies."1 Another book warns that too much TT on someone with a cold or flu can "intensify the symptoms and cause more suffering," or can "further inflame the condition" if the patient has a fever or swelling. More seriously, the author states, "When treating people with cancer, do not send energy to the area of the tumor. This will only serve to strengthen the disease and make it more virulent."2 While studies are not cited to support these claims, they reveal serious concerns about TT causing harm.

Some patients are said to be more sensitive to TT than others. One author claims, "Children's systems are very sensitive, and, as with medication, Therapeutic Touch must be given in smaller, more gentle doses."3 Brenda Parkes found that TT increased anxiety in elderly patients and cautioned against its use with them.4 Another article recommends that the "process be brief for infants, very debilitated patients and the elderly. Additionally, it is recommended that directing energy to the head be done for only a short time. Otherwise, there are no risks to the patient."5

Possible harm to TT practitioners is usually described as the healer absorbing some of the "negative energy" from the patient, which can manifest itself as headaches. Practitioners may experience some of the side effects found with meditation. Among transcendental meditation practitioners, 48 percent reported adverse effects, including anxiety, depression, confusion, frustration, mental and physical tension, and inexplicable outbursts of antisocial behavior.6

Practitioners from cultures steeped in Eastern meditative practices frequently warn of their dangers, especially for Westerners dabbling in unfamiliar practices: "At the initial state of meditation, a cultivator often experiences emotional instability, physical abnormalities and hallucinations."7 "Visualization is never innocuous. Even minds that are far less disciplined than those of advanced yogis or adepts can generate actual changes in the energy field. . . . What is important to realize in this connection is that ignorance does not always protect us from harm. . . . By naively adopting certain visualization practices, we may well endanger our mental and physical health, not only in this lifetime, but in future embodiments as well."8

The Spiritual Emergence Network is an international New Age organization set up to counsel people through a "spiritual emergency." These crises can be precipitated by events like the death of a loved one or a divorce, but also when "people are brought into more direct and conscious relationship to their own life force, or prana."9 This organization reports that people can become confused and isolated, leading to severe depression, anxiety and a lack of interest in everyday life, leading some to psychiatric hospitalization or suicide attempts.

In the promotion of holistic approaches to health and healing, the potential for holistic harm is rarely addressed. Physical harm may occur, but the potential for spiritual, emotional and psychological harm is high. Christians especially must be concerned about the harm of leading people into false belief systems. Beliefs have consequences (Rom 1:25-27). God forbids occult involvement because he loves us and seeks to protect us from harm.

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1 Dolores Krieger, Accepting Your Power to Heal: The Personal Practice of Therapeutic Touch (Santa Fe, New Mex.: Bear & Co., 1993), pp. 74, 169.

2 Deborah Cowens, A Gift for Healing: How You Can Use Therapeutic Touch (New York: Crown, 1996), pp. 56-57, 208-9.

3 Janet Macrae, "Therapeutic Touch in Practice," American Journal of Nursing (April 1979): 665.

4 Brenda Sue Parkes, "Therapeutic Touch As an Intervention to Reduce Anxiety in Elderly Hospitalized Patients" (PhD diss., University of Texas at Austin, 1985), pp. 84, 91-3.

5 Charlotte A. Wytias, "Therapeutic Touch in Primary Care," Nurse Practitioner Forum (June 1994): 94.

6 Leon S. Otis, "Adverse Effects of Transcendental Meditation," in Meditation: Classic and Contemporary Perspectives. Deane Shapiro and Roger Walsh, eds. (New York: Aldone, 1984), pp. 201-07.

7 Yuasa Yasuo, The Body: Toward an Eastern Mind-Body Theory (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1987), p. 215.

8 Shakya Zangpo and Georg Feuerstein, "The Risks of Visualization: Growing Roots Can Be Dangerous," The Quest 8, no. 2 (Summer 1995): 28, 84.

9 Emma Bragdon, The Call of Spiritual Emergency: From Personal Crisis to Personal Transformation (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1990), p. 5; Stanislav Grof and Christina Grof, eds., Spiritual Emergency (Los Angeles: Jeremy P. Tarcher, 1989), pp. 2-26.