In Therapeutic Touch™, the healing field is the subtle, non-physical energy field, generated by the healee, that is palpable beyond the body’s physical periphery – that is beyond the skin.
The Therapeutic Touch practitioner, through practice, learns to guide the natural, orderly flow of energy coming out of the palms of her hands so as to support, balance, redistribute and strengthen the debilitated, depleted, stressed and sometimes ragged underlying energy field structure of the healee.
Emotions and thoughts are human energy with direction and force when passion is activated to animate them. Emotions are felt, experienced by self and others and can be cultivated and honed as in the art of an actor who is trained to scale, develop, express and project her emotional range in theatre and film.
Therapeutic Use of Self – A Healing Competency
The healing practitioner learns to engage and direct her thought and emotions with compassionate intent for the betterment of another to facilitate a healing effect. Developing emotional awareness gives rise to self awareness, self esteem, self trust and the ability to recognize and identify 
emotions, understand the cause of feelings and recognize the difference between feelings and actions.
Through the development of the Therapeutic Touch practitioner, it is this depth of self-knowledge that allows for the practitioner’s deep centering of consciousness, quieting of the mind and getting out of their own way that facilitates the healing process.
Very rapidly, within 2-4 minutes after the start of a session, the healee experiences a profound relaxation response – muscles relax and the breathing pattern slows and deepens. From a biological perspective, what happens is a calming of the autonomic nervous system, the blood pressure drops, respiration rate and heart rate slows and blood vessels at the body’s periphery dilate.
The relaxation response is the best antidote to stress, pain, anxiety and depression.
It is through the open space created by the relaxation response that the Therapeutic Touch practitioner effects the well-known common effects of a healing session – a decrease in the need or desire for medication, enhanced freedom of movement for people with arthritis, fibrocytis, fractures and other musculoskeletal problems; mood changes and a subsequent shift in perception and lessening of pain; and an acceleration of the healing process – wounds heal, fractures knit together and the immune function is strengthened.
Therapeutic Touch – Energy Healing at its Best
To experience Therapeutic Touch is to become aware that one’s energy field – one’s consciousness extends beyond one’s skin. In the healing process, it is the healee, touched deeply by the healer’s compassionate intent and encouragement who allows himself to become engaged in his own healing process.
The wonderful thing is that anyone with the sincere desire to heal themselves or help another can develop their inherent healing ability. Learn more about Therapeutic Touch.
About Julia von Flotow
