Original ResearchSelf-Reported Effects of Energy Healing: A Prospective Observational Study With Pre–Post Design
Introduction
Complementary and alternative Medicine (CAM) is defined as a treatment modality that is not considered to be standard medical treatment and mainly practiced outside conventional health care. 1 CAM is commonly used in Norway2, 3, 4 with massage therapy, acupuncture, naprapathy, reflexology, osteopathy, cupping and healing as the most frequently used interventions.5 Healing is reported to be used by 16.8% of the population4 and 1.1% of the respondents answered that they had used healing within the past 12 months.6 However, utilization may be considerably higher in selected patient groups or areas: In a Norwegian study, 34% of people with health complaints attributed to former dental amalgam fillings, reported the use of healing,7 whereas a study of cancer patients in Northern Norway, the use of healing was reported by 33%.8 In line with these findings, patients with chronic diseases and psychological problems reported likewise frequent use of healing (14–36%).9, 10
Energy healing can best be described as a ritual practiced by healers. The ritual initiate a process so that patients may experience an improvement of health complaints. The healing modality may focus on a process, so that the patient can move from a mode of disease to a mode of renewed health. However, to apply healing can likewise have the aim to ameliorate the suffering associated with a disease, even though the disease itself is still present. In many ways, some definitions of healing have parallels with Antonovsky's concept of salutogenesis.11 Salutogenesis is a term that describes an approach focusing on factors that support human health and well-being, rather than on factors that cause disease (pathogenesis). More specifically, the “salutogenic model” is concerned with the relationship between health, stress, and coping.11
A healer may be understood as a person, who exercises above all routines within the ritual, the practice of laying on of hands, prayers, and/or meditation while most importantly considering himself connected to a transcendent or spiritual power.12, 13 Healing, similar to many other interventions such as psychotherapy, is largely dependent on the relationship between practitioner and patient and on patients’ preferences, expectations, beliefs and motivations.14, 15 However, there are certain specificities with regard to the relationship between a client and a healer that are unique and differ from other therapeutic relationships. These are e.g. a triangular relationship between the healer, the client and the transcendent as well as empathy and the feeling of “fusion”. In this special relationship, the personality of the healer plays an unique and central role.14
In contrast to the high utilization and more or less anecdotic reports of subjective benefits from healing, reasonably little is known about measurable treatment effects, even though there have been several attempts to rigorously investigate healing as a phenomenon. Generally, the results are inconsistent and systematic reviews struggle with heterogeneous interventions and methodological challenges.16, 17, 18 Moreover, patients who seek CAM care often suffer from chronic diseases and multiple pathologies.19 These complex treatment settings often include multiple treatment modalities, as well as techniques for changing the clients behavior, all of which are implemented in a highly individualized fashion in most cases.20
Generally, most CAM interventions are under-researched, taking into consideration that they are widely practiced and that little is known about their clinical effectiveness and risk profile. Thus, the situation for research on CAM interventions may be considered to be parallel to a phase IV “post marketing surveillance” trial, where the therapy is in practice. It is therefore of interest to investigate how it relates to other interventions with regard to the risk/benefit profile. Observational studies are well suited to investigate these questions.21 Moreover, adverse effects are usually more commonly reported in observational studies under real life conditions.22, 23 Therefore, in order to investigate the potential clinical effect and risk profile of an intervention, an observational study in a real life setting provides an appropriate approach as a first step.
The aim of this study is therefore to map the conditions the clients report when visiting a healer for the first time, and to evaluate the subjectively experienced benefits and risks from the healing intervention.
Section snippets
Design
This was a prospective observational study with pre–post design in an unselected study population. The intervention was energy healing as usually practiced.
Setting
The study was conducted in a community in southern Norway with 44,000 inhabitants and took place in an alternative and complementary outpatient clinic. Two practitioners, who were trained in intuitive energy healing, performed the healing treatments. Both the healers were approved healers by the Norwegian healers association. The inclusion
Participants
All adult persons (above 18 years of age), regardless of their symptoms, who contacted one of the two healers for a healing consultation for the first time, were asked to participate in the study. All clients referred themselves to the clinic and the treatment, and the consultation fee (NOK 800/€80) was paid by the patients themselves. The clients were not offered any compensation for participating in the study.
Intervention
The healing intervention was based on an assessment (interview conducted by the healer) of the clients total health situation prior to the healing session. The healers hands were held for some time at different parts of the patient's body outside the clients clothing. The intervention consisted of the regular procedures of a healing ritual that the clients would also have received if they had not been participants in the study. The treatment sessions were highly individualized, and included
Basic characteristics of the participants
Most of the 92 included clients were women (80%, n = 74). The clients had a median age of 48 years (range 20–78) and 45% (n = 41) had a university education. Fifty percent were working, either full or part time (n = 46) while 41% (n = 38) were on sick leave, work assessment allowance or received disability benefits. Most of the clients were married or lived with a partner (76%, n = 70) and had a rather high household income (more than 550’ NOK/55’ €, 67%, n = 44). Almost 60% had struggled with
Main findings
The participants in the study were mainly women with chronic disease with pain, fatigue and/or psychological challenges. The clients experienced an improvement of their symptoms, well-being and activity level of approximately 50%. This improvement was achieved after a mean of 4.1 healing sessions. Forty percent reported some adverse effects, which occurred mainly directly after the healing session, lasting for less than one day.
Even though this was an observational study and no statistical
Conclusion
The results show, that a number of 4–5 healing sessions was on average sufficient to induce changes in the perceived health status. Adherence to the intervention and compliance to the study were high. The calculated changes between 40% and 50% indicate that if a sample size calculation was to be performed based on these findings, the effect size would be rather strong. However, the recruitment and response patterns are likely to be different for women and men and the particularities of the
Abbreviations
CAM: Complementary and Alternative Medicine; MYMOP: Measure Yourself Medical Outcome Profile.
Ethics approval and consent to participate
Approval of the study was applied for at the Regional Committee for Medical and Health Research Ethics (REK 2015/1387). They concluded that the project did not fell under the definition of projects to be assessed under the Health Research Act. They suggested that an approval was applied for at the Norwegian Social Science Data Service (NSD) that approved the study (project number 44894). Written informed consent was obtained from all participants. Special emphasis was placed on informing the
Acknowledgment
We want to express our gratitude to the healing clients that took part in this study and to Nina Nes and Torunn Anthonsen for collecting the data. The publication charges for this article have been funded by a grant from the publication fund of UiT The Arctic University of Norway.
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Trial registration. Clinicaltrials.gov, Protocol ID 44894 registered 02/24/2016.