Healing Touch and Breast Cancer Care: A Personal Story and Overview
My interest in breast cancer and the effects of Healing Touch on the side effects of surgery and chemotherapy became personal when a mammogram indicated suspicious changes in my breast, and I had a lumpectomy (three nodes) for biopsy.
I had never had any surgeries and became acutely aware of the fear of the unknown and the possibility of pain and surgery side effects. Like many, I didn’t have to face these possibilities alone; I was blessed with a supportive husband and a very good friend who also had Healing Touch training.
After I discussed Healing Touch with my surgeon, my friend was allowed to give me Healing Touch until I was taken into the operating room and immediately afterwards into the recovery room. As a result, I had no bleeding, no bruising, and no pain. My incision was basically healed in less than two weeks. I was luck,y and the nodes were benign. I had another scare with a mammary gland at the nipple in the other breast about a year later. Again, I experienced the same results using Healing Touch.
Coincidentally, the week after I received a request to write this article, a good friend was scheduled to have breast surgery after being on chemotherapy for several months. I gave her Healing Touch two days before and immediately after surgery in her hospital room. Like me, she did fantastically! This woman had little to no pain following surgery. One week following surgery, she was still pain-free and recovering at an unexpected rate.
Healing Touch was part of her strategy for healing, which included allopathic care (a great oncology team, a good surgeon, and the advanced technology of the harmonic scalpel and fibrin glue) and homeopathic care, as well as prayer, nutrition, visualization, journaling, and family and friend support.
These experiences led me to become more aware of breast cancer and created a desire to know more and also to help others. I have given Healing Touch to people with cancer and have volunteered at the Blue Bird Camp for Cancer Survivors (sponsored by St. Mary’s Medical Center and Bell South Pioneers) and other organizations.
What Is Healing Touch?
What is Healing Touch? Scientifically, it is a biofield therapy, an energy-based approach to health and healing. Healing Touch uses non-invasive hand movements on or near the body to influence the human energy system (the biomagnetic field of the body and its energy centers). These techniques clear, energize, and balance the human energy field, affecting physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health and healing.
The work is based on a heart-centered caring relationship in which the practitioner and client come together energetically to facilitate the client's health and healing. The goal of Healing Touch is to restore harmony and balance to the energy system, which places the client in a position to self-heal. Healing Touch complements conventional health care and is used in collaboration with other approaches to health and healing.
Background of Healing Touch
Healing Touch was developed by Janet Mentgen, RN, BSN who has been practicing energy-based care since 1980 in Denver, CO. The Healing Touch program is a certified educational offering endorsed by the American Holistic Nurses’ Association. The Healing Touch certificate program is now taught throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, South Africa, and South America and has been attended by over 70,000 persons.
Research and Observations
Research results indicate that Healing Touch and other biofield therapies are useful therapies. Patient satisfaction surveys of cancer patients have shown that biofield therapy treatments reduce anxiety, increase relaxation and sense of control, improve energy and sense of well-being, and decrease pain and side effects of cancer treatments.
In a study on the effects of Healing Touch (HT) on radiation-induced fatigue, the HT group showed proportionately larger reductions in fatigue than the control group (i.e., they had more energy). The Healing Touch groups also had more pronounced improvements in their levels of depression, anxiety and anger. In another phenomenological study, women with breast cancer who received HT during the administration of intravenous therapy had decreased physical and emotional discomfort. In a Master’s Thesis on The Experience of HT in Women with Breast Cancer, the author found that through the primary experiences of human touch, caring and concern, and unity with others, a new state of enhanced physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being was created.
My own experience with women who have cancer is that when they receive Healing Touch before and after chemotherapy dosages, they have a decrease in side effects of chemotherapy. All of the clients I have worked with have stated that they had less anxiety and a better sense of well-being. Some have reported a decrease in nausea and pain. Other Healing Touch practitioners in the area have reported the same results.
Community Support and Continuing Care
Currently, members of the local Healing Touch group are donating sessions at the Wellness Community. One goal is to teach clients and/or their caregivers ways to help the client continue with self-healing.
Since 1996, approximately 300 people have attended Healing Touch workshops in the Knoxville area. In the greater Knoxville area, there are currently 3 Certified Healing Touch Practitioners and approximately 18 Practitioners seeking certification (having completed at least Level IV of training).
Note: I wish to thank Elizabeth K. Hansen, MSSW, Sharon A. Koeth, BA Ed, AMI, Victoria Slater, PhD, RN, HNC, CHTP/I for their help and input. Published in the Bountiful Health magazine, October, 2003.
