Energy medicine, energy therapy, energy healing, or spiritual healing are branches of alternative medicine. The most controversial claim in this general area of pseudoscience is the belief healers can channel healing energy into a patient and effect positive results. This idea itself contains several methods: hands-on, hands-off,[ and distant (or absent) where the patient and healer are in different locations.
Many schools of energy healing exist using many names, for example, biofield energy healing, spiritual healing, contact healing, distant healing, therapeutic touch, Reiki or Qigong.
Spiritual healing occurs largely in non-denominational and ecumenical contexts. Practitioners do not see traditional religious faith as a prerequisite for effecting cures. Faith healing, by contrast, takes place within a traditional religious context.
While early reviews of the scientific literature on energy healing were equivocal and recommended further research, more recent reviews have concluded that there is no evidence supporting clinical efficiency. The theoretical basis of healing has been criticised as implausible, research and reviews supportive of energy medicine have been faulted for containing methodological flaws and selection bias, and positive therapeutic results have been dismissed as resulting from known psychological mechanisms.
Edzard Ernst, formerly Professor of Complementary and Alternative Medicine at the University of Exeter, has warned that "healing continues to be promoted despite the absence of biological plausibility or convincing clinical evidence ... that these methods work therapeutically and plenty to demonstrate that they do not". Some claims of those purveying "energy medicine" devices are known to be fraudulent and their marketing practices have drawn law-enforcement action in the U.S.
History
There is a history of association or exploitation
of scientific inventions by individuals claiming that newly discovered science
could help people to heal: In the 19th century, electricity and magnetism were
in the "borderlands" of science and electrical quackery was rife.
These concepts continue to inspire writers in the New Age
movement. In the early 20th century health claims for radio-active materials
put lives at risk, and recently quantum
mechanics and grand unification theory have provided
similar opportunities for commercial exploitation.
Thousands of devices claiming to heal via putative or veritable energy are used
worldwide. Many of them are illegal or dangerous and are marketed with false or
unproven claims. Several of these devices have been banned. Reliance on
spiritual and energetic healings is associated with serious harm or death when
medical treatment is delayed or foregone. Various commentary points to an
impairment in critical thinking.
Classification
The term "energy medicine" has been in
general use since the founding of the non-profit International Society for
the Study of Subtle Energies and Energy Medicine in the 1980s. Guides are
available for practitioners, and other books aim to provide a theoretical basis
and evidence for the practice. Energy medicine often proposes that imbalances
in the body's "energy field" result in illness, and that by
re-balancing the body's energy-field health can be restored. Some modalities
describe treatments as ridding the body of negative energies or blockages in
'mind'; illness or episodes of ill health after a treatment are referred to as
a 'release' or letting go of a 'contraction' in the body-mind. Usually, a
practitioner will then recommend further treatments for complete healing.
The US-based National
Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH)
distinguishes between health care involving scientifically observable energy,
which it calls "Veritable Energy Medicine", and health care methods
that invoke physically undetectable or unverifiable "energies", which it calls
"Putative Energy Medicine":
- Types of "veritable energy medicine" include magnet
therapy, colorpuncture, and light
therapy. Medical techniques involving the use electromagnetic
radiation (e.g. radiation therapy or magnetic resonance imaging)
are not considered "energy medicine" in the terms of alternative
medicine.
- Types of "putative energy medicine" include biofield energy
healing therapies where the hands are used to direct or modulate
"energies" which are believed to effect healing in the patient;
this includes spiritual healing and psychic healing, Therapeutic touch, Healing
Touch, Esoteric healing, Magnetic healing (now a historical
term not to be confused with magnet
therapy), Qigong healing, Reiki,
Pranic healing, Crystal healing, distant healing,
intercessory prayer, and similar modalities. Concepts such as Qi (Chi), Prana,
Innate Intelligence, Mana,
Pneuma,
Vital
fluid, Odic force, and Orgone
are among the many terms that have been used to describe these putative
energy fields. This category does not include Acupuncture,
Ayurvedic medicine, Chiropractic,
and other modalities where a physical intervention is used to manipulate a
putative energy.
Polarity therapy founded by Dr. Randolph
Stone is a kind of energy medicine based on the belief that a
person's health is subject to positive and negative charges in their
electromagnetic field. It has been promoted as capable of curing a number of
human ailments ranging from muscular tightness to cancer;
however, according to the American Cancer Society "available
scientific evidence does not support claims that polarity therapy is effective
in treating cancer or any other disease".
Beliefs
Energy healing relies on a belief in the ability of
a practitioner to channel healing energy into the person seeking help by
different methods: hands-on, hands-off, and distant (or absent) where the
patient and healer are in different locations. The Brockhampton Guide to
Spiritual Healing describes contact healing in terms of "transfer of
... healing energy" and distant healing based on visualising the patient
in perfect health. Practitioners say that this "healing energy" is
sometimes perceived by the therapist as a feeling of heat.
There are various schools of energy healing,
including biofield energy healing, spiritual healing, contact
healing, distant healing, therapeutic
touch, Reiki, Qigong,
and many others.
Spiritual healing is largely
non-denominational; traditional religious faith is not seen as a prerequisite
for effecting a cure. Faith healing, by contrast, takes place
within a religious context. The Buddha is often quoted by practitioners of
energy medicine, but he did not practise "hands on or off" healing.
Energy healing techniques such as Therapeutic
touch have found recognition in the nursing profession. In
2005-2006, the North American Nursing Diagnosis
Association approved the diagnosis of "energy field disturbance" in
patients, reflective of what has been variously called a "postmodern"
or "anti-scientific" approach to nursing care. This approach has been
strongly criticised.
Believers in these techniques have proposed quantum
mystical invocations of non-locality to try to explain distant healing.
They have also proposed that healers act as a channel passing on a kind of bioelectromagnetism which shares similarities
to vitalistic
pseudosciences
such as orgone
or qi. Drew Leder remarked in
a paper in the Journal of
Alternative and Complementary Medicine that such ideas were
attempts to "make sense of, interpret, and explore 'psi' and distant
healing." and that "such physics-based models are not presented as
explanatory but rather as suggestive." Beverly Rubik, in an article in the
same journal, justified her belief with references to biophysical systems
theory, bioelectromagnetics, and chaos theory
that provide her with a "...scientific foundation for the
biofield..." Writing in the Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies,
James Oschman introduced the concept of healer-sourced electromagnetic fields which change in
frequency. Oschman believes that "healing energy" derives from electromagnetic
frequencies generated by a medical device, projected from the hands
of the healer, or by electrons acting as antioxidants.
Physicists and skeptics roundly criticize these
explanations as pseudophysics — a branch of pseudoscience
which explains magical thinking by using irrelevant jargon
from modern physics to exploit scientific illiteracy and to impress the
unsophisticated. Indeed, even enthusiastic supporters of energy healing point
out that "there are only very tenuous theoretical foundations underlying
healing."
Scientific investigations
Distant healing
A systematic review of 23 trials of distant healing
published in 2000 did not draw definitive conclusions because of the
"methodologic limitations of several studies". In 2001 the lead
author of that study, Edzard Ernst, published a primer on
complementary therapies in cancer care in which he explained that though
"about half of these trials suggested that healing is effective" he
cautioned that the evidence was "highly conflicting" and that
"methodological shortcomings prevented firm conclusions." He
concluded that "as long as it is not used as an alternative to effective
therapies, spiritual healing should be virtually devoid of risks." A 2001
randomized clinical trial by the same group found no statistically significant
difference on chronic pain between distance healers and "simulated
healers". A 2003 review by Ernst updating previous work concluded that
more recent research had shifted the weight of evidence "against the
notion that distant healing is more than a placebo" and that "distant
healing can be associated with adverse effects."
Contact healing
A 2001 randomized clinical trial randomly assigned
120 patients with chronic pain to either healers or "simulated
healers", but could not demonstrate efficacy for either distance or
face-to-face healing. A Cochrane collaboration systematic review
of the use of touch therapies published in 2008 analysed the results of
24 trials and concluded that the attempted review suffered from "a major
limitation: the small number of studies and insufficient data. As a result of
inadequate data, the effects of touch therapies cannot be clearly
declared." A systematic review in 2008 concluded that the evidence for a
specific effect of spiritual healing on relieving neuropathic or neuralgic pain
was not convincing. In their 2008 book Trick or Treatment, Simon Singh
and Edzard Ernst
concluded that "spiritual healing is biologically implausible and its
effects rely on a placebo response. At best it may offer comfort; at worst it
can result in charlatans taking money from patients with serious conditions who
require urgent conventional medicine."
Evidence base
Alternative medicine researcher Edzard Ernst has
argued that although an initial review of pre-1999 distant healing trials had
highlighted 57% of trials as showing positive results, later reviews of
non-randomised and randomised clinical trials conducted between 2000 and 2002
led to the conclusion that "the majority of the rigorous trials do not
support the hypothesis that distant healing has specific therapeutic
effects". Ernst described the evidence base for healing practices to be
"increasingly negative". Ernst also warned that many of the reviews
were under suspicion for fabricated data, lack of transparency, and scientific
misconduct. He concluded that "[s]piritual healing continues to be
promoted despite the absence of biological plausibility or convincing clinical
evidence ... that these methods work therapeutically and plenty to demonstrate
that they do not." A 2014 study of energy healing for colorectal cancer
patients showed no improvement in quality of life, depressive symptoms, mood,
or sleep quality.
Alternative explanations for
positive reports
There are several, primarily psychological,
explanations for positive reports after energy therapy, including placebo
effects, spontaneous remission, and cognitive dissonance. A 2009 review found
that the "small successes" reported for two therapies collectively
marketed as "energy psychology" (Emotional Freedom Techniques and Tapas Acupressure Technique) "are
potentially attributable to well-known cognitive and behavioral techniques that
are included with the energy manipulation." The report concluded that
"[p]sychologists and researchers should be wary of using such techniques,
and make efforts to inform the public about the ill effects of therapies that
advertise miraculous claims."
There are primarily two explanations for anecdotes
of cures or improvements, relieving any need to appeal to the supernatural. The
first is post hoc ergo propter hoc, meaning
that a genuine improvement or spontaneous remission may have been
experienced coincidental with but independent from anything the healer or
patient did or said. These patients would have improved just as well even had
they done nothing. The second is the placebo
effect, through which a person may experience genuine pain relief and other
symptomatic alleviation. In this case, the patient genuinely has been helped by
the healer – not through any mysterious or numinous function, but by the
power of their own belief that they would be healed. In both cases the patient
may experience a real reduction in symptoms, though in neither case has
anything miraculous or inexplicable occurred. Both cases, are strictly limited
to the body's natural abilities.
Positive findings from research studies can also
result from such psychological mechanisms, or as a result of experimenter
bias, methodological flaws such as lack of blinding,
or publication bias; positive reviews of the
scientific literature may show selection
bias, in that they omit key studies that do not agree with the
author's position. All of these factors must be considered when evaluating
claims.
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