Author: Shamini Jain, PhD; Richard Hammerschlag, PhD; Paul Mills, PhD; Lorenzo Cohen, PhD; Richard Krieger, MD; Cassandra Vieten, PhD; Susan Lutgendorf, PhD
Affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Diego (Drs Jain and Mills); Center for Integrative Medicine, University of California San Diego (Drs Jain and Mills); Consciousness and Healing Initiative, San Diego (Drs Jain and Hammerschlag); The Institute for Integrative Health, Baltimore, Maryland (Dr Hammerschlag); Center of Excellence for Research and Training in Integrative Health, University of California, San Diego (Dr Mills); The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston (Dr Cohen); Institute of Noetic Sciences, Petaluma, California (Drs Vieten and Krieger); California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute, San Francisco (Dr Vieten); Departments of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Urology, and Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Iowa, Iowa City (Dr Lutgendorf).
Conference/Journal: Global Adv Health Med
Date published: 2015
Other:
Volume ID: 4 , Issue ID: suppl , Pages: 58-66 , Special Notes: DOI: 10.7453/ gahmj.2015.034.suppl , Word Count: 141
Biofield therapies are noninvasive therapies in which the practitioner explicitly works with a client’s biofield (interacting fields of energy and information that surround living systems) to stimulate healing responses in patients. While the practice of biofield therapies has existed in Eastern and Western cultures for thousands of years, empirical research on the effectiveness of biofield therapies is still relatively nascent. In this article, we pro- vide a summary of the state of the evidence for biofield therapies for a number of different clinical conditions. We note specific methodological issues for research in biofield therapies that need to be addressed (including practitioner-based, outcomes-based, and research design considerations), as well as provide a list of suggested next steps for biofield researchers to consider.
Key Words
Biofield, biofield therapies, healing touch, Reiki, therapeutic touch, hands-on healing, healing, clinical trials, integrative medicine, energy medicine