MAGAZINES 
Invoking the Healing Response
Use of ‘energy healing’ grows in Boulder County & nationwide
‘We have a tendency in Western society to say, “If we can’t see it and measure it, then it doesn’t exist.” But I wonder if fish swimming around in the ocean know they are in an ocean, and that the water that’s flowing through them brings them life. Energy flows through us under normal circumstances, and for our bodies, minds and emotions to function at optimum level, we need that energy flowing through us always.’
— Carol Hiesterman, oncology nurse
Lisa Stone gives a Healing Touch session at Longmont United Hospital’s Health Center of Integrated Therapies. Photo courtesy Longmont United Hospital.
Dangling a pendulum over her patient’s head, Lisa Stone slowly sidesteps along the bed, moving the necklace down to the woman’s midsection. The prop swings lightly back and forth, with the rhythmic motion of a grandfather clock, as Stone, keeping a stilled hand, moves painstakingly toward her patient’s toes.
Once that’s done, Stone jots an entry in a nearby patient log and begins her treatment on retired speech pathologist and Longmont resident Joan Cherno. Cherno’s hands had become so arthritic that she couldn’t push herself back up after bending down to do a task, so she turned to a nonpharmaceutical approach to ease her pain and immobility. “And the pain is completely gone,” Cherno said, smiling and waving her long, manicured fingers in the air before her “maintenance” appointment with Stone.
But Cherno’s treatment, which began with Stone’s measuring her energy fields and progressed to boosting Cherno’s energy flow with the power of her hands, didn’t happen in the back office of a cluttered, incense-scented health store in Boulder. It was done at Longmont United Hospital. Success stories such as Cherno’s have spurred hospitals across the country, including LUH and Boulder Community Hospital, to add energy-healing modalities to their lists of complementary services.
Research by major medical institutions, including Johns Hopkins and the National Institutes of Health, and testimonials by figures such as Dr. Mehmet Oz, TV celebrity and professor of surgery at Columbia University, have also fueled the growing interest in energy-healing therapies, both within and outside hospital settings. In fact, Avista Adventist Hospital in Louisville chose not to offer energy therapies because Boulder is home to such a “broad spectrum of competent providers in this arena,” according to its marketing director.
After just two Healing Touch appointments weekly for six weeks, Cherno was back to doing what she loved: gardening and painting with pastels. She still sees Stone periodically to keep the pain at bay and for stress relief. “When she works on me, I feel really warm. I get a tingly, almost electric feeling,” Cherno says, trying to explain the sensations of having your energy manipulated. “But I feel so peaceful and relaxed.”
CANCER CARE
Providing relaxation and comfort is the main reason hospitals have embraced these previously shunned, often ancient energy-healing practices. At LUH, Healing Touch, Reiki and shiatsu are used wherever patients and doctors request them, particularly in cancer and post-surgery wards. “When you calm people down, and when they relax, they do heal faster,” says Michelle Bowman, acupuncturist and program director for the Health Center of Integrated Therapies at LUH. “It invokes the healing response.”
A survey released in 2011 by the American Hospital Association found that 42 percent of responding hospitals offered one or more complementary therapies, up from 37 percent in 2007. Most cited clinical evidence and patient demand as their inspiration. “We’ve grown 6 percent from 2010 to 2011,” Bowman says of her LUH center. “People are voting with their pocketbooks—and this during very tender economic times.”
At BCH, energy-healing practices are confined to cancer patients. “We’re not curing cancer here, but we’re helping the body heal from the treatments,” says Susan Elling, manager of the Center for Integrative Care at BCH, who hopes energy therapies will expand into other areas of the hospital. “Western medicine for cancer is phenomenal now, but boy, it wipes people out.” Energy healing helps her patients with nausea, anxiety, fatigue, insomnia and pain—all potential effects of chemotherapy and radiation. Clinical studies have backed the restorative, calming effects of energy therapy, including healthier blood pressure and blood cell counts. Such outcomes can help keep patients on track with their treatment regimens, Elling says.
Most patients don’t care whether they can wrap their minds around how energy therapies work. They simply know they do, Bowman says, noting that Healing Touch is an accredited therapy. “It’s not like we are down here with just our candles and soft music,” she says. “We have a therapeutic approach.” Many of her doctors send patients to her center saying the patient can’t take any more medicine, or there’s nothing else the doctor can do, Bowman says. “And nine times out of ten, we do help them.”
Dr. Jia Gottlieb applies fire cups (hwa guan) to relieve a patient's back pain. Fire-cupping, he explains, is a therapeutic technique that has been used around the world for more than 3,500 years. Ancient shamans would apply their mouths to an injured area to suck out evil energy. It is often used, as here, to augment the effects of acupuncture over a large surface area. Photo by Jan Lee.
MEDICINE OR MAGIC?
But the difficulty of explaining how energy healing works stirs up skepticism, says Dr. Jia Gottlieb, who almost 20 years ago became the first acupuncturist/medical doctor appointed to BCH. Although some acupuncturists would bristle at energy-healing therapies’ being compared with their Chinese art form, the simplified basis of most of these therapies is the same: moving or restoring energy (qi or chi) to achieve life balance or harmony.
“There is no accurate English translation for qi,” Gottlieb says. (It’s also known as prana in India and ki in Japan.) Even the word “energy,” and the concept of an energy force surrounding a body and influencing its health, are too much to accept for many of his scientific colleagues, who focus on a very specific definition of the word, derived from physics. Energy medicine? “They call it poppycock,” Gottlieb says, adding that there is no real way for researchers to measure how energy therapies work.
“We have a tendency in Western society to say, ‘If we can’t see it and measure it, then it doesn’t exist,’” says Carol Hiesterman, an oncology nurse at BCH trained in Reiki, Therapeutic Touch and Healing Touch. “But I wonder if fish swimming around in the ocean know they are in an ocean, and that the water that’s flowing through them brings them life. Energy flows through us under normal circumstances, and for our bodies and minds and emotions to function at optimum level, we need that energy flowing through us always.”
The belief is that injury, stress or disease stunts that flow. “If it doesn’t flow, it hurts,” Gottlieb says. Energy healers encourage better flow by helping people become more aware of sensations and master relaxation techniques; many practitioners, including Stone, teach self-care. Some therapies, such as acupressure, acupuncture and shiatsu, are based largely on manipulating points along “meridians” or energy pathways to improve flow. Other therapies, such as Healing Touch, are focused more on the body’s auras—energy fields—and chakras—energy centers.
Rituals and props, like Stone’s pendulum, are often key elements in energy therapies, which spark the healing spirit through body and mind. “In this ritual state, some profound changes can occur, because ritual communicates in a very direct way to part of us, like the 4-year-old in a magical world,” Gottlieb says. “We have suppressed that magical world to a great extent because of our enthusiasm and belief in science, and yet a very significant part of our humanity is not scientific. Energy healing is both medicinal and magical.”
After Cherno’s treatment is finished, Stone picks up her beads and again performs the head-to-toe sweep. The pendulum swings a little wider this time. “Her energy level has increased,” Stone says, explaining the heightened activity.
As for Cherno, lying with closed eyes on a massage table, her only concern seems to be the news that the session has come to an end. She sighs and asks disbelievingly, “Are you really going to take me away from this wonderful place I’ve been in?”
Debra Melani lives in Lyons, where she focuses her writing career on medical news and health trends.
ENERGY-HEALING THERAPIES
There are many types of energy healing, but here is a sample of some of the best-known forms. Those marked with an asterisk are based at least in part on acupuncture’s system of points and meridians.
*Acupuncture
One of the oldest healing practices in the world, this Chinese art form moves energy or life force (qi) through the body, using needles to stimulate points along the meridians (energy pathways). Meridians are like the body’s highways, connecting organs with other parts of the system. Traditional Chinese Medicine contends that stimulating acupuncture points (like opening a tollgate) increases flow, and thus the health of the corresponding organ. Clinical evidence that it can invoke healing and reduce numerous types of disease is significant.
*Acupressure
Often referred to as acupuncture without needles, acupressure is an ancient Asian form of bodywork that follows the same principles as acupuncture. Rather than needles to stimulate numerous points along the meridians, practitioners generally use their fingertips to provide pressure, although they can use elbows, knuckles, etc. Patients can also learn self-care.
*Shiatsu
This ancient Japanese practice, generally done on a mat on the floor, translates to “finger pressure.” Practitioners manipulate points along the meridians and rotate joints with pressure and massage, using their hands, fingers, elbows, knees and feet. Many clients are otherwise healthy people feeling the stress of work. Dave Goetz of Bodywork Bistro in Boulder says that after a treatment, they often report “a profound sense of well-being.”
*Reiki
This Japanese therapy is based on the words rei (universal) and ki (life-force energy). Practitioners believe they increase that life force in clients through their hands. As with any energy-healing form, the goal is to improve the health of mind, body and spirit. Boulder Reiki master Cynthia Ghiron, who teaches self-care to clients, emphasizes that it should become a way of life.
*Jin Shin Jyutsu
This ancient Japanese healing art aims to harmonize the body, mind and spirit to promote health and well-being. It is based on a pulse diagnosis similar to acupuncture. Practitioners help release a client’s blocked energy by holding a sequence of acupressure points on the body.
Therapeutic Touch & Healing Touch
TT was made popular by a nurse in the 1970s. Practitioners say that with their hands hovering above a patient’s body, they can sense stagnant energy and then use sweeping motions to generate flow. HT, a 1980s offshoot, entails some light touching techniques. Both are based largely on chakras and auras.
Brennan Healing Science
Created by Barbara Brennan, a physicist and former NASA researcher, this modality combines hands-on healing techniques with spiritual and psychological processes. It works largely with chakras and auras in an effort to help recipients clear energy blocks and unhealthy patterns.
—D.M.
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