The rapid infiltration of alternative, complementary, and integrated ways of healing into conventional health services shows that healing has a new acceptance and that the term “heal” is no longer regarded as a four-letter word. Scientific studies on the healing process are being funded by both private and government health agencies and reviewed by appropriate peer committees. My own lifework has been intimately involved with that process of research and development of the contemporary health practice of Therapeutic Touch. This is the perspective that I would like to address.
My colleague Dora Kunz and I helped direct attention to the significant potential contributions of the inner work of healing by asking questions from a radically new perspective. We found the rarely voiced notion of compassion to be a vital, emerging evolutionary trait that can quicken the actualization of human potential, particularly the abilities oriented toward intuitive grasp and spiritual aspiration, areas seldom explored in the past materialistic century.
Even today compassion remains a hard sell, for, as the renowned historian of science, Anne Harrington, has tersely stated, “… science is not sure that compassion, altruism, and self-sacrifice are natural human states.” Violent acts are much more often thought to be the more natural expressions of human nature, a mindset so embedded in most people’s expectations of human behavior that, by contrast, compassion is considered a rare social grace removed from the daily life of the common man or woman.
On the contrary, in our development of Therapeutic Touch (TT), Dora and I have found that the compelling urge towards compassionate action lies at the foundations for the TT healing process. Because of this, TT is more than a series of techniques designed for the helping and healing of many illnesses. For the therapist, TT is an inner journey birthed in compassion and matured in conscious communion with one’s inner self, often referred to as one’s soul. This insight has significance for the unique development of Therapeutic Touch.
Mircea Eliade’s brilliant studies on shamanism alerted Western culture to the profound depths of shamanic healing. It was he who defined shamans as “technicians of ecstasy.” Similarly, our observations of hundreds of therapists engaged in the Therapeutic Touch process leads us to call these TT therapists “technicians of compassion.”
To appreciate fully this term, “technicians of compassion,” we must have a clear understanding of the term compassion. Compassion initially brings the healer into a felt relationship with the pains and needs of others, but this humane relationship can only occur if the healer has the ability to transcend the foundational self-centered attitude of our culture. This benevolent act of compassion has far-reaching consequences. By over-riding survival feedback to respond to someone else’s needs, we affirm that all beings are intimately connected.
Besides projecting ourselves into an alliance with someone in need, compassion has the power to change our perceptions. The object of our compassion acquires characteristics of vulnerability and availability that evoke powerful surges of tenderness and concern within the compassionate person. These outpourings activate and focus our abilities in the best interests of the person in need, so that what may have seemed impossible becomes possible, even necessary. When this happens during a healing session, it is often called “a miracle.”
Miracle? That sounds like magical thinking. What do we actually know about compassion, whose subtle ways often avoid direct scrutiny? I would like to look at the dynamics of compassion, particularly as a power that presents itself during the healing moment, through the type of healing I know best, which is Therapeutic Touch.
TT is a transpersonal process of healing marked by several distinctive stages, beginning with a surge of compassionate concern for the threatened well being of another. This invokes a shift in the therapist’s consciousness. She enters a state of sustained centering and remains in this state throughout the session.
The hope is to bring the subtle energy fields into a coherent state of balance. The TT therapist assesses the healee’s vital-energy field, determining the imbalance in the patterns created by the field’s subtle energy flows. She engages deeper levels of her own consciousness, from which she decides how to rebalance the distorted and disrupted subtle energy flows. She then directs her vital-energy flows to the appropriate subtle energy field of the healee.
These are the bare bones of the process, but it is the felt emotions of compassionate concern that get pulled into the healing interaction and prepares the ground for the “miracle” to occur.
Chakras are an Indian concept for non-physical levels of consciousness that manifest subtle energies. A flood of compassionate emotion surges out of the heart charka toward the healee. This directed subtle energy flow may be connected to the solar plexus charka, provoked by sympathy, or the crown charka, prompted by conscious sensitivity to help or to heal. The foundational chakra complex becomes highly responsive.
After having assumed a state of sustained centeredness, “listening” intently in the stillness of her own quietude, the therapist “listens” to the intuitive messages arising out of the depths of her inner self as it communes with the inner self of the healee.
This sensitivity helps the TT therapist organize the information reaching her as her hands explore the imbalances of the healee’s vital-energy field. As she processes the information, a visualization of the forces involved appears and in this way she begins to understand what needs to be done to rebalance the subtle energy flows of the healee. Using her visualization as her guide, either she directs appropriate subtle energy flows to the sites of imbalance or she modulates the healee’s vital-energy flows so he can restore his field to a state of balance and coherence.
From a more physical perspective, the act of compassion releases a cascade of hormones and other biochemicals that elevates the consciousness of the therapist, which opens her to the influence of her inner self and to the finer forces with which the inner self is engaged. Compassion engages a timeless moment in that emotional release. There is a sense of calmness and rightness that is difficult to describe. Composure and collectedness, dispassion and peace of mind, self-control and self-possession focus the energy as she goes about doing what needs to be done.
This indefinable arc of time can be deep, very deep, for in that moment of complete identification and sense of oneness, one may see the other as the Beloved, noted by poets of every creed to be a reflection of one’s soul. During that healing moment a nonverbal message is easily transmitted soul to soul in a tender, nonphysical embrace between healer and healee. A moment hard to describe, but it is never to be forgotten.
For the TT therapist for whom compassionate concern becomes a way of life, frequent engagement in Therapeutic Touch forces transformation, so that not only is the therapist changed, but also the way she perceives all people changes radically.
Recently, I was fortunate to have a partial knee replacement installed. I am now in excellent shape, in large part because of the unusually compassionate care I received from Nancy, who did Therapeutic Touch with me during the operation. Describing the operation from her personal perspective, she said, “As I was doing TT on you, I looked at the rest of the OR team moving in a silent ebb and flow around the operating table, each one focused on his own assigned tasks and personal concerns. All of a sudden I startled myself as a disturbing question crossed my mind: Who was looking out for the spirituality of the patient?
“You, the patient, had your consciousness forced out of your body by the anesthesia, and the organs of finer energy were splayed open and vulnerable to powerful emotions or thoughts that might be in the vicinity. As these concerns went through my mind, with increasing assurance and confidence I realized it was I who was guarding access to your inner self as I worked with the deeper structures of your vital-energy field and your psychodynamic field. As I more fully realized the extent of my engagement with you at subtle energy levels, I gained insight into what you mean by the TT therapist being a Warrior-Healer, and I was proud to be the guardian of your spirit at a time in which you were so vulnerable.”
As I listened to Nancy, I realized how right she was. As a TT therapist, she was acting from a place of deep compassion, and she was consciously identifying with that powerful, beneficent outpouring to help me. She called out an outpouring of love that could set up a healing milieu that emanated a sense of harmony, composure, and equanimity. Such a milieu would, indeed, act as a protecting agent of the finer energies at the spiritual levels of consciousness. Those who are willing to express the power of compassion in the healing moment provide the guardianship to protect those of us who are vulnerable.
Thank you very much for this opportunity to express my gratitude.
This is an Edited Version of an Address to a Nurse Healer Conference in 2003, with thanks to Dolores Krieger.
Dolores Krieger will be leading a workshop on Therapeutic Touch Oct. 13-15.
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