Effects of Reiki on Mental Health Care: A Systematic Review.

This systematic review aimed to identify the benefits of Reiki in mental health care. Eleven studies were included. Although the number of studies is limited, the results contribute to the potential beneficial role of Reiki in mental health care. Persistent studies using Reiki with broad samples, consistent randomized controlled trials, and patterned protocols are recommended.

Reiki: Defining a Healing Practice for Nursing.

More Americans are embracing complementary and integrative healing modalities such as Reiki to enhance the efficacy of allopathic medicine. It is important that nurses and other health care professionals be knowledgeable about these modalities. Reiki is a wellness practice that offers whole-person healing of body, mind, and spirit. The study of Reiki offers nurses an opportunity to care for themselves as well as create an optimal healing environment for their patients. This article offer nurses a comprehensive overview of the system of Reiki; it includes the core elements of Reiki, its history, Reiki training, and examples of its applications.

Associations between psychological symptoms and treatment outcomes of a massage therapy intervention: Secondary analyses of a randomized controlled trial.

Massage therapy (MT) may be more effective for certain subgroups of advanced cancer patients, but this is not well-studied. Psychological symptoms are one potential moderator of MT outcomes, as they occur frequently in MT patients. Therefore, we conducted a secondary analysis of data from a multi-site study which compared MT to simple touch in 380 adults with advanced cancer. We examined whether the presence of depression or baseline psychological symptom frequency moderated outcomes of change in pain, interference of pain, quality of life, 60-second heart and respiratory rates, and physical distress. We found significant main effects of depression and baseline psychological symptom frequency on changes in pain, 60-second heart and respiratory rates, quality of life, and physical distress for both MT and simple touch, but did not find differential responses between groups in moderator analyses. Results imply that psychological interventions could be targeted to patients with cancer who are receiving any type of touch therapy to improve outcomes.

Implementation of Intentional Touch for Geriatric Patients with Chronic Pain: A Qualitative Pilot Study.

BACKGROUND: Intentional Touch (InTouch) refers to a soft physical touch with the aim to ease complaints and enhance well-being. Central questions were perception of InTouch by nurses and patients and possible effects on pain perception. PATIENTS AND METHODS: InTouch was developed by stakeholder involvement. Nurses working in geriatric care received expert training in InTouch. Semi-structured interviews and participant observation (including video recording) were conducted with nurses applying and patients with chronic pain receiving InTouch after the beginning of the intervention and after 4 weeks. Interviews were analyzed based on Qualitative Content Analysis and video recordings based on Qualitative Visual Analysis. RESULTS: Six elderly patients with chronic pain and 6 nurses were included. Nurses and patients equally described relaxation, well-being, and a sensation of warmth during the intervention. Patients reported no pain during the intervention. After the intervention, 3 patients each experienced pain relief or no change. Patients described better drive and positive feelings, and nurses felt empowered in their nursing work. Empathetic attention had special importance for improving the therapeutic relationship. CONCLUSION: The results of this study suggest that InTouch promoted relaxation, well-being, and pain relief for elderly people suffering from chronic pain and may contribute positively to the therapeutic relationship.

Variables of Individual Difference and the Experience of Touch in Nursing.

We aim to investigate nurses' feelings of comfort or discomfort with three different types of touch: task-oriented contact, touch promoting physical comfort, and touch providing emotional containment. A questionnaire was administered to a sample of 198 nurses. We present results of multiple regression analysis identifying some antecedents of nurses' feelings of comfort with touch, namely, attachment style, worry, gender, and length of service. Worry is negatively associated with task-oriented contact and touch promoting physical comfort. Attachment security and length of service are associated with comfort with touch aimed at emotional containment; female nurses feel more comfortable than male nurses in performing this type of touch. Practical implications of findings are discussed in relation to the promotion of focused training courses for practitioners who are willing to improve the quality of care services.

A Practice-Based Theory of Healing Through Therapeutic Touch: Advancing Holistic Nursing Practice.

For nearly 50 years, Therapeutic Touch (TT) has contributed to advancing holistic nursing practice and has been recognized as a uniquely human approach to healing. This narrative explores the development of a practice-based theory of healing through TT, which occurred between 2010 and 2016. Through the in-depth self-inquiry of participatory reflective dialogue in concert with constant narrative analysis, TT practitioners revealed the meaning of healing within the context of their TT practice. As the community of TT experts participated in an iterative process of small group and community dialogues with analysis and synthesis of emerging themes, the assumptions and concepts central to a theory of healing emerged, were clarified and verified. Exemplars of practice illustrate the concepts. A model of the theory of healing illuminates the movement and relationship among concepts and evolved over time. Feedback from nursing and inter-professional practitioners indicate that the theory of healing, while situated within the context of TT, may be useful in advancing holistic nursing practice, informing healing and caring approaches, stimulating research and education, and contributing to future transformations in health care.

Self-Efficacy for Coping with Cancer Enhances the Effect of Reiki Treatments During the Pre-Surgery Phase of Breast Cancer Patients.

BACKGROUND/AIM: Self-efficacy for coping with cancer plays a critical role in influencing psychological cancer-related outcomes, some studies suggested its role in enhancing or reducing the effects of psychological interventions in cancer patients. Reiki has recently been included among the efficacious complementary therapeutic intervention for cancer patients. PATIENTS AND METHODS: The present study evaluated the role of self-efficacy for coping with cancer as buffer of the Reiki treatment effects on cancer-related symptoms in a randomized controlled trial (intervention versus control group) of breast cancer patients (N=110) during the pre-surgery phase. RESULTS: Results showed that self-efficacy for coping with cancer can influence the effect of a Reiki treatment. Higher efficacious patients showed a more powerful effect of the Reiki intervention on both anxiety and mood than the low efficacious patients. CONCLUSION: From a practical perspective, the study provides insightful results for healthcare professionals.

[Therapeutic touch and anorexia nervosa]. / Toucher thérapeutique et anorexie mentale.

An innovative practice, therapeutic touch has been used for around ten years in the treatment of eating disorders. Delivered by nurse clinicians having received specific training, this approach is based on nursing diagnoses which identify the major symptoms of this pathology. The support is built around the body and its perceptions. Through the helping relationship, it mobilises the patient's resources to favour a relationship of trust, a letting-go, physical, psychological and emotional relaxation, and improves the therapeutic alliance.

Interpretations of the Healer's Touch in the Hippocratic Corpus.

This paper analyses gender as an aspect of the role of touch in the relationship between doctors and patients, as represented in the Hippocratic Corpus. Touch is an essential aspect of the ancient doctor's art, but one potentially fraught with concerns over gender: while seeing, hearing, and smelling are also central to the medical encounter, touching is the act that places the greatest demands on the privacy and bodily integrity of the patient. This paper shows--perhaps counterintuitively--that, despite the multiple assertions of gender differences put forward by the authors of the Hippocratic Corpus, these authors make little distinction between touching male and female patients. At the same time, the paper argues that ancient physicians were anxious to avoid the charge that they were harming their patients when they touched them. It demonstrates that male doctors, sensitive as they were to the problems posed by their interactions with female patients, were challenged in different ways when engaging in intimate contact with male patients.

Tactile Massage as Part of the Caring Act: A Qualitative Study in Short-Term Emergency Wards.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to illuminate the nursing staff's lived experiences and meaning in giving tactile massage (TM) while caring for patients in short-term emergency ward. METHOD: Data were collected through individual qualitative interviews with six nurses and eight assistant nurses working with TM in short-term emergency wards in two hospitals in Sweden. The narratives were analyzed using a phenomenological hermeneutical method. FINDINGS: Nurses experienced providing TM to patients as a present awareness in connection with compassion for the patient. TM provided the nurses with a tool to ease patient suffering and pain. Three dimensions were found where touch became a tool of doing, was an aware presence as a mindful being, and was embodied in a human-to-human connection with a changed caregiver. CONCLUSION: Given the current high-tech health care system with overcrowded units and a shortage of nursing staff, TM could be included as a caring tool to improve the caring in caregiving, allowing nurses to act in aware presence by touch to encourage health and well-being for both the patient and themselves.

Examination of the Perceptions of Registered Nurses Regarding the Use of Healing Touch in the Acute Care Setting.

Given the current transformation of traditional health care to provide more integrative and complementary modalities, health systems are implementing new programs and services to meet consumer and provider needs. One such integrative modality, Healing Touch, with a foundation in holistic nursing, is a gentle therapy that uses touch to promote health and well-being by balancing the human energy system. This article describes the perceptions of registered nurses regarding the implementation of a Healing Touch training program at a multihospital health system. Five themes were identified: benefit to the patient, benefit to the nurse, holism beyond task orientation, integrating Healing Touch into acute care, and barriers and challenges. Nurses recognize the importance of creating caring-healing relationships and a holistic approach to care. Training in Healing Touch provides one avenue for nurses and health care providers to provide compassionate care.

Caring touch--patients' experiences in an anthroposophic clinical context.

This study describes the phenomenon of caring touch from the patients' perspective in an anthroposophic clinical context where caring touch is often used to promote health and alleviate suffering. The aim of the study was to explore and phenomenologically describe the phenomenon of caring touch from the patients' perspectives. The study has been carried out with a Reflective Lifeworld Research approach in order to understand and describe human existential phenomena. Ten female patients were interviewed in an anthroposophic clinic in Sweden. The findings show how caring touch has multifaceted meanings and makes the patients' feel present and anchored in a meaningful context. The patients' feel that they are seen, accepted and confirmed. Furthermore, touch creates a caring space where the patients become receptive for care and has the power to alleviate the patients' suffering, as well as to frighten and cause or worsen the suffering. In order to take advantage of the caring potential, the patient needs to be invited to a respectful and sensitive form of touch. An interpersonal flexible space is necessary where the touch can be effective, and where a dynamic interplay can develop. In conclusion, caring touch is an opportunity for carers to support well-being and health. The carers need to approach their patients in both a sensitive and reflective way. A caring science perspective can serve as a help to further understand touch as a unique caring act.

Nurses' comfort with touch and workplace well-being.

Touch is an essential part of caregiving and has been proved to be useful to reduce pain. Nevertheless, little attention has been paid to nurses' perceptions of touch. The aim of this article was to examine the relationship between nurses' feelings of comfort with touch and their well-being at work. A sample of 241 nurses attending a pain management training course completed a questionnaire, including the following measures: Comfort with Touch (CT) scale (task-oriented contact, touch promoting physical comfort, touch providing emotional containment), Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI; emotional exhaustion, cynicism), and Job Satisfaction. Results of structural equation models showed that touch providing emotional containment was the main predictor of emotional exhaustion. Emotional exhaustion, in turn, was positively related to cynicism and negatively related to job satisfaction. In addition, the direct path from touch providing emotional containment to cynicism was significant. Practical implications of the findings are discussed.

Enhanced coherence within the theta band between pairs of brains engaging in experienced versus naïve Reiki procedures.

OBJECTIVES: The study objective was to discern whether the coherence between brain activities of the "patient" and practitioner differ between Reiki experts and novices. RATIONALE: If the physical process associated with Reiki involves "convergence" between the practitioner and subject, then this congruence should be evident in time-dependent shared power within specific and meaningful frequency electroencephalographic bands. DESIGN: Simultaneous quantitative electroencephalogram measures (19 channels) were recorded from 9 pairs of subjects when 1 of the pairs was an experienced Reiki practitioner or had just been shown the procedure. Pairs recorded their experiences and images. SETTING/LOCATION: The "practitioner" and "patient" pairs were measured within a quiet, comfortable acoustic chamber. OUTCOME MEASURES: Real-time correlations and coherence between pairs of brains for power (µV(2)·Hz(-1)) within the various frequency bands over the 10-min sessions were recorded and analyzed for each pair. Descriptors of experiences were analyzed for word meanings. RESULTS: Only the coherence within the theta range increased over time between the brains of the Reiki pairs relative to the Sham pairs, particularly over the left hemisphere. The pleasantness-unpleasantness rating for the words employed to describe experiences written after the experiment were more congruent for the Reiki pairs compared to the reference pairs. CONCLUSIONS: The increased synchronization of the cerebral activity of the participant and the practitioner during proximal therapies involving touch such as Reiki may be an important component of any subsequent beneficial effects.

Exploring the psychological processes underlying touch: lessons from the Alexander Technique.

UNLABELLED: The experience of touch is significant; both in its positive implications and in how it attracts caution and controversy. Accordingly, physical contact within psychological therapy has been shown to improve well-being and the therapeutic relationship, yet the majority of therapists never or rarely use touch. This research aimed to explore psychological processes underlying touch through the Alexander Technique, a psycho-physical technique taught one to one using touch. Six individuals who had received the Alexander Technique were interviewed, and 111 completed surveys. Interview data suggested an incompatibility between touch and the spoken word, which was understood through the way touch lacks verbal discourses in our society. The largely simplistic and dichotomous verbal understanding we have (either only very positive or very negative) could help understand some of the societal-level caution surrounding touch. Touch was seen also as a nurturing experience by interviewees, which influenced inter-personal and intra-personal relational processes. Developmental models were used to frame the way touch strengthened the pupil-teacher relationship and the way pupils' intra-personal psychological change seemed linked to this relational experience. The surveys largely supported these findings, and discussion is made around the notable way pupils negatively interpreted the intention of the survey. Implications for the use of touch in psychological therapies are discussed, as are limitations and ideas for future research. KEY PRACTITIONER MESSAGE: Touch is a powerful experience, and physical contact within psychological therapy has been shown to improve well-being and the therapeutic relationship, yet the majority of therapists never or rarely use touch. The AT is an alternative therapeutic approach to psycho-physical well-being that offers an interesting model to study the impact of touch. Findings from those that have used the technique reaffirmed that touch can improve well-being and can be a powerful force in the 'therapeutic relationship'. Accounts drew strong parallels with developmental experiences, which may be of particular interest to those working psychodynamically. Findings also highlighted the lack of discourses our culture has for touch and how the ones we share can be super-imposed onto experiences. This should be kept in mind when discussing all types of physical contact with clients. Outcomes from AT pupils cannot be generalized to those seeking psychological support; however, the findings accentuated the power of holistic working. This is important as we begin to understand more around how emotions are held in the body.

A randomized placebo-controlled pilot study of the impact of healing touch on fatigue in breast cancer patients undergoing radiation therapy.

PURPOSE: This is a pilot study investigating the effect of healing touch (HT) on fatigue in breast cancer patients undergoing radiation therapy (RT). METHODS/DESIGN: This study presents the results of a within-subjects design randomized clinical trial where the treatment group was treated with HT, whereas the control group experienced sham therapy. The setting was a university RT clinic. The participants were breast cancer patients treated with lumpectomy or mastectomy, 21 to 75 years old with an Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) score of 0 to 2. The intervention was a 45-minute session of HT or sham therapy once a week during RT. Outcome measures included fatigue, quality of life (QOL), and anxiety/depression. RESULT: A total of 70 patients were approached, with 41 completing the study. At completion, the HT participants tended to report higher levels of fatigue, statistically significant for interference ( : = .010) and usual fatigue ( : = .024). The control group tended to report greater reductions in fatigue relative to their own means than the HT group (Cohen's : = 0.30 to 0.49 vs 0.06 to 0.18, respectively). There were no statistically significant differences between the groups for QOL. CONCLUSION: Our enrollment and retention indicate that HT is feasible for women during RT. Our pilot findings do not support a beneficial effect of HT on fatigue or QOL. Future research may explore increasing dose and teasing out therapist effect.

As relações estabelecidas entre a terapia Reiki e o bem estar subjetivo mediadas pelas representações sociais / The relationship established between Reiki therapy and the subjective well-being mediated by social representations

O objetivo do presente estudo é analisar o impacto da terapia Reiki no bem estar subjetivo e suas representações sociais em uma universidade pública do Rio de Janeiro. Trata-se de uma pesquisa quanti-qualitativa, com abordagem experimental, apoiado na Teoria de Representações Sociais. O grupo estudado foi composto de 60 sujeitos que não tiverem acesso à terapia anteriormente entrevistados antes e depois de três sessões de Reiki. Os dados foram coletados através de quatro instrumentos: questionário de identificação dos sujeitos, questionário de representação social do Reiki, questionário de evocação livre e escala de Bem estar Subjetivo. A análise dos dados foi realizada com estatística descritiva e inferencial com o software SPSS 19, análise estrutural e análise de conteúdo das representações sociais, a partir do software EVOC. Os sujeitos participantes são do sexo feminino (88,33%); nível superior (76,66%); discentes de ensino superior e médio e enfermeiros (48,34%); está empregado (56,67%); renda pessoal inferior a R$ 1.000,00 (41,67%); solteiro (61,67%); vive sozinho (68,33%); tem companheiro fixo (68,33%); sem doença (58,33%); uso de terapia não convencional (63,33%); tem religião (88,33%) e religião católica (33,33%) e evangélica (21,67%). Quanto às representações sociais, a busca do Reiki antes e depois do experimento revelou duas categorias com maior frequência, que são: equilíbrio da saúde mental, antes (35,44%) e depois (50,65%) e equilíbrio da saúde física, antes (16,46%) e depois (27,27%). Quanto à estrutura representacional do Reiki, o possível núcleo central dos dois grupos analisados foi composto pelas palavras energia, relaxamento e tranquilidade, configurando-se como uma dimensão funcional e positiva do Reiki e não apresentando variação da representação antes e depois da realização da terapia. O estudo experimental apresentou como resultados...

The objective of this study is to analyze the impact of Reiki therapy on the subjective well-being of users and their social representations in a public university in Rio de Janeiro. It is a quantitative-qualitative research with experimental approach, with its referential supported on the Theory of Social Representations. The study group was composed of 60 subjects who never had access to therapy, interviewed before and after three sessions of Reiki. The data were collected by means of four instruments: questionnaire for identification of subjects, questionnaire for social representation of Reiki, questionnaire for free evocation and Subjective Well-Being scale. The data analysis was performed with descriptive and inferential statistics with the software SPSS 19; structural analysis and content analysis of social representations from the EVOC software. The participants are female (88.33%); college education (76.66%); students of higher education and high school and nurses (or 48.34%); are employed (56.67%); personal income less than R$ 1,000.00 (41.67%); single (61.67%); lives alone (68.33%); have steady companion (68.33%); without disease (58.33%); use of non-conventional therapy (63.33%); has religion (88.33%) and Catholic religion (33.33%) and evangelical (21.67%). As to the search of Reiki before and after, two categories emerged from six with greater frequency, which are the balance of mental health, before (35.44%) and after (50.65%) and balance of physical health, before (16.46%) and after (27.27%). Regarding the representational structure of Reiki, the possible central nucleus of two groups analyzed was composed by the words energy, relaxation and tranquility, configuring it as a functional dimension and positive Reiki and not showing variation of representation before and after the completion of therapy. The experimental study presented as results in experiment I:..