What Is Healing Touch Therapy?
Energy therapy helps patients relax, manage symptoms
Energy therapy helps patients relax, manage symptoms
Integrative therapies — like Healing Touch, guided imagery and aromatherapy — are increasingly being used alongside traditional medical treatments.
These evidence-based practices are available throughout the Scripps system, offering patients additional options to address pain, anxiety, nausea and recovery from surgery.
Scripps’ Healing Touch program began in 1993. Its specially trained nurses use an energy-based, noninvasive treatment to help reduce pain and relieve anxiety. Patients are fully clothed, sitting or lying down, and treatments may be used in conjunction with other therapies, such as music or guided imagery.
“Healing Touch is a relaxing, nurturing, heart-centered energy therapy,” says Liz Fraser, RN, certified Healing Touch practitioner and healing modalities coordinator at Scripps Center for Integrative Medicine. “We use a gentle touch — or it can be off the body — to balance physical, emotional, mental and spiritual well-being.”
How Healing Touch supports recovery
Healing Touch is grounded in the belief that when illness disrupts the body’s energy centers, or chakras, gentle therapeutic touch may support a person’s own self-healing.
Healing Touch is often used as an adjunct to surgery and other medical procedures, such as chemotherapy and in palliative care. Treatments can leave patients feeling more grounded, centered and relaxed, Fraser says.
Holistic support for labor, delivery and postpartum care
Labor and delivery is another area where integrative therapy can be beneficial. When patients are at their most vulnerable, holistic health practices can ease pain, reduce anxiety and help patients heal after delivery.
Scripps Clinic Encinitas has launched a pilot program that connects Healing Touch practitioners with women in their “fourth trimester”— the first three months after giving birth — who are experiencing postpartum depression.
Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla has its own pilot program focusing on women in early labor. The hospital is also conducting research on using Healing Touch for anxiety reduction in obstetrical patients.
Aromatherapy across the Scripps system
Aromatherapy is offered as part of labor and delivery care at Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla, in surgical recovery at Scripps Mercy Hospital, in palliative care and throughout the Scripps system.
Clinical aromatherapy uses highly concentrated plant extracts, called essential oils, to support patient well-being. Research shows it can help with nausea, anxiety, depression, stress and insomnia.
Patients are offered a kit containing four essential oil inhalers: ginger, lavender, mandarin and marjoram. Inhaling these essential oils can boost the body’s ability to heal and maintain wellness.
“One of the quickest ways to get anything into the body is through inhalation,” says Patricia Wragg, RN, who leads the clinical aromatherapy program at Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla.
When you inhale, odor molecules stimulate the brain’s limbic system, Wragg explains.
“Certain plants contain chemical components that help trigger feelings of relaxation, act as an anti-spasmodic and can help with pain,” she says. “It’s really impressive to see how quickly they can elicit a response and that a simple modality can be so helpful.”
The use of integrative therapies demonstrates Scripps’ holistic approach to patient care, Wragg says.
“It sets an energetic tone and helps people feel safe, cared for and more comfortable,” she says.
Training Healing Touch providers
Scripps Center for Integrative Medicine conducts ongoing training at Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla and Scripps Mercy Hospital San Diego for health care professionals and others interested in learning to perform Healing Touch.
This content appeared in San Diego Health, a publication in partnership between Scripps and San Diego Magazine that celebrates the healthy spirit of San Diego.