Spirutual Healing: Doctors Examine Therapeutic Touch and Other Holistic Treatments

Healing is a mystery that does not easily yield to the casually worded question. True healing elicits response from depths of the human condition that are not well understood in our time. Its enactment draws power from personal commitments that are foreign to our daily tacit acceptance of aggression and competition as a way of life. Rather, healing aligns with life-affirming forces such as compassion and humane support. A spiritual revolution is underway in health care. More and more doctors, nurses, and counselors are recognizing that health means treating the soul and the psyche as well as the body. In this new edition of a classic collection, the best minds in holistic healing explore the spiritual basis of the alternative health care movement. Dolores Krieger introduces the collection and explains the principles behind Therapeutic Touch, the hand-motion therapy that is spreading through nursing schools and hospitals. Time reports that according to its proponents, Therapeutic Touch not only comforts and relaxes patients, but also relieves pain, produces chemical changes in the blood and promotes healing.