The Prince's Foundation for Integrated Health

A contributor to the “Searching for Evidence” report by The Prince’s Foundation for Integrated Health was St Martin’s College Lancaster’s Clare Weze (BSc, MSc) who conducted research into the “Evaluation of healing by gentle touch”. Collected from data from 76 patients with musculoskeletal disorders, each individual received four treatment sessions. The study’s conclusions indicated:
 
• healing was associated with statistically significant improvements in physical and psychological functioning and health-related quality of life in the majority of subjects

• those with the most severe symptoms showed the most substantial improvement

• the Wilcoxon Signed Ranks tests showed statistically significant reductions in stress, increased ability to cope, improved relaxation levels, reduced medication use, increased health-related qualify of life ratings, striking reduction in pain levels (median change 3 VAS points on a scale of 0-10, P<0.0004), decreased disability

• an exploration of the likely processes that may contribute to the healing action revealed that both stress and pain pathways may be modified by the psychological and physiological aspects of healing, which may result in facilitation of endogenous healing mechanisms

• no adverse effects of treatment were observed

• the ability of healing to provide substantial pain relief is an important finding.

Note:  Polycontrast Interference Photograph (PIP) provided courtesy of The Centre for Human Energy Field Research