Natural Awakenings
Healing Hands: Touch as a Complement to Western Medicine
by Judy Leaver (published in Natural Awakenings, July, 2006)
Dr. Barbara Brennan, formerly a NASA astrophysicist, has been researching the Human Energy Field (HEF) as a vehicle for healing and wellness for more than 30 years. Her best selling books – Hands of Light® and Light Emerging – are considered classics in the field of complementary medicine. She combines high-sense perception skills with hands-on energy healing techniques to help individuals with their personal process of healing.
How Brennan Healing Science Was Established
So, how did an astrophysicist turn her focus from outer space to inner healing? Dr. Brennan reports that her transformation began in Washington, D.C. in the early 1970s when she decided to direct her scientific inquiry skills to her interior world, starting with Bioenergetics and body psychotherapy. “I felt that I needed to develop the other side of myself. I studied science and philosophy in college, trying to find how the world worked. Then, I realized that neither of those was broad enough.”
That inquiry led her to develop Brennan Healing Science, which is described as a holistic healing modality based on the human energy-consciousness system and its relationship to health and disease. She has established the Brennan Healing Science Academic Program which offers a Professional Studies Diploma and Bachelor of Science Degree, both of which are licensed by the Florida Commission for Independent Education. Graduates of her program now practice throughout the world, in all fifty states and the District of Columbia.
Susan Ulfelder has an active healing practice in Silver Spring, having begun her training with Barbara Brennan in 1987 in Bridgehampton, NY. The training program has vastly expanded over the years and is now based in Florida.
Ms. Ulfelder, was asked to describe what she does as a practitioner: ” There is an energy field like a bubble that goes around our body. It affects how we feel emotionally. Distress happens first in the energy field before it becomes a physical symptom. When I work with people I am helping them balance that energy or unblock it.” In the 1980s when she attempted to explain her work, people often turned away, thinking she was weird. Now people are far more receptive. “I think skepticism is healthy-I was skeptical at first. But once you experience this, you can’t deny that it works, though you may not be able to explain how it works.” She continues, “I was very blessed that Barbara was one of my teachers. She was actually doing healing directly with me when I trained with her in the 1980s.”
Hokum or genuine healing?
Western medicine has historically been resistant to eastern philosophies and less scientifically rigorous healing practices. These ‘alternative’ treatments are often dismissed as hokum-discarding from consideration what may be valuable adjuncts to standard medical treatment that can shorten healing time, lessen pain, and quantitatively improve quality of life for people with serious illnesses and other difficulties.
Much of Dr. Brennan’s work is based on centuries-old theories and belief systems. For example, Brennan describes seven chakras spinning in the human body that serve as transformers to receive and process cosmic energy. Chakras were described as early as the 7th century b.c.e. as a subtle but vital force that flows through specific channels in one’s body. Also, some ancient civilizations believed the heart was the seat of waking consciousness, analogous to Brennan’s view that when internal organs are deprived of energy, they do not function well.
Ancient Chinese, Indian, Egyptian, and Japanese practices were based on the belief in a complex interplay of body, mind, and spirit and its influence on disease prevention and healing. Traditional Chinese medicine is based on the belief that qi (pronounced “chee”)-the body’s vital energy-regulates a person’s spiritual, emotional, mental and physical balance. The re-connecting of mind, body, heart and spirit in western thinking is a recent phenomenon, but one that resonates today with patients and medical practitioners alike.
In Brennan Healing Science, loss of energy is generally associated with childhood trauma of some kind. For instance, a small child will develop ways to defend against verbal, psychological or physical abuse. These defenses have survival value for the child, but may cause energy dysfunction that, in adulthood, emerges as physical illness, pain, or disease.
Esoteric as it may sound, Dr. Brennan’s theory is backed up by recent research by Kaiser Permanente confirming that traumatic experiences in childhood are linked to many of the most common causes of death and disability in this country. According to the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study, data collected from over 17,000 patients at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program in San Diego reveal that adverse childhood experiences, though well concealed, are unexpectedly common, have a profound effect on adult health and well-being a half century later, and are a prime determinant of adult health status in the United States.
Ms. Ulfelder’s practice includes people who want to avoid surgery, others who have had surgery and want to heal faster, as well as people who are working on their own personal process part of a healing journey. The most common psychological issues brought to her office are anxiety and depression. She continues, “Healing is free flowing energy. Dis-ease is blocked energy. I help people unblock the energy and get it flowing again. An example is a person with anxiety who usually has very little energy in their lower body. After one session, clients generally describe being much more centered, balanced, and aligned, with far less anxiety.”
The role of chakras in sickness and health
Brennan’s healing science practice involves making sure the seven chakras or transformers function properly. A blockage, illness, or disease center may indicate that a transformer has ‘blown out’. Practitioners are trained to determine where the transformer problem is, and to assist the individual to clear the blockage to heal the illness or disease.
Besides chakras, the use of human touch is another practice with roots far into the past, and one that incorporates the spiritual nature of humanity. The ‘laying on of hands’ is based on biblical precedent and has its roots in Jewish beliefs and practices. Both Christians and non-Christians will lay hands on people when praying for healing. Indeed, the laying on of hands remains a contemporary religious practice found throughout the world in varying forms. In Christian churches, this practice is used as both a symbolic and formal method of invoking the Holy Spirit during baptisms, healing services, and ordination of priests, ministers, elders, deacons, and other church officers, along with a variety of other church sacraments and holy ceremonies.
At this point, you may be visualizing a tent evangelist with big hair, sweating up a storm as he ‘heals’ miserable sinners, while collection plates are passed to scoop up offerings for such miracles. The Elmer Gantrys’ of the early 20th century left a legacy of suspicion surrounding human touch and its capacity to heal, particularly when combined with religion.
Healing touch as part of traditional medical treatment
Healing interventions are based on the belief that the body is capable of healing itself when one is relaxed. Such prestigious health centers as Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York, and the Women’s Health Program at Stanford Medical Center have adopted touch therapies, particularly with cancer patients.
Wendy Miner, massage therapy manager of the Integrative Medicine Service at Sloan-Kettering deploys massage to help patients manage symptoms. While her program does not work on energy fields (called biofields in science) as Brennan does, the range of complementary techniques that are integrated with medical treatment definitively improve quality of life for people undergoing aggressive medical treatments. Janice Post-White, RN, PhD published a study in 2003 reporting the positive effects of healing touch in cancer patients. The study concluded that both massage and healing touch induced a relaxed state, with lowered respiratory rates, heart rates, and blood pressure. They also reduced short-term pain, mood disturbances and fatigue.
Dr. Brennan’s mantra is that healing practitioners are only one part of a team, and the practice is not a substitute for medical treatment. Indeed, Ms. Ulfelder cross-refers with physicians, dentists, massage and physical therapists, naturopaths, osteopaths, and acupuncturists.
In early 2005 Women’s Health at Stanford launched Healing Partners, a program designed to alleviate the harsh side effects of cancer treatments. Healing therapies, including touch, are deployed to produce positive effects on respiration, heart rate, blood pressure and the endocrine system. The intention of the program is not to cure the patient, but to help them reach the highest level of wellness possible in their particular circumstances.
The role of auras in Brennan Healing Science
Dr. Brennan indicates that she can see the energy field, or aura, surrounding an individual. There is an electromagnetic field which has been scientifically proven to exist around every object in the known world-the bubble that Ms. Ulfelder describes to her clients. What is debatable is whether or not humans can see these electromagnetic fields as colors with the naked eye.
Dr. Brennan saw energy fields often as a child and assumed everyone else did as well. When a child sees one, it generally isn’t verified by an adult so they learn to disregard it. By looking at the structure and organization of their auric fields, Dr. Brennan began to notice how the problems in a person’s physical body were directly related to their psychology. The energy field is distorted by psychological defenses in order to not experience and feel painful past events. Eventually, that affects the physical body and creates dis-ease. Training practitioners involves helping them learn to perceive auras with all of the five senses. Ultimately, Dr. Brennan’s goal is to be able to predict illness before it manifests physically, and possibly even prevent it.
If this sounds a little far out, consider the contemporary acceptance of massage, yoga and acupuncture which all contain elements of these early practices-touch, energy, a focus on body centers or meridians. Well informed health consumers now demand a more holistic approach to illness and disease with less concern for indisputable scientific evidence. While evidence-based medical practice is more likely to be covered by insurance, enhanced quality of life is deemed as important as curing or treating disease. Ms. Ulfelder’s has had only one client whose health insurance-with a foreign company–covered healing practice.
Another significant element of Dr. Brennan’s healing theories involves five archetypical character structures that are adapted from the work of Alexander Lowen’s bioenergetic analysis. Bioenergetics therapy is practiced widely today. Lowen was a student of Austrian psychiatrist Wilhelm Reich, who first identified the five structures as schizoid, oral, psychopathic, rigid and masochistic.
Into the dynamic and evolving field of complementary therapies comes Brennan Healing Science. Does it work? A common consensus is that, for those who are open to its potential to help them, it works. However, the growth in nontraditional practices has come with increased scrutiny and criticism. Stephen Barrett, MD, founder of Quackwatch, blasts therapeutic touch: “it is worthless. Anybody who is endorsing Therapeutic Touch is endorsing delusions….if it can’t be measured, it doesn’t exist.”
Lisa Anselme, RN and executive director of Healing Touch International, responds: “Every new idea that has come along is first called bunk by the scientists.” She also acknowledges the need for more hard evidence to back up the countless anecdotes heard from patients.
Hope for more science-based evidence on nontraditional therapies lies in the National Institutes of Health’s National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine which is conducting studies on numerous modalities. And, the National Cancer Institute’s Office of Cancer Complementary and Alternative Medicine is evaluating modalities being used by health professionals and developing research strategies based on patient responses to them. Susan Ulfelder predicts they will be an essential and credible component of mainstream treatment, possibly even covered by insurance, in the near future.
Lucinda Lidell, author of The Book of Massage says, “Touch means contact-the relationship with what lies outside our own periphery, the ground beneath our feet. And for humans, as for other animals, touch is of vital importance. It gives reassurance, warmth, pleasure, comfort and renewed vitality. It tells us we are not alone.”
For anyone who faces serious or life-threatening illness or overwhelming emotional trauma, realizing they are not alone is powerful medicine…perhaps even lifesaving. And, according to Dr. Dossey, even Dr. Seuss has words for the skeptics: “It just happened to happen.”
Readers can obtain more information about Dr. Brennan’s Healing Science Academic Program, as well as a list of Washington, D.C. graduates and practitioners at www.barbarabrennan.com