Effect of Spiritual Healing on Chronic Idiopathic Pain

Is energy healing an effective non-pharmacological therapy for improving symptom management of chronic illnesses? A systematic review

“…Ten energy healing studies included a usual care control group, defined as subjects who received usual medical treatment for example continuation of antihypertensive treatment or low salt diet [27], no contact with investigators [31], four doctor (and blind nurse assessor) visits [33], no active pain clinic therapy [29], standard cancer treatment [37], receipt of intravenous chemotherapy medications for between two and five hours [47], reading material of their choice at the investigator's office [12], nursing home care including assistance with hygiene, medication, meals, vital signs and monitoring of activity [32], or was not clearly defined in two studies [41,50]. [36], progressive muscle relaxation and deep breathing [12]; massage therapy…”

“…Utilising the same healer(s) for all sessions was a key element of 12 out of 13 studies that had significant results [12,28,29,31,32,35,37,39,43,45,49,53]. A further seven studies maintained the same healer(s) for all sessions however results of these studies were not significant [13,27,33,40,46,47,50,55].…”

“…Eleven out of 13 energy healing interventions with significant results involved large groups with greater than five participants allocated per healer [12,29,31,32,35,37,39,43,45,49,53,56].…”

“…Healers that were not restricted in their practice were utilised in 20 studies of which 9 generated significant results [29,31,32,35,37,39,43,49,53,56]. Directed healing towards a specific health outcome or well-being was used in 18 studies of which nine demonstrated a significant result [28, 31, 32, 37-39, 45, 48, 49].…”

“…Verbal communication prior to energy healing at a distance [35,53] or contact energy healing [28,29,32,37,48] took place between healer and recipient in six studies with significant outcomes, however, verbal communication was not used during the intervention period in seven studies with significant results [12,31,38,39,43,45,49,56]. A specific visualisation component was not included in two studies that had significant results [40,52].…”