In a small room, lying prone on a table, covered with a warm blanket, a client takes in the soothing sounds of music from a nearby stereo and behind closed eyes thinks of peaceful places while a practitioner moves around her. Sometimes hands hover over the body, other times they give a light touch in an attempt to manipulate the body’s energy. The effort is to help re-establish a balance of the client’s physical, mental, emotional and spiritual well being.
This is Healing Touch and it’s offered by two local women as a supplement to traditional medical care for anyone who needs it.
Peggy Ritter and Joh Mann are both Healing Touch practitioner apprentices and members of Healing Touch International. It is a scientific healing program based on manipulating the body’s energy to promote self healing. For Ritter, who is a registered nurse, the process is more scientific. For Mann, spirituality plays a significant part in her sessions.
But both agree that Healing Touch works either way.
“Healing Touch is a process where the practitioner uses knowledge of the human energy centers and biofield to help people balance their energy,” Mann said. “Using these techniques and having a well-tended biofield can assist the client by making sure their bodies are in peak condition for self-healing.”
In a typical Healing Touch session, the practitioner will assess the client, asking why they are seeking treatment, and also assess their biofield for anomalies. Then the practitioner will utilize a series of healing intervention techniques (no-touch or light-touch) that will help normalize the anomaly. After the session, the client is reassessed for improvements and the practitioner documents the results, just like a medical professional would. The entire session will last up to one hour.
“In basic, layman terms, all matter has energy and all energy has matter,” Ritter said. “And so the therapies that are used in Healing Touch have been researched and experimented with in order to affect the energy of the client — which is what we manipulate. A masseuse manipulates the muscles. Healing Touch manipulates the energy around a person. The research and development part of Healing Touch International is very active and is always testing new techniques.”
All that science aside, it’s what happens to the body and the spirit that is most important in a Healing Touch session. One of Ritter’s clients, who asked to remain anonymous, wrote a testimonial about her experience in the Healing Touch program.
“I have been going to Peggy for Healing Touch for several sessions. Some of the problems that I have include a ruptured disk, migraines and depression. From the very beginning, I have noticed a big improvement in all of the affected areas and then some. When I first really injured my back, I missed work and could barely move without severe pain. I walked lopsided and with a noticeable limp for a while. My doctor recommended traction and physical therapy. I had one session of each and it was so painful that he told me I didn’t have to do it anymore,” the client wrote.
One important message both women stress is that Healing Touch in no way replaces traditional medical care, and they urge their clients to continue their medical care and to make their physicians and caregivers aware of the alternate therapy in which they are involved.
“This does not replace conventional medicine,” Ritter said, and Mann agrees.
“My clients are all under the care of their primary physicians, and I would never discourage anyone from seeing their medical doctor,” she said. “I support the physician’s instructions with the client, and when I hear the client’s symptoms, I regularly refer them to local physicians or their family doctor for medical checkups.”
The goal of Healing Touch is wellness, Ritter said, but emphasized that neither she, nor Mann do the healing.
“We just use our techniques to facilitate the healing,” she said. “I don’t heal. The energy that heals comes through me. There is universal energy and we are just the prisms. We just focus it.”
Healing Touch is even used in hospital settings for patients before and/or after surgeries, and is used in hospice care to relieve pain and ease stress. Both of the instructors for the HT program are nurses who teach at Integris Hospital in Oklahoma City.
And Ritter mentioned that to be a Healing Touch practitioner, a person must be a licensed minister, a masseuse or a registered nurse because the body is often touched during the session.
“My most powerful tool is my hands. That’s one of the things they try to teach us is to ‘feel’ the energy with our hands, to feel the problem that may be occurring in the body,” Ritter said. “I can feel a change in someone with my hands, but I haven’t been doing it long enough to know what the change is.”
She remembers feeling “something” in the energy of a client’s abdomen. The client later said she forgot to tell Ritter that she had a cyst on her left ovary.
Mann said there is one particular case that she will never forget. In this case, Mann found an anomaly in one client’s energy field and referred her to get a checkup, which she did.
Tests revealed a problem in her gall bladder and, during surgery, her doctor found she had a gangrenous, stone-filled gall bladder.
“I have to admit, that particular situation caused me to re-think HT and how, or if, I would continue to use it in the future,” she said.
“I finally got past it, but it really caused me to pause and think.”
Both Mann and Ritter agree that although a person’s attitude toward Healing Touch can facilitate the process, their belief in it or a higher power is not necessary because the science of it works anyway.
“A lot of people get the idea that this is spiritual,” Ritter said. “If you are a spiritual person and you bring that with you, it could be a spiritual experience.
Whatever you bring with you is how it’s going to work. The techniques work no matter what.”
For Mann, spirituality is a big part of her work in Healing Touch.
“When I begin a session, I always ask the client to ask for God’s healing presence to be with us as we work together,” she said. “In my opinion, the HT session is a profoundly spiritual experience, and I never forget that the healing power comes from a higher source. No harm can come from a Healing Touch session.
“The clients I see have a variety of conditions and illnesses including cancer, back pain, diabetes, poor sleep habits, stress, etc,” Mann said. “They are all wonderful people who come to me to complement their medical care, to receive care that they feel is a more spiritual approach to their physical and emotional well-being. They appreciate a kind word, relaxing and stress-free environment and a compassionate caregiver.”
Ritter’s client admitted she was skeptical about Healing Touch in the beginning, but noticed an improvement after the first session and decided to continue.
“Peggy always seems to know where I am having discomfort without me telling her. She also seems to know things about me that I haven’t told her. She asked me about past injuries that I had never even mentioned to her,” the client wrote.
“Peggy has a natural talent for just knowing where to go to help me with pain.
I was on several different pain medicines for quite a while, but now I rarely have to take anything for pain,” she wrote. “I can walk straight without discomfort and my migraines are a very rare occurrence now. I am more active and feel better physically and emotionally.
I know that it is our goal for me not to need HT anymore, but I always look forward to our weekly sessions. It just makes me feel better.”
“The intent of HT is for the client’s highest good,” Mann said. “I hope to continue to be able to serve people in this way, offering HT in a spiritual and compassionate manner. I’m an educated individual, who lives a normal, even boring life, but I believe in God and I believe that God can, and does, heal people in many ways — through medical treatment, self care and prayer.”
For Ritter, it’s an extension of the care she already gives as a nurse, and a fulfillment of something she has always done naturally.
“I don’t think you can be taught to be sensitive,” she said. “Basically, I’ve done this my whole life and now I’m being trained to trust my feelings and make it be one of my tools.
“This is especially beneficial for people who are unable to participate in other things like massage,” Ritter said. “A patient suffering from chronic pain may not be able to stand being physically touched, but they can have a Healing Touch session that helps them without manipulating their bodies.”
The certification process for Healing Touch requires a significant commitment from the student. Each HT student must go through a series of five rigorous training workshops spread over a period of 18 months to two years.
These two-day workshops are led by certified practitioners and consist of knowledge lectures, demonstrations, practice and feedback sessions.
Each student is assessed for compliance to the methods and skill level.
The Oklahoma classes are sponsored by the Oklahoma Nurses Association and the Oklahoma Student Nurses Association, and the program is accredited by the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation.
Both Mann and Ritter have completed four of the five levels of Healing Touch certification and are currently involved in a year-long HT mentorship program.
During this year, they must catalog 100 cases of working with individuals using the Healing Touch therapy.
They have a mentor who oversees their progress and their certification process is endorsed by the American Holistic Nurses Association.
Anyone interested in knowing more about Healing Touch can visit the Web site www.healingtouchardmore. com.
