Healing Arts Report
Volume 1, No.
2
Energy medicine you can practice on yourself
Researchers find evidence of subtle energies
Integrating orthodox and complementary medicine at the University of Maryland
The AHHA Complete Guide to Alternative Medicine
Treating the cause of causes
Imaging and Visualization
The following healing arts are therapies that can be learned and practiced on oneself -- a practice Healing Arts Report considers to be optimal. Self-care is most intimately connected with our lifestyle choices, the single most important factor in creating our state of health. Interactive guided imagery and finding one's voice have strong psychological implications while the healing experiment that concludes the first article most immediately addresses the physical. They are all, however, in the realm of energy medicine.
Energy Medicine You Can Practice on Yourself
Energy medicine covers a broad range of medical practices. Some are well-documented and accepted in conventional practice while others are given little conventional recognition. We are familiar with x-rays for diagnosis and radiation for cancer treatment, the TNS (Transcutaneous Nerve Stimulators) electrical pulse devices commonly used to treat pain in sports injuries, and the MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) which appears to be the least invasive of the scanning technologies now used for making diagnoses.
In Vibrational Medicine, author Richard Gerber describes how a TNS device used on specialized areas of the skin is much more efficient in the control of pain. It was discovered that these special areas are actually traditional acupuncture points used for pain relief. 1 Research has also shown that this analgesia is connected to the release of endorphins. 2 The accumulation of this kind of information is growing and will soon change the face of how medicine is practiced.
Examples of energy medicines which are given little recognition conventionally include homeopathy, flower essences, and the theoretical aspects of acupuncture and Ayurvedic medicine. Mind/body psychological `medicines' seem to hold a borderline position. Many practitioners who started out conventionally have turned to the use of hypnosis, imagery, and waking dreams because they found them to be more effective for promoting real change and less invasive than pharmaceuticals.
In future articles, Healing Arts Report will go into greater detail about energy medicine. For now, let it suffice to say that some researchers theorize that injuries and illness can be recognized and treated on the energetic level before we see the physical manifestations. This may be one reason energy medicine physicians, homeopaths, and acupuncturists say they have observed these forms of medicine improve even genetic conditions.
For years, we've heard much about the `power of positive thinking.' The phrase itself, however, doesn't tell us how habitual thinking patterns can be changed, and sometimes individuals feel such change is an impossible task.
If You Worry Yourself Sick, You May Have Talent
On the other hand, the same vibrant imagination or thought processes that feeds worry and anxiety can be rechannelled to increase health. According to Martin L. Rossman, M.D., this way helps patients play an active role in their own healing process. He also suggests that we can use our symptoms to improve health. Through interactive guided imagery, a person can have a dialogue with his symptoms, physical or mental, and experience an integration of his own intuitive qualities.
Dr. Rossman is known for his pioneering work in using guided imagery as a healing tool. Imagery is a way of using the imagination to evoke a positive physical response. Dr. Rossman described how imagery has been shown to slow the heart rate, reduce pain, and stimulate the immune system. In addition, interactive guided imagery can enhance creativity and insight.
Dr. Rossman showed a videotape at WorldMed demonstrating the use of imagery to help a young woman overcome her fear of accepting a job teaching a class. He asked the woman to imagine a place where she felt safe and relaxed. Then he had her describe to him what it would be like to enter the classroom and teach the class. Whenever her sense of anxiety returned, he would ask that she imagine herself back in the safe place again. In her imagination, she alternated between the classroom and the safe place as often as she needed in order to desensitize her fear of the classroom and integrate with it the comforting feelings of her `safe' place. This change of feelings can often be accomplished within a single session.
After patients experience this technique with guidance, they are often able to generalize and use it in other situations. The best part is that patients are in control of their own healing process and guide the action, using imagery only in the manner and time frame that feels acceptable to them.
Dr. Rossman suggests that using drugs to treat anxiety is like going to a mechanic when the oil light is blinking. Instead of putting in more oil, we say, "I'm in a hurry, would you please cut the wire so that annoying light will stop?" The doctor suggests that instead of masking our worry with a drug, we learn to use our imaginations to create healing and increase our ability to respond differently to situations in life.
Dr. Rossman is a physician, acupuncturist, and clinical associate in the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. He is author of Healing Yourself: A Step by Step Program for Better Health Through Imagery and numerous articles.
As with interactive guided imagery, psychological therapies that are essentially experiential work very efficiently. They allow a person to digest an experience, apply it to their life at their own discretion, and then to new situations as they come up. The therapeutic experience creates a skill to draw upon, unlike intellectual or analytical processes.
Finding One's Voice
Here is a group experience that awakened participants to one of the more subtle aspects of health -- the concept of finding for oneself a meaningful role in the world. What is our voice? What have we to say in life? The simple verbal communications of daily living, storytelling, speech, song, music, or poetry are all ways in which the voice expresses that role.
In her workshop, voice therapist, singer, and actor Michele George explained how voice is the original instrument providing the bridge between our inner and outer worlds. We learn as babies the power of the voice. This is how we communicate our needs, and the way we are responded to teaches us about listening.
Over time, most of us inhibit and weaken our voice. Through a series of exercises and chants, ancient and new, George helps participants loosen the voice by playing with sound. Just as we played with speech, words, paints, or anything else we learned as children, as adults, we learn best through play. Through learning, we heal or grow. George's playing with sound provides a welcome `medicine' for the voice. Ms. George exemplified her playful technique in her role at Common Boundary as "Conference Weaver" -- a provocative title. Keynote addresses were attended by 1,700 individuals meeting in a single room. A friendly, noisy excited crowd can be hard to get focused. Ms. George, however, accomplished this task by improvising greetings and singing them to the audience. She encouraged responses that made everyone laugh as well as sing back to her. "Harmony," she explained, "is any note your neighbor isn't singing." Sometimes she initiated play with sounds. Using voice necessitated deep breathing and quieted the crowd. The unifying experience then readied the group for listening to the keynote speaker. Working with voice could provide another indirect method for addressing issues relating to making yourself heard. With George, it's clear she's found her voice, and, in her case, it's no metaphor. She conducts workshops with Jungian analyst Marion Woodman and is a founding member of Peter Brook's International Centre for Theatre Research in Paris, France.
George has tapes for working at home with your voice. She suggests that you use a journal for observing your experiences with the process. Her tape, River of Song, River of Life, by Sounds True Recordings, contains a full workshop. For beginners, she recommends her first tape, Drink from the Well. In it, she talks about the voice in greater depth and provides eleven songs along with which the listener can sing.
Healing Your Own Bruises
All of us stub our toes or hit a funnybone occasionally. Now you can look at these annoying and essentially harmless accidents as an opportunity to try a personal energy medicine experiment. Let us know what happens.
With your hands a few inches away from the physical body, smooth the space (or `field') around where you or your child have just been bumped or injured. This is how therapist Crystal Hawk, M.Ed., described a healing experiment you can try on yourself or your child. Hawk describes using large sweeping strokes in a rhythmic repetitive motion, ending each stroke past the hand, foot, shoulder, or whatever part of the person you are "working on." Older injuries may need repeated treat- ment and are not as useful for experimentation.
Hawk helps patients to use their own potential effectively to help themselves and others reduce or eliminate pain and discomfort of all kinds -- physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual.
She believes that by accepting the model of our living in energetic fields, we become responsible for the thoughts and emotions we send out. We understand that they affect the people around us. Everyone has experienced angry emotions felt across a room. Those who live in that kind of environment at home or at work are bruised and battered by these energies and run the risk of becoming ill.
The exercises draw upon Therapeutic Touch (TT), which can benefit everyone and is easily learned. Hawk studied TT with one of its founders, Dolores Krieger, R.N., Ph.D., and professor emerita at New York University. Krieger, along with her mentor Dora Kunz, developed the practice in the early 1970s.
Hawk is co-founder of The Therapeutic Touch Network, begun in Ontario eight years ago. It is now a nonprofit organization with more than eight hundred members. Because of the Therapeutic Touch Network, seven Ontario hospitals and the Victoria Order of Nurses across Canada, have officially accepted TT as part of their policies and practices. In her private practice, Hawk combines Therapeutic Touch with Gestalt therapy, imagery and cranio-sacral therapy. þ
For information about Dr. Rossman's Training and Certification Program in Interactive Guided Imagery, call 1-800-726-2070.
Michele George can be reached at 4 Barrie Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, M6C 1E2 Canada. Phone 416-657-8144 or fax 416-654-0971. For Sounds True Recordings, call 800-333-9185
For more information about TT, contact The Therapeutic Touch Network (Ontario) at P.O. Box 85551, Toronto, Ontario, CANADA M6C 4A8, 416-65-TOUCH. To contact Crystal Hawk, call 416-656-0991.
Researchers Find Evidence of Subtle Energy
Many scientists working on their own do experiments which suggest evidence of subtle energies. Whether they are accepted within the conventional scientific paradigm or not, they clearly raise questions that are worthy of further exploration. The first experiment described below seems to show that emotions may have a far more powerful effect than usually ascribed to them. In our culture there seems to be general agreement that emotions have psychological power, but in this case, they appear to affect machinery, not only the sensibilities of a human being.
Patients' Emotions Affect Machine
A machine, called a random event generator (REG), which generates electrical impulses at random, yielded statistically significant results indicating that depression and anxious crying taking place in the same room lowered the mean REG counts. Expressions of anger and longing raised the number. The experiment was designed by Richard Blasband, M.D., to see if expressed emotions by patients who had no conscious intent toward the machine would affect it.
The REG was set up in psychiatrist Blasband's office, where the expression of emotion occurs fairly regularly as part of the therapeutic process. The REG was calibrated in an empty office. The readings of distribution of REG output were compared with times when a subject was talking without any emotional coloring and when emotions were being expressed. Videotaping or timed hand-written notes made during sessions correlated the data.
According to the doctor, the significance of these findings is that the force behind emotions appears to extend beyond the physical body. It may possibly extend into dimensions deeper and broader than time/space sensed by our usual senses. It is highly probable that the positive or negative qualities of emotion affects others at preconscious levels.
Dr. Blasband suggests that during the experiment such emotional states greatly disturb the consciousness field and establish resonance with the REG. Such data could provide a significant link in understanding the relation of mind and matter.
Dr. Blasband has carried out original research on orgone biophysics for 35 years. He also has studied psychic healing with the Russian-born physicist and healer, Nicolai Levashov. Only recently have his research interests turned to consciousness.
The doctor suggests reading articles in the Journal of the Society for Scientific Exploration and Margins of Reality by Jahn and Dunn if you find his experiment thought-provoking. Dr. Blasband is a research associate of the Inter-national Consciousness Research Laboratories, a Princeton University-based worldwide consortium of independent scholars and scientists collaborating on projects relating to consciousness.
Connection Observed Between Healer and Receiver
Hisanobu Sugano, Ph.D., with colleagues S. Uchida and I. Kuramoto, designed an experiment for strict laboratory conditions to verify the existence of subtle energies. According to Sugano's research, as presented at the ISSSEEM conference, healers and receivers were in a shielded room, monitored, and recorded by camera. Healers did not touch receivers at any time. Receivers, wearing headphones and eye masks, and listening to the sounds of sea waves, were completely unaware of when healings were begun and finished.
Researcher Hisanobu Sugano, Ph.D. and his Japanese colleagues showed how a synchronous increase in alpha waves in the frontal area of the brain was observed in both `healer' and `receiver'. Increases in slow brain waves, beta waves, and blood pressure and heart rate changes were also observed during the healing period.
Sugano believes that the results strongly suggest that the healer radiates some kind of energy during the experiments, though whether the origin is based on something like pineal gland activity or consciousness is not clear. He explained that although subtle energies such as qigong and remote healing are attracting much attention, they are criticized by many people as nothing but the placebo effect caused by the power of suggestion. These experiments directly counter that belief.
Sugano, Director of the Life Science Institute at Moa Health Science Foundation, specializes in research of subtle energies and aromatherapy. Before becoming Director, he was a professor of Medical Physics at the University of Occupational and Environmental Health in Kitakyushu for twelve years.
Dr. Richard A. Blasband, director of Research of Center for Functional Research, can be contacted at 2175 E. Mar St., Tiburon, CA 94920.
Dr. Sugano can be reached at Psychosomatic Medicine, Moa Kyushu Life Science Institute, 162-1 Ohkuma, Kasuya-Machi, Fukuoka 811-23 Japan. þ
Project Focuses On Pain
In a unique situation, the University of Maryland was offered a matching gift given by a British foundation to establish the Division of Complementary Medicine with Brian Berman, M.D., as its director. The Division's mission is to test complementary medicine and find out what works and what doesn't.
The research department chose to focus on the treatment of pain because pain is:
* prevalent
* well-suited to the patient-involved
treatment model
* impairing to the creative spirit
* a cause of despair
* often unresponsive to traditional
treatments while the pharmaceutical approach causes debilitating side-effects
* costly to treat
Research also indicates that persons who participate in multidisciplinary chronic pain management programs increase their functional activities and decrease their use of addictive medication and visits to health care professionals.3 In fact, after having a cold, pain is the second most common complaint that brings people to a doctor.
Berman sometimes uses combined methods, including teaching biofeedback. Homeopathy is useful for individualizing treatments. The history-taking that is part of homeopathic treatment is therapeutic in itself. The side-effects of certain drugs for pain often do not allow for their use and so conventional treatment does not provide optimal care for a number of chronic conditions such as arthritis, back pain, facial pain and the often accompanying symptoms of depression, anxiety, and insomnia.
How Did Berman's Practice Change?
In his own evolution as a practitioner, Dr. Berman was trained in trauma care. The training was great for acute situations but he was dissatisfied with the way chronic problems were treated. Patients would observe their health deteriorating, but because chronic problems don't become pathological instantly, their tests would come back in the normal range. Clearly, they needed something that could help them before their illnesses were diagnosable. In an effort to address this need, he studied acupuncture, homeopathy, orthopedic manipulation, and nutrition.
He worked in an integrated primary care setting with a psychologist and a massage therapist while practicing acupuncture and osteopathy himself. He felt more satisfied with the efficacy of the treatments while finding himself getting further and further into an unproven area of medical practice. He wanted to discover the scientific basis for why these alternatives work and then bring them into the mainstream.
Other Health Issues Relating to the Project
When Dr. Berman spoke at a National Center of Homeopathy conference, he discussed the challenges facing all medical settings, including his. These include:
Cost. Patients often find that when they aren't being helped by conventional techniques, insurance is still willing to pay for it. When they are being helped by so-called experimental techniques, they have to pay out-of-pocket. Even when treatments are shown to be cost effective, coverage is rarely available. However, many HMOs and insurance companies are beginning to look at alternatives.
Proven effectiveness. Insurers say they will cover only treatments proven to be effective. According to Dr. David Eddy, only about 20 percent of conventional therapy has been proven effective. Dr. Berman suggests that if insurance paid only for those, we'd lower health care costs.
Alternative competencies. There are innumerable therapies with varying certification requirements and erratic licensing, all of which makes physicians who are considering making referrals worry about legitimacy.
Scientific Evidence. Although doctors claim they want scientific evidence, it has been shown that they only use healing techniques that are familiar. A physician cured by acupuncture after years of back pain becomes convinced of its legitimacy because it worked for him, not because he reads studies.
Dr. Berman suggests that "by studying complementary medicine we can broaden our perspective of illness, as well as health. We can improve and expand treatment options and humanize the quality of our caring."
Papers describing research at the Division of Complementary Medicine including a study on osteoarthritis of the knee can be obtained through Marilyn H. Commer, Administrative Assistant at the University of Maryland Medical School. Phone 410-448-6871 or fax 410-448-6875. Patient appointments can be made by calling the University Physicians Clinic at 410-448-6722. þ
The American Holistic Health Association Complete Guide to Alternative Medicine
Here's a guide that almost reads like a novel. This book describes eight broad categories, which cover most of the more commonly used alternative therapies -- Chinese Medicine, Ayurveda, Naturopathic Medicine, Homeopathy, Mind/Body Medicine, Osteopathic Medicine, Chiropractic, and Massage Therapy and Bodywork. Collinge describes their strengths as well as their limitations. In addition to these defining descriptions, he touches on many important issues relevant to understanding the expanding choice of therapies such as:
* the role of the patient's responsibility.
* consideration of the emotional,
mental, and spiritual aspects of
illness, as well as the physical.
* causes of chronic and degenerative
diseases.
* iatrogenic problems (caused by
medical treatment).
* the effect that access to medical disci- plines from different cultures is having on contemporary Western medicine.
* how the collaboration of these disci- plines, intentional as well as uninten- tional, is coming about.
Collinge also clarifies some of the mythology about the practice of conventional medicine, pointing out studies indicating that wide variations in practice cannot be ascribed to scientific method or differences in population, but rather, to the opinions and habits of medical practitioners. New methods of verifying the credibility of practices are being developed while more studies are being made to scientifically evaluate nonconventional therapies. Collinge discusses the difficulties that come up in trying to do costly research with greater ethical and logistic demands.
Valuable Information
While describing each tradition he considers:
* the principles behind it
* variations within the tradition
* techniques used in practice
* scientific evidence supporting the
tradition
* conditions and illnesses most and
least likely to be affected
* the kind of relationship expected between practitioner and patient
* how the treatment will be evaluated
and if there are objective measures
* how this method complements or inter- feres with other methods of treatment
* what the treatment costs, what related procedures cost, and whether insurance covers them
* what credentials a practitioner of this method should be expected to have
This is the kind of information we should have about any therapy, conventional or alternative. The very act of bringing these considerations to bear gives the reader a good education in discrimination. The last chapter discusses what to consider in making choices and what challenges face us in our pursuit of health.
Case histories abound in easy-to-find boxes, bringing the descriptions to life. This book is easy reading and a really grand educational foundation for pursuing and evaluating further health-related information.
William Collinge, Ph.D., also wrote Recovering from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: A Guide to Self Empowerment (Putnam/Perigee, 1993). He is a licensed psychotherapist who studied at Harvard's Mind/Body Medical Institute. He is clinical supervisor at the Cancer Support and Education Center in Menlo Park, California, which conducts a mind/body program for ill people and research director at Flowing River Institute in San Francisco, which explores integrative medicine. His audiotape programs apply principles of mind/body medicine to HIV, heart disease, cancer, gastrointestinal illnesses, stress reduction, preparation for and recovery from surgery, and more. He can be reached at P.O. Box 2007, Sebastopol, CA 95473. þ
The American Holistic Health Association publishes wellness-oriented educational booklets and programs, resource lists of referral organizations, catalogs of self-help tools and educational opportunities, and a newsletter. Contact AHHA at P.O. Box 17400, Anaheim, CA 92817-7400 or phone 714-779-6152.
Seeking the Causes of Causes
After twenty years of clinical practice and consulting for the health care industry, Dr. Jahnke is convinced that the most effective practice of medicine must draw on systems of natural healing, which do not separate mind and body. Consumers often are told that the leading causes of death are tobacco, bad diet/lack of activity, alcohol, microbes, toxic substances, sexual behaviors, motor vehicles, and illicit use of drugs.
To Roger Jahnke, O.M.D., that is a list of behaviors, not causes of death. According to the doctor, these are the actual causes of death:
* lack of information
* economic despair
* meaningless existence
* low self-esteem
* exterior and interior stresses
* hopelessness
* anger and frustration
* powerlessness and fear
True health care will address and remedy these. Dr. Jahnke's programs support participants in a manner that empowers them to heal themselves and achieve genuine health improvement. The doctor studied traditional Chinese medicine and in his practice focused on the use of acupuncture and herbs in degenerative disease. Recently, the practice of qigong has become his primary focus. It is an ancient healing system taught to and practiced by the patient which helps the body heal itself.
Healing Arts Report presents educational health-related information and news only. The material contained herein is intended for general information and should not be construed as medical advice or medical opinions. It does not apply to specific medical conditions, treatments, or other specific factual circumstances. It does not constitute recommendations for self-treatment nor is it intended to replace consultations with qualified medical care providers or information provided by manufacturers or retailers about their products. Decisions regarding diagnosis and treatment are to be made by the reader in the exercise of his or her judgment. The source of all news and information contained herein is provided. Healing Arts Report does not test or otherwise independently verify nor warrant the validity, accuracy, timeliness, completeness, or utility of its contents.
To support behavior changes and authentic healing, Dr. Jahnke and his staff developed two programs. Their Personal Health Action Strategies and Evaluation System is a group-based health improvement process used in HMOs and hospitals for health promotion
and to target risk groups. In corporations it is used for effectiveness enhancement and well
ness. His program and manual, Self-Applied Health Enhancement Methods, incorporates many specially chosen qigong exercises.
Dr. Jahnke's practice, Health Action, is in Santa Barbara, California. He also lectures on health promotion and alternative medicine. He has created a healing video, Awakening the Medicine Within. His book, The Healer Within, will be released in May of 1997 by Harper-Collins. Dr. Jahnke can be reached at 805-685-4670 or by fax at 805-685-4710. þ
Imagery and Visualization
Academy For Guided Imagery in Mill Valley, California. In addition to their professional certification program on interactional guided imagery, they have a directory of practitioners, books, and tapes. Phone 800-726-2070 for information and catalog.
Gerald Epstein, M.D. in New York City. He works with the waking dream for developing intuition, creativity, and healing. He is director of The American Center for Mental Imagery which teaches health professionals how to integrate mental imagery into brief and short-term therapy. Two-and-a-half-day workshops with CME and CE credits are offered three times
during the next year. Dr. Epstein is author of four books: Healing Into Immortality; Healing Visualization: Creating Health Through Imagery; Waking Dream Therapy; and Studies in Non-Deterministic Psychology. Phone 212-988-7750.
Belleruth Naparstek, L.I.S.W., in Cleveland, Ohio. She conducts workshops in guided imagery, which is used for healing and developing intuition. She also has produced a series of audio tapes from Time Warner dealing with Habit Control and a variety of illnesses including asthma, M.S., stroke, high blood pressure or heart disease, diabetes, and more. Phone 800-800-8661.
John Thomas Adams Shaffer, D. Min., in St. Louis, Missouri. He originated Transformational Imagery, a form of the waking dream to depend on the inner guidance of the client to direct the healing process. For phone consultations and to order his book Be Your Own Healer, phone 314-533-6044. þ
ENDNOTES
1. See Richard Gerber, M.D., Vibrational Medicine
(Bear & Company, Santa Fe, NM, 1988), p. 94.
2. See B. Sjolund and M. Eriksson, "Electro Acupuncture and Endogenous Morphines," Lancet (Nov 2, 1976):1085.
3. See H. Flor et al., "Efficacy of multidisciplinary treatment centers," Pain 49: (1992): 221-230.
Healing Arts Report
Advisory Board Members:
Deborah Crabbe, C.N.M., M.S., William Gough, M.S.
Marc Micozzi, M.D., Ph.D. Joel Shepperd, M.D.
Healing Arts Report is published monthly by Zillah, Inc.
Copyright 1997 by Healing Arts Report.
Mailing address: P.O. Box 1728, Winchester, VA 22601. Telephone: 304-725-0266 Fax: 304-728-0089.
Editor: BJ Appelgren, Publisher: Bruce Appelgren
Contributing Editor: Mark Schulte, Editorial Assistant: Buster Katz
