SOUL/BODY: Energy Medicine Coming of Age

by Betsy Robinson

According to psychologist David Feinstein, Ph.D., coauthor of The Promise of Energy Psychology (innersource.net), there are more than two dozen variations of energy psychology — modalities that employ some form of psychotherapy with a needle-less acupuncture practice such as tapping, massaging, or holding specified acupuncture points. In addition to energy psychology, there are also about 60 body therapies that involve energy and “a response from the body and soul," says Robyn Burns, executive director of the United States Association for Body Psychotherapy, While many of these energy modalities are now being used in hospitals, HMOs, and disaster relief centers, not one has been approved by medical certification organizations. Why not? The problem is this: While there are thousands of published anecdotal success stories for energy medicine, according to Feinstein, there has been only one randomized controlled study done by neutral investigators that compares one form of energy medicine with another therapeutic modality. Says Feinstein, “The reason there has been so little investigation reflects both some challenges that energy psychology presents and the politics of research.”

So what are we to do? How can we decide what’s a valid treatment, let alone who is qualified to practice it? Why does energy medicine work when it does, and why does it not when it doesn’t? Is it important to know why? Is it even possible to study an energy connection without destroying the connection? How do you quantify, let alone set replicable parameters for, double-blind randomized controlled studies of “a response from the soul”? Can such studies be peer-reviewed, and, if so, by whom? Who is qualified to objectively review studies including everyone from faith healers and shamans to Rolfers, Polarity, Craniosacral, and Reiki practitioners? Should unquantifiable therapies be covered by insurance? What is the “art” of healing? Does it require a license? How can we know what’s true?

The good news is there’s a lot of life in the discussion. On page 48 of this magazine, brain surgeon Allan J. Hamilton, M.D., examines some similar problems with healing prayer studies. And organizations are popping up everywhere to connect practitioners, share anecdotal evidence of energy medicine’s veracity, and invent its future.

For virtual connections, Feinstein offers a plethora of interesting links at innersource.net. Or you can join the discussion in-body through the Association for Comprehensive Energy Psychology’s tenth anniversary Annual Energy Psychology Conference, May 15 to 18, in New Mexico (see http://energypsych.org).

For body-focused therapies, register for the fifth national conference of the United States Association for Body Psychotherapy (usabp.org) in Philadelphia, July 23 to 26. Entitled “Getting to the Heart of the Matter: In-Depth Explorations of Body Psychotherapy,” the conference promises experiential as well as traditional plenary sessions with nationally recognized practitioners.