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Page 176
when I was aware that I might be able to help them. I soon learned to assess the quality of my friendships before offering the experiment. Initiating the subject made many people uncomfortable in such a way that it affected the nature of our relationship. However, I never met a child who was not responsive, although their open-mindedness often changed after they told their parents.
Around this time I learned about Therapeutic Touch, a version of "laying on of hands" healing that was being taught to nurses at New York University and other nursing schools. It was being practiced in hospitals to reduce pain, swelling, and trauma of patients; and its effectiveness was being actively researched in a variety of clinical settings. (Therapeutic Touch is more fully discussed in Chapter 10, in the section on energy healing.)
I knew I could be an effective teacher of Therapeutic Touch (TT), because I had been using a similar technique of healing for years. I worked briefly with Dora Kunz, a co-founder of TT, and I studied Dolores Krieger's and Patricia Heidt's books on the method. 3 I began to offer opportunities for other health professionals to learn and practice this noninvasive and surprisingly effective version of what the ancient Hindus called "pranic healing."
Until this time, I had done laying on of hands healing only, because that was all I knew. From teaching TT I learned that noncontact healing was just as effective. When I would bring my hands near to a person's body, he or she could feel the same pleasant sensations of heat, energy, and tingling that they felt when I did laying on of hands. I learned that my students could sometimes feel what I felt if I put my hands on theirs when they practiced Therapeutic Touch.
Today, noncontact healing is the norm for me, and I only apply touch if I sense that it will add a helpful element to the healing interaction. Touch is definitely not helpful when a patient is in a lot of pain; where there are bruises, incisions, open sores, or bleeding; where sterile conditions are a concern; or whenever it is perceived to be intrusive to the patient. Touch is also undesirable when it would attract unnecessary attention that would impede the patient's ability to relax, or when a patient might interpret it as sexually stimulating.

 
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