Therapeutic touch practitioners, who claim to treat many medical conditions by using their hands to manipulate a "human energy field," failed to detect the "field" under test conditions, according to an article in the April 1 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

Linda Rosa, B.S.N., R.N., from the Questionable Nurse Practices Task Force, National Council Against Health Fraud, Inc., Loma Linda, Calif., and colleagues studied the use of therapeutic touch, a technique they say is taught in more than 100 colleges and universities in 75 countries and is used by nurses in at least 80 hospitals in North America.

Therapeutic touch is grounded on the concept that people have an "energy field" that is readily detectable and modifiable by therapeutic touch practitioners. Twenty-one practitioners of therapeutic touch were tested in a study to determine if they could detect human "energy fields." During each test, the practitioners rested their hands, palms up, on a flat surface, approximately 10 to 12 inches apart to see if they could perceive the human "energy field" of a nine-year-old grade-school student who hovered her hand over one of the practitioner's hands. To prevent the student's hands from being seen, a tall, opaque screen with cutouts at its base was placed over the practitioner's arms, and a cloth towel was attached to the screen and draped over them.

During a 1996 testing session, each practitioner underwent a set of 10 trials. Before each try, the practitioner was permitted to "center" or make any other mental preparations deemed necessary.

The student flipped a coin to determine which of the subject's hands would be the target. The student then hovered her right hand, palm down, three to four inches above the target and said, "Okay." The practitioner then stated which of his or her hands was nearer to the student's hands.

In the initial trail, the practitioners stated the correct location of the student's hand in 47 percent of the tries.

The researchers found: "Twenty-one experienced therapeutic touch practitioners were unable to detect the investigator's 'energy field.' Their failure to substantiate therapeutic touch's most fundamental claim is unrefuted evidence that the claims of therapeutic touch are groundless and that further professional use is unjustified."

In 1997, trials were conducted again, only this time, each practitioner was allowed to "feel" the student's energy fields in each of her hands in advance and choose which hand the student would use for testing. The test results were similar to those of the first series. The practitioners correctly located the student's hand in 41 percent of tries.

The authors write: "If human energy fields perception through therapeutic touch was possible, the experimental subjects should have been able to detect the experimenter's hand in 10 (100 percent) of 10 trials. Chance alone would produce an average score of five (50 percent)."

They continue: "Practitioners of therapeutic touch are generally reluctant to be tested by people who are not proponents. In 1996, the James Randi Educational Foundation offered $742,000 to anyone who could demonstrate an ability to detect a human energy field under conditions similar to those of our study. Although more than 40,000 American practitioners claim to have such an ability, only one person attempted the demonstration. She failed, and the offer, now more than $1.1 million, has had no further volunteers despite extensive recruiting efforts."

They conclude: "To our knowledge, no other objective quantitative study involving more than a few therapeutic touch practitioners has been published, and no well-designed study demonstrates any health benefit from therapeutic touch. These facts, together with our experimental findings, suggest that therapeutic touch claims are groundless and that further use of therapeutic touch by health professionals is unjustified."

The authors write: "Therapeutic touch practice guides describe three basic steps, none of which actually requires touching the patient's body. The first step is centering, in which the practitioner focuses on his or her intent to help the patient. This step resembles meditation and is claimed to benefit the practitioner as well. The second step is assessment, in which the practitioner's hands, from a distance of five to 10 cm. [two to four inches], sweep over the patient's body from head to feet, 'attuning' to the patient's condition by becoming aware of 'changes in sensory cues' in the hands. The third step is intervention, in which the practitioner's hands 'repattern' the patient's 'energy field' by removing 'congestion,' replenishing depleted areas, and smoothing out ill-flowing areas. The resultant 'energy balance' purportedly stems disease and allows the patient's body to heal itself."

According to the researchers, both therapeutic touch theory and technique require that a human energy field be felt in order to impart any therapeutic benefit to a subject. The authors contend that the definitive test of therapeutic touch is not a clinical trial of its alleged therapeutic effects, but a test of whether practitioners can perceive human energy fields. Terms used in print and by practitioners to describe what a human energy field feels like include: "tingling, pulling, throbbing, hot, cold, spongy, and tactile as taffy."

Therapeutic touch was conceived in the early 1970s by Dolores Krieger, Ph.D., R.N., a faculty member at New York University's Division of Nursing. The authors write: "Soon after its conception, TT [therapeutic touch] became linked with the westernized notions of the late Martha Rogers, dean of nursing at New York University. She asserted that humans do not merely possess energy fields but are energy fields and constantly interact with the 'environmental field' around them."