The lived experience of healing touch with cancer patients

• Main Author: Christiano, Charlene Ann
• Format: Others
• Published: FIU Digital Commons 1997
• Subjects: Nursing
• Online Access: http://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/2354; http://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3540&context=etd

The recent use of complementary therapies by cancer patients has prompted the study of the use of Healing Touch, an energy based therapy, to learn the meaning of the experience. By using Ray's Caring Inquiry, a phenomenologic-hermeneutic process, the lived experience of receiving Healing Touch was elicited from three cancer patients. Through the interactions of the Healing Touch practitioners, the cancer patient participants, and the energy in and around them, specific themes were expressed: body-physical, emotion-feeling, mental-knowing, and spirit-essence. Further abstracting lead to the metathemes sensation and perception. Through a change in consciousness, a oneness/wholeness was experienced. The unity of meaning elicited was the Rhythm of Oneness Through Energy which is the connecting, opening, and cocreating through caring, the wholeness of each to become one through rhythms of energy.