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Photo by Travis Pratt
Izabella Tabarovsky assesses Susannah Holstein's "energy field" during a Healing Touch session Saturday evening at Unity Church in Frederick. Healing Touch is a form of therapy that clears and balances the receiver's energy system, according to practitioners.
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Carol Miller held a pendulum above the woman on the massage table Saturday afternoon, watching as the small ball spun and swung as it assessed her "energy system."Miller and the handful of others in the room at Unity Church were preparing to deliver Healing Touch, a therapy that clears and balances the receiver's energy system, according to its practitioners. The church hosts Healing Touch practice circles several times a year. Like at Saturday's circle, most in attendance are practitioners who take turns practicing on each other as a form of self-care, and those who want to learn more about the practice, said Krista Hall, a registered nurse and certified Healing Touch practitioner. The church also hosts monthly community healing circles, which are open to the public and include Healing Touch, Reiki and reflexology, among other therapies. In Healing Touch, practitioners use on-body or near-body touch to balance the energy system. As a pendulum is held over each of the body's energy centers, or chakras, it spins clockwise if the chakra is open and simply swings back and forth if it is closed, said Miller, a nurse and certified Healing Touch practitioner who came to Saturday's circle. Miller moved to Frederick from Virginia Beach, Va., in 1998 and was instrumental in bringing Healing Touch to the area, Hall said. Healing Touch sessions typically last from 15 minutes to an hour, depending on the receiver's needs. The response to each session is different: Some people feel a tingling sensation, others feel hot or cold, and others feel nothing at all, Hall said. "When people get off the table É the number one statement I've heard through the years is 'I feel so relaxed,'" Hall said. "It activates the body's relaxation response, instead of the stress response that we're all familiar with." Healing Touch was founded as a continuing education course for nurses in the late 1980s, and spread to massage therapists and those in other fields, Hall said. The first Healing Touch circle in Frederick formed in 1999, and Hall said she knows about a dozen other nurses in the area who practice it. Hall said the practice has been shown to reduce pain, anxiety, stress and depression, and has been used on patients before and after surgery, reducing the amount of anesthesia needed and the pain of recovery. Miller also runs a private psychotherapy practice, and she said Healing Touch helps her clients open up more easily than they might on their own.
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