Alternative care is gaining more legitimacy constantly. One branch of alternative or complementary medicine is the discipline known as energy medicine. The basic tenet of this school of therapy is the belief that a patient can be treated by the channelling of energies by a healer. Practitioners endeavour to discover imbalances (chemical, structural or bioelectrical) within the patient and to correct these imbalances with healing energies.
The phrases spiritual healing and energy therapy grew in popularity from the 1980s onwards following the creation of the International Society for the Study of Subtle Energies. Healing methods known as either hands-on or hands-off as well as distant healing are 3 separate methods covered by the umbrella term "energies healthcare". Distant healing comes about when a therapist and their patient are in disconnected localities; it can otherwise be termed "absent healing".
Reiki, biofield healing, therapeutic touch and contact healing are all brands of therapies. The US National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) has categorized health-care techniques that engage scientifically identifiable energies as "Veritable Energies" care. These methods include magnet therapy, light therapy and colorpuncture.
Certified nursing organizations have acknowledged the results arising from therapeutic touch. Diagnosis involving disturbances to a patient's field was endorsed in 2005/6 by the North American Nursing Diagnosis Association. Canadian counsellors have registered the trademark "Therapeutic Touch"; a patient's field is manipulated by an analyst according to uniform and industry standard techniques.
Some examples of electrical energies used in healing include TENS machines that relieve chronic aches and pains, faster wound healing through electrical currents and the treatment of neurological problems through a deep brain stimulator. The American Physical Therapy Association has recognized electrotherapy as an effectual method of managing pain.
Joint mobility, tissue repair and incontinence can all be improved by electrotherapy. TENS machines use electrical impulses to affect how pain signals are transmitted to the brain; they can be a side-effect free alternative to pharmaceuticals for many forms of pain relief. Psychotherapists use bioenergetics to analyse and treat anxiety, depression and muscular tension.
Bioenergetics is an active form of "body work'. It seeks to achieve emotional and physical wellbeing by therapeutic measures that allow energies to flow through the mind and body. Neuroscience research substantiates the effects of body work in psychotherapy.
Energy medication views all bodily energies as being fundamental to vitality, emotional wellbeing and physical health. It works to improve health and happiness through these energies. A balanced and harmonious whole is re-established non-invasively by the massaging of a patient's accupoints.