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Article on Energy Healing in Hospice
HEALING HANDS:
Alternative therapy targets 'energy' for relief
03/13/2000
By SASHA PAULSEN
Napa Valley Register Features Editor
Chlori Watson suffers from cancer of the spine,
but once a week the patient at Hospice of Napa Valley waits for a treatment she
likens to "standing on a hilltop and taking a deep breath."
It's the healing touch therapy provided by Mary
Maddux, one of the team of health care providers at the hospice.
The treatment, Watson said, "just takes a great
weight off me."
Maddux doesn't just treat the patients at
hospice; when she has time, she give treatments to other staff members, who say
the therapy provides a profound, almost mystifying relaxation.
The therapy consists of the lightest kind of
touch -- most often Maddux's hands simply hover in the air above the patient.
What she is doing, Maddux explained, is working with energy.
If this is hard to imagine, it's equally hard
for those receiving the treatment to describe its effects. "All I know is
something is happening," Watson said, "and it's phenomenal."
A former massage therapist, Watson said, "I
know the benefits of touch; but this is more spiritual than anything."
Healing touch, which developed from
"therapeutic touch," a technique used by many health care professionals, is
based on the theory that a healer's hands can re-direct the flow of a patient's
energy. And this, according to the theory, creates healing, using the term used
in a broader sense to mean relief from pain, relaxation from stress or just an
improved all-around sense of well-being.
"It's a little unnerving," said Mark Perkins,
director of social services for the hospice, who tried a 10-minute session, and
has now signed up for a level-one class to beginning learn the method himself.
"I don't know what she did, but it was almost a mind-altering experience."
Maddux was a social worker at the hospice, when
she was completing her training to become a certified healing touch therapist --
a process that takes two to three years of study, plus a year of supervised
mentorship.
Now, she said, she feels like she is "giving so
much more" to the hospice patients and their families.
Maddux began providing healing touch treatments
at the hospice last fall, part of a pilot program that includes other
alternative therapies for patients, including art and music.
"I'm really interested in the idea of people as
energy," Perkins said. "There's a vast potential there, and we're just seeing a
small part of it.
"I might have been skeptical," he added, "but I
knew Mary first as a marvelous social worker, who had done wonderful, grounded
work with patients and families."
And if the healing experience Maddux provides
doesn't lend itself easily to verbal descriptions, he said, "this can be a
strength in a hospice. It's another way of reaching patients."
Maddux also treats patients at the Adult Day
Health Center in Napa, and she sees private clients at the Sonoma Holistic
Center.
They come to her for reasons that run the gamut
from needing help for chronic pain and stress, recovering from accidents and
dealing with emotional crises to seeking mental clarity or spiritual deepening.
"It's based on the idea that we are all
energetic beings," Maddux said.
Healing, she said, starts with energy. "We
(healers) deal with energy centers. We learn what they are associated with, how
to balance them, to eliminate blocks, clear away the twigs and debris."
"There's definitely something going on," said
Celine Regalia, program director at the Adult Day Health program, who tried a
treatment herself. "She hardly touches you, yet I felt like I'd had a full-body
massage."
The therapy "touches on the emotional, psychic,
and spiritual," Maddux said. "It's all connected; everything is energy."
But she agrees, it's hard to describe what she
does. "It's partly intuitive," she said. "I feel where there are blocks and try
to open them up. We get information that doesn't come through the five senses.
"But we always emphasize that all healing is
self-healing," she added. "A healer is only a facilitator. When a person comes
to me, they're already on the way.
"It's an ability everyone has," she added.
"These are things we do naturally. If you bump your head, you put your hand on
there. It's instinctive, not just a gesture...There has always been a tradition
of healing by laying-on of hands."
Those who try it agree that part of the healing
comes from the deep relaxation it induces. "Healing happens when you can just
shut down and you're able to go inward," said Regalia.
While it may not change the circumstances of
one's life -- whether it's an emotional crisis or a terminal illness -- it does
induce a profound sense of peace that is in its own way, healing, said one of
Maddux's private patients, Beth Bywater.
Bywater, a registered nurse with a private
holistic practice in Napa, has studied healing touch and therapeutic touch. She
can do the treatment; nonetheless, she comes to Maddux for sessions when she
can. "It's incredibly relaxing," Bywater said.
"Most people I see I see for a few times, and I
try to teach them things they can use for self-care," she said. They may come
back for maintenance -- like a tune-up."
Maddux will be participating in a training
session for those interested in learning more about healing touch therapy, April
14-16, at Adult Day Health of Napa, 3299 Claremont Way, Napa. The three-day
session, led by Steve Anderson, a certified healing touch instructor, is the
first level training, which provides an introduction to healing touch, as well
as techniques. It's open to health care professionals as well as those
interested in an "in-depth understanding of healing work that utilizes
energy-based concepts."
For more information about the course, contact
Mary Maddux, (707) 933-9111, or write Heart of Healing, P.O. Box 150, Sonoma, CA
95476.
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