QUESTIONS & ANSWERS ABOUT THEREPEUTIC TOUCH

Compiled by Carolyn Buchanan & Sue Frid

In Touch, Vol. XIII, No. 3, Autumn, 2001

Question “I have worked with hospice for a number of years and everyone knows I do TT and have good results. However, someone gave a patient another type of energy work and the patient complained to the director because she and the family were so upset. As a result, we are not allowed to offer any kind of energy work to our patients unless they specifically ask for it. Many do not know about TT until I tell them about it, and now I am not allowed to introduce it to them. I am so frustrated by this. Some of these people could benefit so much from a session.”

From Barbara Janelle M.A.

I will answer this question in two ways.

First, I believe it would be useful to provide the director of the medical facility with a packet of information about Therapeutic Touch:

    1. The statement from the Ontario College of Physicians and Nurses describing TT as an acceptable discipline for helping patients relax.
    2. The General Guidelines on TT
    3. Toronto East General Hospital’s Policy and Procedure Paper (developed by Shirley Dalglish)
    4. The TTNO Brochure
    5. A set of TT Research Papers

Indeed, I am preparing such a package to send to TTNO with the recommendation that it be made available to palliative care facilities to encourage the offering of TT to their patients. It would be useful to compile a list of palliative care facilities where TT is offered and include this in the package too.

TT has been presented at the University of Western Ontario’s Multidisciplinary Palliative Care Institute Level 2 (offered 2-3 times per year) since 1996. (That is the year I first began teaching in the Institute and I continued until I moved in 2000. I believe Jitka Malec is now giving TT presentations in the Institute.)

Second, whether or not Therapeutic Touch is formally accepted by an institution, anyone trained in the work can by walking the basic tenants of TT, support both patients and staff. Those tenants are to be in a centered state, to see others with compassion and accept them as valuable human beings, to invite a quality of peace and love to be present in yourself and in the medical facility at all times.