Therapeutic Touch

CancerChoices Senior Clinical Consultant Laura Pole, RN, MSN, OCNS: Early in my practice as an oncology clinical nurse specialist, I became interested in complementary approaches to cancer. I participated in Therapeutic Touch® (TT) training and certification at our hospital. Then I studied further with Dr. Dolores Krieger, the nursing co-founder of Therapeutic Touch®. Staff nurses began referring patients and family members to me. Recipients reported feeling calmer and more peaceful. Most reported sleeping better after a treatment. Many reported significant pain relief.

Karen was a 56-year-old operating room nurse with stage 3 ovarian cancer. My work with Karen began with conventional advanced practice nursing interventions, but after working together for some time, I told Karen about Therapeutic Touch®. She quickly agreed but said she was “skeptical.”

I first did TT with Karen in the hospital. She felt deeply calm and peaceful during and after TT. She slept better that night. I continued to treat her at her home. Her husband learned TT basics and did short sessions with Karen between my visits. This loving support brought them closer together.

One day Karen told me she had an allergic reaction to taxol (the chemotherapy of choice for her cancer). Her oncologist instructed the chemotherapy nurse to incrementally increase the dose of a new second-line chemotherapy each session, as long as Karen’s blood counts were good and she wasn’t having any dose-limiting side effects. A major potential complication of this regimen is suppression of red and white blood cell as well as platelet production. Karen was on this chemotherapy regimen for months. I continued to give her TT on a regular basis this whole time.

When Karen saw her oncologist after her chemotherapy was complete, she said his jaw dropped in disbelief when he saw the total cumulative dose that Karen was able to tolerate without ever requiring a transfusion or acquiring an infection. He apparently had never seen anything like this. Karen said she just smiled and thought to herself that the Therapeutic Touch® must have been the game changer. I can’t prove this, but Karen had no doubt in her mind that that’s what made the difference.

I needed to leave on vacation during the holidays. I told Karen that Dr. Krieger taught me how to administer TT remotely. Karen was open to trying it. I didn’t pre-arrange a time for the remote session. Halfway through my vacation I performed the distant TT for Karen and made note of the date and time. During my next visit, she asked me what I was doing at such and such time on such and such day. That was when I did the remote session! She said she suddenly felt very calm and sat down and concluded that I was doing TT for her. Then, she said she felt more energetic than she had in months and went down to clean out her basement to get ready for company. She said she had been meaning to do that for years, actually, but never had the energy to deal with it!

Karen the skeptic became a spokesperson for Therapeutic Touch®. She presented her “case” at several meetings of healthcare professionals. Telling others of her experience never ceased to touch her deeply. This matter-of-fact practical operating room nurse would often end her story with tears quietly running down her face. She had come to believe that some of the deepest truths are unexplainable and that love is so often present in the depth of healing.