In Reply to: Negative tests of therapeutic touch reported in JAMA recently posted by Pierre on September 12, 1998 at
23:57:41:
Dear Pierre,
For those unfamiliar with the article, it was a study designed by a young girl, who essentially
studied practionners of therapeutic touch to see if they could really tell if their hands were near a human being, if they were
blindfolded. They couldn't. She made it a science fair project, and ended up being published in JAMA. Talk about
something cool for your resume for college.
My interest in mind-body healing is as follows:
My medical textbook defines a dissciative experience as a defect which results in the splitting of consciousness into seperate
entities. Yet if you read Consumer Reports recent book on Mind-Body healing, I feel you will agree that it is clear it is good
for us to dissociate.
Theraupic touch uses many of these same techniques which are also associated with dissociation and NDEs. The young
girl's study is but one study. It is exciting that JAMA would publish a study on therapeutic touch. Such a study needs to be
replicated and put in the context of the literature on therapeutic touch. Even if therapeutic touch is shown to not be a
scientifically useful concept, it still does not keep me from wanting to explore associations between NDEs and mind-body
healing.
Of course, I must now plug my newsletter, as this is the sort of issue and evidence I will be presenting in it.
I am glad you wrote. I am trying to break down the "rabid believer" versus "mindless skeptic" approach to NDEs. I feel that
by studying NDEs, we will learn more about mind-body healing than the afterlife. And by the way, when I refer to
Mind-body Healing, again, I mean the sorts of modest health benefits mainstream organizations such as Consumer Reports
discuss.
Now, Dr. Skeptic, I have a question for you:
Melvin Morse MD
JAMA Tests
Posted by Pierre on September 12, 1998 at 23:57:41:
Hi. I'm a physician (MD) with a research background including undersea and aerospace physiology. I use a pseudonym to
avoid spam. I am extremely skeptical about NDE's and the possibility that they constitute proof of an afterlife. In your
website, you mention therapeutic touch as a probable component of the same family of phenomena as NDE's. Are you aware
of and what do you think about the recent JAMA article which substantially discredited the ability of "therapeutic touch" to
do what they claim?
I believe that the same techniques which have been shown to be associated with Mind-Body healing are the same
techniques associated with creating "dissociative" experiences, or NDEs.
As a physician in Aerospace Medicine, what is your reaction to Jim Whinnery's research on the "dreamlets" that fighter
pilots get when accelerated at high speeds in the centrifuge?
