The short answer: energy healing is a set of practices in which a practitioner works with what is thought of as the body’s energetic field, usually with hands on or just above the body, with the aim of helping the person’s own system settle, release and repair. The longer answer is more interesting, and more honest.
What a practitioner actually does
Strip away the vocabulary and the description is fairly plain. The US National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, part of the National Institutes of Health, describes Reiki, the best studied of these practices, as an approach “in which practitioners place their hands lightly on or just above a person, with the goal of directing energy to help facilitate the person’s own healing response.”
That last phrase is the one worth holding on to: the person’s own healing response. In my own practice I would put it more bluntly. I do not heal you. I create conditions in which your system can do something it was already capable of doing, and often that means getting something out of the way first.
In a session that usually looks like: naming an intention, an assessment of where things are stuck, sustained work on those places, and then guidance about what is being asked of you next. The full shape of a session is here.
The word “energy”, and why it causes trouble
Here is where most articles on this subject either overclaim or sneer. Neither is useful to you.
“Energy” in this context does not mean energy in the physics sense: not joules, not electromagnetic radiation, not anything with a unit. It is a borrowed word, and it is a bad one, because it invites a comparison to physics that the practice cannot support.
Researchers who study these practices tend to use a different term: biofield therapies. It is a deliberately neutral umbrella covering Reiki, Therapeutic Touch, Healing Touch, external qigong and related approaches. The term exists precisely because the field needed language that described what practitioners do without asserting what it is.
What the research actually says
This is the part I would rather you read here than find later and feel misled about.
The NIH’s own summary of Reiki is not flattering. It states that Reiki “hasn’t been clearly shown to be effective for any health-related purpose”, that it has been studied for pain, anxiety and depression but “most of the research has not been of high quality, and the results have been inconsistent”, and that “there’s no scientific evidence supporting the existence of the energy field thought to play a role in Reiki”.
It also states, in the same summary, that Reiki “hasn’t been shown to have any harmful effects”.
So: no demonstrated mechanism, weak and inconsistent outcome evidence, and no demonstrated harm. That is the honest position as it stands. Anyone who tells you the science is settled in favour of energy healing is not reading the same documents I am.
Why I still do this work
Because the absence of a proven mechanism is not the same as the absence of an effect, and because I have spent fifteen years watching what happens in the room. People arrive carrying something and leave carrying less of it. They describe feeling lighter, clearer, more themselves. That is a real observation about real people, and it is also exactly the kind of observation that is hard to isolate in a trial.
There is a serious research community that takes these questions seriously rather than dismissing them. The Institute of Noetic Sciences, founded in 1973 by the Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell, studies consciousness, meditation, spontaneous remission, subtle energy healing and channeling as legitimate objects of investigation. Their existence does not prove anything about my practice. It does mean the questions are open rather than closed.
What energy healing is not
- It is not a diagnosis. I am not a doctor and I do not diagnose. If something in a session points towards care I am not qualified to give, I say so.
- It is not a replacement for medical or psychological treatment. It sits alongside them. I will never ask you to stop a treatment or leave a therapist.
- It is not a belief test. You do not have to accept my framework, my vocabulary, or my sources of guidance. You have to be willing to notice what you feel.
How to choose a practitioner
Since the field is unregulated, the burden of judgement falls on you. Four things I would look for:
- They tell you what they cannot do. A practitioner who claims to treat named medical conditions is a warning sign, not a recommendation.
- They are specific about the session. Length, price, structure, what happens, what you are expected to do. Vagueness about the practical is often vagueness about the rest.
- They do not create dependency. The aim is your own capacity, not a standing appointment you cannot leave.
- You feel able to disagree with them. If you feel you have to perform belief in order to be taken seriously, that is not a good room to be in.
If you want to try it
A single session is a complete piece of work in itself, and it is the honest way to find out whether this reaches you. The three ways of working together are here, and this page is about who tends to arrive, including sceptics, who are welcome.
Sources
- National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, National Institutes of Health, Reiki: What You Need To Know.
- Institute of Noetic Sciences, noetic.org, founded 1973 by Edgar Mitchell.