There is a contest going on between conventional and alternative methods of treating sicknesses. Conventional or traditional medicine relies on pills and other forms of mechanical intrusion into the ailing body. Alternative or holistic medicine aims at restoring the ailing body's balance by filling up its depleted energy field. Opponents have come up with views of the Healing Touch method as mere superstition, which cannot be outwardly proved. But it continues to gather advocates among the public.
             The Healing or Therapeutic Touch is a method, which is believed to help restore the natural healing processes of the body by redirecting and re-balancing the body's natural energy fields (Bruno 1999). Its purpose is to reduce pin an anxiety, promote relaxation and stimulate the body's natural healing processes. It is considered the modern version of the ancient "laying off of the hands," found in the Bible, Eastern philosophy, ancient Greek mythology, and Native American myth. It was developed and given the name by Dolores Krieger, a nursing professor at the New York University in 1972 (Bruno).
             The method does not necessarily require massage or body work (Bruno 1999). The practitioner's hands are usually an inch away from the patient's body and move or hover around it, feeling or reworking on it. The method draws from the Eastern concept that, like all things, body has a life-energy field, which extends from it. If a person is healthy, his energy flows freely and is in a balanced state. But if he is physically or psychologically ill, the energy is blocked and his energy becomes imbalanced and depleted. Practitioners say that they can tune in on the patient's energy field and feel its state with their hands. They can then manipulate this invisible energy field and make it smooth by transmitting new energy into it from their own through their hands (Bruno).
             A typical session star...