While some scientists are busy inventing the latest gadget to transform the healthcare market, Nancy Richeson may as well be stepping into a time machine.
The USM associate professor is about to embark on a study involving an age-old, holistic approach to healing known as Reiki. Funded by the College of Nursing and Health Professions, the research focuses on older adults who experience pain, depression, and anxiety.
“I’ve gotten hundreds upon hundreds of phone calls,” says Richeson, her phone ringing in the background. “Some of them for some reason can’t handle medication, or a medical professional can’t help them.”
Originating in Japan, Reiki made its way over to the western world around the 1920s. It is a form of healing centered around light touch. But do not mistake it for your average massage – the focus is not on physical muscle tension, but plying and transforming the metaphysical “energies” of the body.
There will be two different groups. An “intervention” group will be receiving Reiki treatment while the “control” group waits. After eight weeks, they swap places.
Richeson, along with Katherin Lutz, a graduate student and registered nurse, will also be monitoring blood pressures and heart rates in an effort to find if Reiki treatment produces a physiological response on the part of participants.
Though Reiki is now being provided in some hospitals around the country, it is not free, and insurance companies do not cover sessions, as far as Richeson knows.
She began receiving treatments at the behest of a friend years ago, only to begin studying it herself in 2001. There are three levels of training, the first being a regiment of “self-healing”.
The second level is where students begin work on others, as well as tackling an approach known as “long distance Reiki,” in which the practitioner attempts to work on limited ailments from afar.
It was at this stage that Richeson co-founded a clinic in Kennebunk. She completed the third and final stage, becoming a Reiki Master, this past January.
“It’s really a self-Journey, and it depends on where you are at.
I spent a lot of time as a level one trying to make sure that I was really good at it.”
The Study, which is now closed to new participants, will take place over the next sixteen weeks.
While the free treatment may have been a factor in the overwhelming response, those who failed to make the cut needn’t despair – once a month, Recheson operates a free clinic out of her office in Kennebunk.
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