Contact healing

Domain XII · Complementary, energy & biofield · United Kingdom

What it is

What it is. Contact healing is one of the forms of spiritual healing practised in Spiritualist churches. In the SNU's definition, as quoted by affiliated churches, healing is "the use of forces and energies from the world of Spirit", channelled through the healer by the laying on of hands. The…

Format

• Contact healing has no multi-session treatment protocol. Each session is a self-contained act of healing in a fixed sequence. The sequence below follows CNH25's performance criteria, with SNU and church practice added where sources give it.
• Single-session sequence

Who practises it, and how they are trained or regulated

• Greet, explain and obtain consent. Explain what may happen during and after the session. Healing is given only when invited by the recipient or the recipient's representative.
• Position the recipient, seated (chair) or lying (couch), for comfort and to avoid injury.
• Training route for the healer.

Evidence status, as the guide reports it

• What it is not. Contact healing is not a treatment for any physical or mental illness. Spiritualist churches tell recipients to keep up any treatment their GP has prescribed. Evidence status in one line: no established evidence that it treats disease; systematic reviews of healing trials found the…

Questions to explore with your client

• What drew you to it, and what are you hoping it will change?
• Is there physical contact? Was it explained beforehand, and do you feel free to say no or stop at any point?
• Does it involve intense or unusual breathing? Have you been told about the medical conditions for which that is not advised?
• Is it a group, retreat or community? How do they respond if someone wants to leave or raises a concern?
• How do you and the practitioner understand what is happening, in spiritual or cultural terms? Is that a source of comfort, worry, or both?
• Who runs it, and what training or registration do they hold?
• What actually happens in a session or meeting, and how often?
• What does it cost, and is there pressure to commit to more?
• How do you feel afterwards, in the hours and days that follow?
• Does it fit with, or clash with, the work we do here?

What practitioners of it watch for

• delayed reactions afterwards. Offer a follow-up contact.
• discomfort, and anxiety about lying down. Adjust or stay seated.
• pressure to give healing in place of medical assessment. Hold the line.
• light-headedness, drowsiness or disorientation. Keep the person until it passes.
• the recipient waiting anxiously during silence. Say in advance that you will pause.

When to involve someone else

• New or worsening physical symptoms, or advice to stop or change prescribed medication: involve the client's doctor or prescriber.
• Signs of coercion, isolation from family and friends, escalating costs or secrecy: discuss openly and consider safeguarding.
• A crisis or thoughts of suicide: follow your crisis protocol. In the US, call or text 988; in the UK and Ireland, Samaritans on 116 123.

Drawn automatically from the guide's own sections. Stay curious: neither endorse nor dismiss what the client values, and check anything that matters against the full guide and its sources. Not medical advice.