Energy medicine is a branch of alternative medicine based on a pseudo-scientific belief that healers can channel "healing energy" into a patient and effect positive results. The field is defined by shared beliefs and practices relating to mysticism and esotericism in the wider alternative medicine sphere rather than any sort of unified terminology, leading to terms such as energy healing or vibrational medicine being used as synonymous or alternative names. In most cases there is no empirically measurable energy involved: the term refers instead to so-called subtle energy. Practitioners may classify the practice as hands-on, hands-off, and distant (or absent) where the patient and healer are in different locations. Many schools of energy healing exist using many names: for example, biofield energy healing, spiritual healing, contact healing, distant healing, therapeutic touch, Reiki or Qigong.
Reviews of the scientific literature on energy healing have concluded that there is no evidence supporting clinical efficacy. The theoretical basis of healing has been criticised as implausible; research and reviews supportive of energy medicine have been faulted for containing methodological flaws and selection bias, and positive therapeutic results have been determined to result from known psychological mechanisms. Some claims of those purveying "energy medicine" devices are known to be fraudulent and their marketing practices have drawn law-enforcement action in the US.
History
History records the repeated association or exploitation of scientific inventions by individuals claiming that newly discovered science could help people to heal. In the 19th century, electricity and magnetism were in the "borderlands" of science and electrical quackery became rife. These concepts continue to inspire writers in the New Age movement. In the early 20th century health claims for radio-active materials put lives at risk, and recently quantum mechanics and grand unification theory have provided similar opportunities for commercial exploitation. Thousands of devices claiming to heal via putative or veritable energy are used worldwide. Many of them are illegal or dangerous and are marketed with false or unproven claims. Several of these devices have been banned. Reliance on spiritual and energetic healing is associated with serious harm or death when patients delay or forego medical treatment.
Classification
The term "energy medicine" has been in general use since the founding of the non-profit International Society for the Study of Subtle Energies and Energy Medicine in the 1980s. Guides are available for practitioners, and other books aim to provide a theoretical basis and evidence for the practice. Energy medicine often proposes that imbalances in the body's "energy field" result in illness, and that by re-balancing the body's energy-field health can be restored. Some modalities describe treatments as ridding the body of negative energies or blockages in 'mind'; illness or episodes of ill health after a treatment are referred to as a 'release' or letting go of a 'contraction' in the body-mind. Usually, a practitioner will then recommend further treatments for complete healing.
The US-based National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) distinguishes between health care involving scientifically observable energy, which it calls "Veritable Energy Medicine", and health care methods that invoke physically undetectable or unverifiable "energies", which it calls "Putative Energy Medicine":
Types of "veritable energy medicine" include magnet therapy, colorpuncture, and light therapy. Medical techniques involving the use of electromagnetic radiation (e.g. radiation therapy or magnetic resonance imaging) are not considered "energy medicine" in the terms of alternative medicine. Types of "putative energy medicine" include biofield energy healing therapies that are claimed to direct or modulate "energies" to allow healing in the patient. This includes spiritual healing, psychic healing, Therapeutic touch, Healing Touch, Hands of light, Esoteric healing, Magnetic healing (now a historical term not to be confused with magnet therapy), Qigong healing, Reiki, crystal healing, distant healing, intercessory prayer, and similar modalities. Concepts such as Qi (Chi), Prana, Innate Intelligence, Mana, Pneuma, vital fluid, Odic force, and orgone are among the many terms that have been used to describe these putative energy fields. This category does not include Acupuncture, Ayurvedic medicine, Chiropractic, Moxibustion and other modalities where a physical intervention is used to manipulate a putative energy.