t in a relaxed and gentle manner, while mentally formulating the specific intention to assist the patient therapeutically. The practitioner uses the hands as sensors or to assess the patient's energy field pattern (pattern manifestation appraisal) by moving the hands, at a distance of two to four inches above the body, over the patient's body from head to feet. The practitioner focuses intent on the specific direction of the patient's energies and uses the hands to repattern energy with the intent of facilitating positive experiences through a deliberative human-environment energy field patterning (Meehan, 1993).
Rogers' (1990) science of unitary human beings provides the conceptual foundation for therapeutic touch. Within the Rogerian conceptual system, therapeutic touch is viewed as a non-invasive nursing modality that involves both pattern manifestation appraisal and deliberative human-environmental energy field patterning (Quinn & Strelkauskas, 1993). Therefore, therapeutic touch and therapeutic massage reflect the principles of resonancy and integrality. Therapeutic touch is conceptualized as "knowledgeable and purposive patterning of nurse-environmental/ patient-environmental energy field process" (Meehan, 1993, p. 70).
Therapeutic touch and massage are expected to result in decreased state anxiety and a more positive affect balance. The science of unitary human beings is concerned with the nature and direction of energy field processes between the unitary human and the environment. This conceptual system encompasses four concepts and three principles of homeodynamics. The four concepts that are basic to the science of unitary human beings are energy fields, openness, pattern, and pandimensionality. The three principles of homeodynamics are resonancy, helicy, and integrality (Rogers, 1990).
Field is a unifying concept, while energy signifies the dynamic nature of the field. The energy fields involved in the scie...