The therapy works with light touch to restore the body's energy

Want to know more?

What: Healing Touch level 1 workshop

When: Oct. 18 and 19

Details: call Paula Bridges at (573) 238-4612

By Laura Johnston ~ Southeast Missourian

Whether it's an herbal remedy or a whole foods diet, American consumers are looking to alternative means for their health care.

And often, that means spending big bucks to find the answers they seek. According to reports in the New England Journal of Medicine, Americans made more visits to unconventional health-care providers in the last decade than to their regular doctors. And the trend continues, with people spending billions annually on herbal supplements and nutrition aids.

And many conventional doctors and health-care providers are beginning to take note.

Paula Bridges, who works full-time as a medical social worker and lives in Marble Hill, also understands the need for alternative medicine. People are looking for ways to gain better health and sometimes that means seeking out unconventional methods, said Bridges, who practices a technique called healing touch.

Healing touch is an energy therapy that works with light, noninvasive touch to help restore a person's energy flow in the body. It is similar to Reiki and other Eastern therapies, some of which are related to massage.

Bridges, who began using healing touch in 1992, says it offers an amazing amount of relief for many people. She explained that the therapy is based on the principle that all life has energy and sometimes the flow of energy through a person's body gets blocked, which often causes pain and discomfort.

Bridges, who calls herself a healing facilitator not a healer, helps people find their areas of blocked energy and release them. Sometimes that means helping a person release anxiety over an upcoming surgery or helping them heal after a trauma -- all with a caring touch and a little counseling.

"Whatever happens on the physical plain has its roots in the energetic plain," Bridges said.

But with a background in counseling, Bridges also likes to get people talking about why they're having a problem. Often their physical ailments can be linked to stresses in their lives.

And just as simple an act as touching a person can help them restore balance and harmony in their lives. Studies have proven that touch is important in human development. Infants thrive on it and people crave it even as adults, Bridges said.

"It's helping them let go of the anxiety of what's going on in their lives," she said.

Healing touch brings a sense of calmness to many people, Bridges said. It's like being able to feel them relax as their energy flow is restored.

Nothing Bridges does as a healing touch facilitator should override medical advice, she said. Healing touch is meant to be a complementary aid to overall health care, not a replacement, Bridges said.

A typical energy assessment can last between 60 and 90 minutes and can mean the difference between waves of nausea or limiting the side effects of chemotherapy treatment in cancer patients, Bridges said.

Flowing energy has a light, airy texture but bogged or block energy has different textures, she said. As she passes her hands over a client's body, Bridges can feel the different textures of their energy.

Chemotherapy, she said, "clings to your fingers like Missouri mud."

Some people seek her healing touch therapy as a last resort because they've found no relief otherwise.

"Some can't stand the pain any longer but a lot are just curious and most know that someone has to be able to help them."

But in actuality, Bridges is helping people help themselves. She doesn't bring any healing with her touch. She just opens the way for healing to occur, she said.

"The client is responsible for their own self healing," she said. "I help clear away the bogged down energy. I can reconnect the energy that's skewed from trauma but the body does it's own self healing."

ljohnston@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 126