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When Touch Works Wonders

Dec 26, 2012 ● By Megy Karydes

Marcia Bregman

A mother’s healing touch can seemingly work miracles when her child accidentally falls. “It’s a natural reaction for her to use the palm of her hand to brush away the pain,” relates Marcia Bregman, a certified practitioner of the Healing Touch energy therapy.

Healing Touch is a modality that teaches us to take something we automatically do to use touch for healing someone on a more conscious level. Unlike the Japanese-based Reiki, which includes more predetermined hand movement techniques, Healing Touch is an energy therapy in which practitioners consciously and intuitively use their hands in an intentional, knowing way.

Thanks to Janet Mentgen, who developed the Healing Touch method during her nursing career, the modality now offers certification to students that practice it worldwide. Bregman offers her services either at one’s home or in her Highland Park in-home studio. She also volunteers her services extensively at hospitals and the Cancer Wellness Center, in Northbrook, which offers free counseling and wellness services to patients and families undergoing cancer treatment.

“Healing Touch is helpful to many clients who are feeling pain or discomfort, but it’s most helpful right after the body experiences trauma,” says Bregman. “For patients who have just had surgery or were involved in an accident, Healing Touch can help calm them down, reduce their pain and stress and help in their recover period.”

Healing Touch is administered while a client lies fully clothed on a bed or massage table. The practitioner uses their hands to assess the affected area (or biofield) and proceeds to clear and balance it as needed, using either off-body touch or gentle touch.

A former nurse and home health practitioner, Bregman is accustomed to working with healthcare professionals and patients, and feels Healing Touch is a great way to help people feel better physically, emotionally, spiritually and mentally. “Really, it helps in all spectrums,” she says.

Although Healing Touch courses are open to anyone with an interest in learning about healing work, the modality is popular among nurses, massage therapists, body therapists, counselors, psychotherapists, physicians and other allied healthcare professionals that often work directly with patients.


To learn more about Healing Touch, visit HealingTouchInternational.org. To contact Marcia Bregman, call 847-831-3680.