Research can confirm clinical observations and intuitive impressions, and can reveal patterns that are present but unseen.

Dr Benor, author of Healing Research, Volumes I-IV, has an encyclopedic knowledge of research methodologies for healing studies and published research in each of these categories

Basic descriptions of these research methods and reports are taken from Healing Research, Volume I, 2001

Discussion of each of the above approaches is linked to a bibliography of published healing studies of that category.

Consultations for research

Above are basic descriptions and suggestions for designing studies and writing up research reports.
  I strongly caution anyone who is approaching such studies to plan very carefully prior to starting a research project. It is painfully easy, even for scientists well-versed in research to overlook critical issues and elements that could fatally flaw an energy medicine or healing study. A basic example: If subjects are not properly randomized into treatment and control groups according to accepted scientific methods, there may remain questions at the end of the study regarding the validity of the results. Numerous studies reviewed in Healing Research have such flaws.
  I am available for consultation on designing and reporting research studies on spiritual healing and integrative care.

Click HERE regarding consultation for designing studies.

Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs)

    Scientists are cautious against making a Type I research error, of accepting as valid a therapy that is not truly effective.
    We know that therapies may be effective because patients and doctors expect they will work rather than because they are intrinsically beneficial. This is called the placebo effect. Roughly 30% of patients will show some symptomatic improvement with any treatment whatsoever, in almost any illness. This appears to be the result of psychological expectations combined with people's self-healing capacities.
    Many medical practitioners have regarded placebo responses as something of a nuisance, feeling that they interfere in efforts to determine the effects of what conventional medicine considers real therapeutic interventions, particularly with medications.
    To guard against Type I research errors, researchers have devised the randomized, double-blind, controlled trial (RCT). Before being accepted as a legitimate therapy, a treatment modality (drug, surgical procedure, psychotherapeutic method, complementary therapy) must pass stringent RCTs. A group of patients with the same diagnosis and severity of illness is randomly divided into sub-groups. One of the subgroups is given the therapy under study, a second group is given a known placebo (such as a sugar pill). Another group may be given a therapy of proven intrinsic value (a medication, massage, etc.). The groups receiving comparison treatments are called control groups.
    Therapists, researchers and subjects in the study are kept blind to which therapy (experimental, placebo, or intervention of known value) is being given to any one subject. This minimizes the effects of suggestion that might bias subjects to feel better or worse according to the beliefs of the therapists or researchers, and according to the subjects' own expectations of improvement with a given therapy. Assessments of symptomatic change, for better or worse, are also made by diagnosticians who are blind to the particular therapy being given, for similar reasons.
    Therapies are given within a standard protocol that is determined prior to the start of the study so that subjects within treatment groups receive similar doses and durations of interventions. This assures that the treatments under study are of known quality and quantity, and allows other researchers to replicate the experiment under a similar protocol.
    Statistical analyses are calculated for the results. These provide estimates of the possibility that the results of the RCT might have occurred by chance. It is commonly accepted that a treatment must demonstrate itself effective beyond the statistical probability of five times in a hundred (abbreviated as p less than .05, or p < .05) if it is to be accepted as a valid finding rather than a chance occurrence. Naturally, if the results could occur by pure chance less than one time in a hundred (p < .01) or one time in a thousand (p < .001), and so on, they are that much more impressive.

The aim of science is not to open the door to infinite wisdom, but to set a limit to infinite error.                                             Bertolt Brecht (1939)

    At the end of the study subjects in the various groups are checked to see that there were no differences between groups in any clinically important variables. Otherwise there might be one group that had subjects with more severe symptoms than another group, and these differences could have biased the results between groups in response to the therapies that each received. For instance, if one group had a lot of younger subjects, they might have had more resilience and could have recovered from whatever condition they had than the older group. The initial randomization of subjects into the various groups is meant to guard against this possibility. By assigning subjects randomly to each group it is statistically likely that equal numbers of subjects with any given condition or symptom will be assigned to each group, and that therefore the groups will be equivalent at the start of the study.
    In some studies the same subjects are consecutively given active treatments and placebos, also under double-blind conditions. Subjects thereby serve as their own control group, minimizing differences that could occur between groups on the basis of the assignment of different subjects to treatment and control groups.
    The difficulty with this approach is that there may be effects of a treatment that carry over from one period of intervention to the next, thereby confounding the picture.
    Despite the best efforts of scientists to establish a research protocol to protect against Type I research errors, it is still possible that errors might occur. There could be confounding differences between groups that are present but not identified and that bias the responses of some or all of the subjects for better or worse, ending up misleading researchers into believing that an effect of therapy was observed or not, when it really was due to unequal distribution of symptom severity or other factors between groups.
    If such an error led to the rejection of a therapy as being ineffective when it is actually a potent intervention, it would be classed as a Type II research error, of rejecting as false something that is actually true. The tendency in conventional medicine is to err in the direction of caution, and not to accept new therapies until there is a convincing body of evidence to minimize Type I research errors.
    Even outside of any consideration of complementary therapies such as spiritual healing, many are questioning the validity of relying so heavily on controlled studies. They point out that the focus in RCTs is too narrow, and leads too readily to Type II errors.
    At the next level you will find a list of Randomized, Controlled Studies of spiritual healing.
    An annotated review and discussion of all the studies I could locate up to March, 2000, is presented in Healing Research, Volume I.
    For those interested in designing a randomized controlled study, there is a generic outline for a RCT of healing. While this may appear simple and straight-forward, there are many ways in which confounding factors can influence such a study. Consultation in designing studies and in reporting them is strongly advised.

Click here for list of randomized controlled studies
 

    When a series of studies has been done, it is possible to analyze the statistical probabilities of the collective findings.
   
Click here for published meta-analyses

Qualitative studies

    Qualitative research is a method that has been developed to bring details of individual responses into a format that gives some measure of the richness of detailed case study while still guarding against Type I errors (accepting as true something that is actually false) due to individual variability.
    Small numbers of people with a common problem are given a particular therapy and their reports are analyzed in great individual detail. Analyses of these details also provide a basis for building theories as to how a therapy may work to make a person better.

Click here for published qualitative studies of healing

Click here for basic design for a qualitative study

Surveys of healees' satisfaction with spiritual healing treatments

    Surveys provide yet another avenue for assessing benefits of therapies. The medical profession tends to rate these as being of lesser value, due to the belief that self-assessments will be riddled with Type I errors. Surveys are thus frequently dismissed as "purely subjective evidence."
    Yet it is the consumers of the therapies who are increasingly voting with their feet and dollars for the therapies that they find helpful to themselves, and increasing numbers of people are choosing complementary therapies such as spiritual healing.
    The range of satisfaction in the surveys of healee responses to spiritual healing is between 79 and 91 percent. This is substantially greater than would be expected from most placebo responses, where improvements are generally in the range of 30 percent.
  
Click here for published surveys of healees' satisfaction with healing

Click here for basic design for a survey study

    Clinical reports by therapists summarizing treatment of individuals or of a series of patients is basic to sorting out which therapies are of benefit and to understanding how they work.
    The difficulty in accepting any individual person's positive response to a treatment as evidence for the efficacy of that treatment are legion. Possible confounding variables that may have contributed to an individual's improvement include: spontaneous waning of symptoms in the normal course of the illness; constitutional or psychological strengths of that particular person that may exceed the average ability to cope with the illness; unknown confounding variables of diet, activity, or other therapeutic interventions; changes in psychological stresses or in social support; and so on.
    Yet it is on the basis of anecdotal evidence that initial observations are made that suggest that a new therapy may be helpful.
    Anecdotal reports are also essential to appreciating the qualitative aspects of responses to treatment. In addition, anecdotal reports are usually rich in details of a personal nature -- details that tend to be lost when the responses of large numbers of people are statistically analyzed.
    Objectivity in observations and reporting are important in sharing results of any treatment. Because it is impossible to be totally objective, it is essential that researchers and clinicians state their beliefs about the subject they are studying so that readers can make whatever adjustments in their judgements necessary to their own beliefs in assessing the value, validity, and relevance of the reports.

Click here for recommended clinical observations about healers

Click here for discussion of design for observational studies

Clinical observations of healers themselves

    Healers' reports of what they do and how they do it are absoluetly essential to understanding healing. However closely scientists might scrutinize healers, there is no way they can fully appreciate the subjective experiences of being a healer.
    A major difficulty with wanting to understand healers, however, is the altered states of consciousness that appear to be an integral part of heling. While being in a healing state of mind it is difficult if not impossible to describe what is occurring. Describing requires a linear, mental focus on language and analysis, while healing is a holistic, intuitive, synthesizing state.
    A personal example might be helpful. I was once invited by a scientist to explore whether my hands emitted energy in the range of ultraviolet light while giving healing. I was placed in the darkest room I had ever been in, and told to give healing to a highly sensitive light-measuring instrument. This was a challenge in and of itself, as I had never given healing to an electronic device. Then they announced, "Okay, we're seeing something on our instrument. Tell us what you're doing. " Well, as soon as I started to even think about what I was doing, I could no longer be doing it.
    There is a broad, rich literatuer of healer descriptions of their healings and their understandings of how healing works. You will find a selected sample in Healing Research, Volume I.
    The difficulty with healer descriptions is that they are highly subjective and often differ from one healer to the next. At times it seems as though they may even be describing totally different experiences. This makes it a challenge to understand healing.

Click here for a listing of healer observations on healing

Click here for discussion of design of observational studies

Shamanism

    Shamans are spiritual leaders, healers, and counselors in found in every known culture. Most are naturally gifted, study for many years as apprectices, and undergo rigorous training. As indigenous cultures become westernized, much of their shamanic lore is lost. We have a lot to learn from these spiritual healers.

Click here for anecdotal and qualitative reports of shamanic healing and healers

Healers participating in research

    Healers wishing to participate in research should realize that research is a slow and methodical process of gathering observations. Research requires detailed formats for investigation, meticulously designed to limit extraneous influences on the subject(s) under investigation.
    The investigators determine the variables they will study and will require of healers that they adhere to standardized protocols for giving healing. In some cases they will allow healers to give healing in the manner in which they are accustomed to treat people in their practices. In other studies they may limit the healing treatments in various ways, such as allowing only a certain number of minutes for the healing intervention, asking that only healing be given and that no conversation should be offered beyond the civilities of social introductions. While these restrictions may alter the normal healing interaction, they are intended to limit (to the extent possible) the extraneous factors of healer expectations and suggestions. Many skeptics believe that healing is no more than a placebo - i.e.that the healees' expectations of getting better induce improvements rather than any spiritual healing effects. By limiting factors other than spiritual healing in the research interventions, researchers hope to limit the placebo factors of suggestion. However, this approach may make it awkward or difficult for healers to demonstrate the full spectrum of their abilities.
    Other investigators will encourage healers to use their usual approaches, but will require detailed descriptions of what the healers do, how they do it, and what they believe they are doing. This approach encourages healers to give their maximal effort and treatment, but leaves the study open to questions about placebo effects. Careful research design can accommodate for much of this.
    Healers are encouraged to discuss the research protocol with researchers. Some researchers are not fully familiar with spiritual healing and may not appreciate the importance of factors that healers consider essential to treatment.
    My recommendation is that healing research should be a collaborative endeavor, taking into account the views and needs of all participants. To maximize possibility of confirming spiritual healing effects, researchers would design the study to accommodate to the usual practices of the healers. Otherwise, there is a likelihood of limiting the treatment and missing possibly helpful healing effects. To tease out what components of interventions are due to spiritual healing vs suggestion, expectations, and other variables, studies will limit the format of the spiritual healing intervention.

Healees participating in research

    Informed consent is necessary for formal research. Healees must be given the choice of participating or not, based on full information of what the treatment options and interventions will be.
    In "blinded" studies, ealees may be asked to sign a conditional agreement, indicating that they will participate in the study but that they may or may not receive the treatment(s) under study and agreeing that they will not be told until the end of the study which treatment group they were in.
    In some prayer studies, no informed consent has been required because the perception of the institutional review board was that no direct, observable or measurable intervention is used. Many healers will not send distant healing or prayer without the consent of the healee. This is an ethical issue requiring further discussion and agreement among healers, healees, researchers, and administrative authorities.
    Healees must be given the option to withdraw from the study at any time they choose.
    Healees are usually informed at the end of the study about the results of the study.

See excellent discussion on the National Institutes of Health website on people participating in cancer studies.
http://cancertrials.nci.nih.gov/understanding/bookshelf/index.html