Therapeutic Touch was developed by Dolores Drieger, PhD and Dora Van Gelder. In the summer of 1972 they began to teach their techniques to a group of graduated student nurses. Therapeutic Touch is a natural human potential and is available to anyone who chooses to learn and develop the skill. It is an exchange of “life force” energies intentionally directed between two individuals involving the body, mind, and spirit. It is an ancient healing practice that is scientifically-based on the premise that the human body is a complex energy field. The human energy field is governed by pattern and order. In health, the field is balanced, in disease the energy field is in not in balance. Therapeutic Touch restores an unbalanced energy field helping to promote healing. The practitioner re-distributes the energy around the body. Ultimately it is the individuals who heal themselves when their recuperated system can take over. There are over two dozen doctoral dissertations, dozens of master’s theses, and many other studies which have been funded by the National Institutes of Health to support the medical use of Therapeutic Touch.