This proposal aims to examine the short-term impact of energy healing versus mock healing for fatigued breast cancer survivors, and explore whether certain factors (i.e., holistic worldview and absorption) are associated with positive responses to treatment. Outcome measures include self-reports of fatigue, depression and quality of life as well as inflammatory immune (soluble intercellular adhesion molecule and interleukin-1 receptor antagonist) and hormonal (cortisol) markers that are associated with these psychological factors and bear clinical relevance for breast cancer. This is a crossover design in which 50 participants will receive three sessions of energy healing during a one week period, and three sessions of mock energy healing during a separate week period. It is hypothesized that treatment with energy healing will be associated with lower fatigue and improved psychological functioning, as well as decreases in inflammatory markers and increased cortisol variability. A secondary hypothesis is participants whose worldviews match the holistic principles of energy healing will report greater benefits from treatment than those with non-matching worldviews, and that this benefit will be greater for energy healing versus mock healing.
| Jain, Shamini; Pavlik, Desiree; Distefan, Janet et al. (2012) Complementary medicine for fatigue and cortisol variability in breast cancer survivors: a randomized controlled trial. Cancer 118:777-87 |
