What Will It Take to Integrate Energy/Biofield Healing Into Healthcare?

How much science is there behind energy/biofield healing and what will it take to integrate these therapies into healthcare?

That question was the impetus for a systems mapping work day organized by our partner organization Consciousness and Healing Initiative (CHI). IONS Director of Research Helané Wahbeh met with other CHI stakeholders to identify the current state of resources and pain points within domains, explore optimal synergies between domains, and helped envision a more creative, efficient network within which healing potential can be maximized. This meeting was the culmination of a year-long systems analysis of the science and practice of subtle energy and biofield healing — using the energy in and around the body to facilitate healing.

The result is a comprehensive report titled Subtle Energy and Biofield Healing: Evidence, Practice and Future Directions that synthesizes key perspectives and data across scientists, healing practitioners, policy advocates, technologists and more, and provides suggested directions for systems change in healing. This report is a groundbreaking unification of our understanding of subtle energy and biofield healing, bringing together in one place the latest research, practice, and technology in biofield healing.

Key discoveries:

• There is an estimated subtle energy healing market of $2 billion in revenue which involves millions of practitioners and patients.
• There are more than 250 subtle energy technologies currently being marketed with very little evidence.
• There are over 400 subtle energy researchers worldwide, and over 6000 peer-reviewed scientific publications in biofield healing

The report is an excellent resource for anyone wanting to learn the state of the biofield arena! Those unfamiliar with biofield healing will understand the “there there” behind these practices. Practitioners can reference it to share the science and global movement behind them. Researchers can use it as a starting point to design the most relevant and needed research studies. The report includes public databases, maps, and infographics on biofield communities, research, and technologies. It also defines — for the first time — a roadmap for systems-based, collaborative action through research, education, technology development, practitioner empowerment, and integration of validated subtle energy healing techniques to the modern health world to help alleviate suffering worldwide.

IONS is so very proud to have been a part of this amazing project! Click here to access the report, databases, infographics, and more.