The essence of healing

Healing is a human experience of primary concern to nurses. Understanding the experience of healing can offer nurses insight and possibly new ways to support healing in others. Healing Touch is an energy based therapeutic modality used to promote healing. With Healing Touch as one path and phenomenology as a guide, the lived experience of healing was explored. After analysis of the data from taped interviews the essential structure of the experience of healing was determined. Many similarities were found with literature and previous studies. Healing is described as a process, requiring active participation and effort through which a person becomes more aware with a higher consciousness, a sense of self worth and a feeling of serenity and joy. From this process and the many suggested paths, a prescription for healing emerged