Healing Touch and Therapeutic Touch in the Psychiatric Setting: Implications for the Advanced Practice Nurse‪.‬

Introduction As patients have become more aware of the benefits of integrative therapies, many have incorporated such treatment modalities into their everyday lives. According to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), integrative medicine "... combines mainstream medical therapies and [complementary and alternative medicine] therapies for which there is some high-quality scientific evidence of safety and effectiveness ..." (NCAAM, 2002, para. 6). Though these therapies have typically been withheld from psychiatric and mental health arenas, they are slowly establishing their beneficence in such areas.