A Place for Reiki in a Music Therapy Practice

Reiki has been a part of my music therapy practice at UC Davis Children's Hospital since 1999. It provides another tool to use when a child is in pain. Before I learned Reiki, I made guided imagery tapes for children in chronic pain, and tried to coach them in relaxation techniques. However, patients with sickle cell anemia are frequently admitted in pain crises, which one described as "the feeling of ground glass flowing in my veins.'' Their pain is so severe that they cannot concentrate enough to listen to my voice or follow directions for progressive relaxation. Some of these patients have been prone to developing acute chest syndrome: "a pneumonia-like illness in sickle cell patients'' (Castro, Brambilla, & Thoring- ton, 1994). For these children, simply taking a deep breath causes intolerable pain. Reiki, by contrast, makes no demands on these patients. It has become a valuable adjunct to pediatric pain management at UC Davis Children's Hospital, especially for patients who experience objectionable side effects of traditional narcotics, which include hallucinations, constipation, severe itching, and increased anxiety (Schilling McCann, 2005).According to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), a branch of the National Institutes of Health, Reiki belongs to the realm of "biofield therapy.'' Biofields are defined as "areas of energy that expand past the corporal boundaries of living organisms'' (Jonas, 2005). Reiki is a Japanese healing technique in which a trained practitioner puts his/her hands on or near various body locations of a fully clothed person. Unlike massage therapy or other types of "body work,'' muscles are not manipulated or kneaded in Reiki. Instead, practitioners of this energy work believe that there is a universal energy that supports the body's ability to heal itself. We tap into this energy, which flows to the body and facilitates healing. "Reiki is believed to rebalance the biofield, thus strengthening the body's ability to heal and increasing systemic resistance to stress'' (Miles, 2003).The word Reiki is comprised of two Japanese words. Rei can be defined as universal wisdom, God, spiritual energy or ingeniousness. Ki means life force energy (Horan, 1998). This concept of life force energy is commonly understood in Eastern philosophies, but receives scant attention in Western medicine. Nonetheless, an interest in complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is growing among patient populations. In the 2007 National Health Interview Survey conducted by the NCCAM, approximately 38% of adults reported using alternative healthcare in the previous year (Barnes & Bloom, 2008). This study suggests that the use of complementary and alternative modes of treatment is no longer seen as marginalized, but becoming more a part of mainstream health care. Reiki, as part of CAM, offers an attractive option because it is both easy to learn and easy to implement in patient care.Basics of ReikiReiki is taught in three levels of hands-on, in-class training; it cannot be learned from a book or the Internet. A Level I practitioner is qualified to do self-care and to work on his/her family members and immediate circle of friends. Students in the Level II classes learn how to increase energy specific to the physical, emotional and mental realms, as well as how to send the energy across space and time. Level II practitioners are qualified to work on patients/clients. Level III provides more ways to increase the energy flow and promotes a practitioner to a teacher. Also called Reiki Masters, Level III practitioners are qualified to train others in Reiki. A time period of two or three months should separate each level of Reiki training to allow for the shift of energy that takes place, often unbeknownst to the trainee. Level III requires a much larger commitment of time and money; it can take several months to a year (or even longer) of apprenticeship to become a Reiki Master (Miles, 2008). …