Distance Healing of Patients With Major Depression

Results indicated a nonsignificant trend for experimental subjects to show greater improvement than control subjects in depression, general psychopathology, and overall subjective distress.

Abstract

The therapeutic effect of distance healing as an adjunct to stan- dard antidepressant medication was examined in a study using a randomized, double-blind, longitudinal design. Adult patients (N = 40) admitted to an in- patient psychiatric unit for major depression, aged 19-81 years, were ran- domly assigned to either an experimental or control group. All subjects re- ceived standard treatment for depression; in addition, experimental group subjects received distance healing daily for 6 weeks by volunteers trained in LeShan's meditation techniques. Outcome was measured weekly for 6 weeks and then biweekly for 6 more weeks, using the Hamilton Rating Scale for De- pression, Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale, Global Assessment of Function, and visual analog scale for depression. Results indicated a nonsignificant trend for experimental subjects to show greater improvement than control subjects in depression, general psychopathology, and overall subjective distress. Among experimental subjects, favorable outcomes were significantly corre- lated with number of healing sessions received and with healers' ratings of the strength of the healing sessions.