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Reiki is a pleasant, simple, and safe complementary therapy for stress relief, relaxation, as well as to promote general healing. Unlike massage therapy, reiki is not based on hand movements or pressure, and does not require the removal of any of the patient's clothing. It involves nothing more than the placing of the practitioner's hands upon the patient in a quiet, gentle, and passive manner. During a treatment, the practitioner's hand positioning need only be changed infrequently, or sometimes not at all. The overall duration of a reiki treatment typically runs to between 30 minutes and one hour.
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Reiki is reported to give rise to a deep state of relaxation for both patients and practitioners, thereby helping to balance our bodily systems, restore depleted energies, and promote healing on all levels - physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. Patients and practitioners often report subjective heat sensations from reiki, experienced as if these were emanating through the practitioner's hands, and described by patients as providing for them a pleasant feeling of warmth. In palliative care, reiki is becoming a common support treatment for patients, as well as their carers, to provide rest and relaxation, reduced side-effects and increased benefits from other treatments, and for many patients also a significant amellioration in their level of chronic pain.
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While the principles of reiki are believed to date back for thousands of years, its modern practice is attributed to Dr Mikao Usui of early 20th Century Japan. The name reiki which he conceived is a composite of two Japanese words, rei meaning "higher spirit" and ki meaning "life energy". Dr Usui also suggested that reiki may lead to best outcomes for those who may be able to approach it with self-responsibility and a positive commitment to their life at this moment. Although reiki is often described as a spiritual practice, it is not dependent on religious or other beliefs, nor based on our developing an intellectual concept of what it might be or do.
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As part of our home support to patients and their carers, most Melbourne Zen Hospice volunteers have been trained as reiki practitioners, and will be happy to provide regular reiki treatments free of charge to our patients and/or their carers. Please let us know if you decide you would like to try a reiki treatment. "Just for today, do not anger or worry, and be filled with gratitude ..."
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