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Associate Wellness through an Energetic Approach: Healing Touch in the Workplace by Sister Rita Jean DuBrey, CSJ

Congratulations to Sister Rita Jean DuBrey who has an article published in the May/June issue of Energy Magazine. The article, entitled “Associate Wellness through an Energetic Approach: Healing Touch in the Workplace” is included below for your reading enjoyment! Sister Rita Jean is the director of the Complementary Therapies Program at St. Mary’s Healthcare, Amsterdam.

Associate Wellness through an Energetic Approach: Healing Touch in the Workplace
by Sister Rita Jean DuBrey

The program was implemented in February, 2014 at St. Mary’s Healthcare, Amsterdam, New York, a member of Ascension Health, the largest not-for-profit Catholic healthcare network in the world. As stated in our Philosophy, ”the facility from is committed to the achievement of excellence in the field of healthcare.” Further, “because all people are created in the image of God, St. Mary’s Healthcare holds a deep and profound respect for all who enter our care. Everyone associated with St. Mary’s participates in its healing ministry, which involves bodily and spiritual healing as well as the healing of relationships and emotions in all stages of life from conception to death.”1

As a Healing Touch Certified Practitioner (1996) and a Healing Touch Certified Instructor (1997), I have observed the growth of Healing Touch in our hospital, which is certainly in keeping with our Philosophy. Patients and family members have experienced the positive benefits of Healing Touch through the generous service of our Healing Touch volunteers. It has been a privilege to work with these volunteers who provide Healing Touch throughout the hospital and to residents in our Skilled Nursing Facility. In addition, since 1999, volunteers and I have offered Healing Touch to hundreds of women with breast cancer in our Healing Touch Buddies Program.

In October 2013, a Nurse Manager, recognizing the stress among her staff, met with me to request that Healing Touch be offered to her staff. I responded immediately by contacting our Healing Touch volunteers who proceeded to provide 15-minute Healing Touch treatments to her staff in October and December. The response from the associates who received treatments was positive and resulted in an invitation from the Nurse Manager to provide Healing Touch treatments, monthly, for her staff.

While associates have been the recipients of Healing Touch, sporadically for many years, it seemed important to name the program with the intention of increasing visibility and organization. Thus, Associate Wellness Through An Energetic Approach: Healing Touch in the Workplace became a reality.

Click HERE to read the article. (We are grateful to Margaret Nies, editor of EnergyMagazineOnline for permission. )