The primary aim of this ‘mixed-methods, feasibility pilot study’ was to evaluate the feasibility of providing Reiki at a behavioral health clinic serving a low-income population. The secondary aim was to evaluate outcomes in terms of patients’ symptoms, emotions, and feelings before and after Reiki.
The study followed a pre-post experimental design. Reiki was offered to adult outpatients at a community behavioral health center in Rochester, Minnesota. Patients with a stable mental health diagnosis completed surveys before and after the Reiki intervention and provided qualitative feedback. Patients were asked to report their ratings of:
- pain,
- anxiety,
- fatigue,
- feelings (eg, happy, calm)
on 0- to 10-point numeric rating scales. Data were analyzed with Wilcoxon signed rank tests.
Among 91 patients who completed a Reiki session during the study period, 74 (81%) were women. Major depressive disorder (71%), posttraumatic stress disorder (47%), and generalized anxiety disorder (43%) were the most common diagnoses. The study was feasible in terms of recruitment, retention, data quality, acceptability, and fidelity of the intervention. Patient ratings of pain, fatigue, anxiety, stress, sadness, and agitation were significantly lower, and ratings of happiness, energy levels, relaxation, and calmness were significantly higher after a single Reiki session.
The authors concluded that the results of this study suggest that Reiki is feasible and could be fit into the flow of clinical care in an outpatient behavioral health clinic. It improved positive emotions and feelings and decreased negative measures. Implementing Reiki in clinical practice should be further explored to improve mental health and well-being.
One might have expected better science from the Mayo Clinic, Rochester; in fact, this is not science at all; it’s pure pseudo-science! Here are some critical remarks:
- What on earth is a ‘mixed-method, feasibility, pilot study’? A hallmark of pseudo-researchers seems to be that they think they can invent their own terminology.
- There is no objective, validated outcome measure.
- The conclusion that ‘Reiki is feasible‘ has been known and does not need to be tested any longer.
- The conclusion that ‘Reiki improved positive emotions and feelings and decreased negative measures’ is false. As there was no control group, these improvements might have been caused by a whole lot of other things than Reiki – for instance, the extra attention, placebo effects, regression towards the mean or social desirability.
- The conclusion that ‘implementing Reiki in clinical practice should be further explored to improve mental health and well-being’ is therefore not based on the data provided. In fact, as Reiki is an implausible esoteric nonsense, it is a promotion of wasting resources on utter BS.
Does it matter?
Why not let pseudo-scientists do what they do best: PSEUDO-SCIENCE?
I think it matters because:
- Respectable institutions like the Mayo Clinic should not allow its reputation being destroyed by quackery.
- The public should not be misled by charlatans.
- Patients suffering from mental health problems deserve better.
- Resources should not be wasted on pseudo-research.
- ‘Academic journals like ‘Glob Adv Integr Med Health’ have a responsibility for what they publish.
- ‘The ‘Academic Consortium for Integrative Medicine & Health‘ that seems to be behind this particular journal claim to be “the world’s most comprehensive community for advancing the practice of whole health, with leading expertise in research, clinical care, and education. By consolidating the top institutions in the integrative medicine space, all working in unison with a common goal, the Academic Consortium is the premier organizational home for champions of whole health. Together with over 86 highly esteemed member institutions from the U.S., Australia, Brazil, Canada and Mexico, our collective vision is to transform the healthcare system by promoting integrative medicine and health for all.” In view of the above, such statements are a mockery of the truth.
4 Responses to Effect of Reiki in Patients with Mental Health Diagnoses – PURE PSEUDO-SCIENCE FROM THE MAYO CLINIC!
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I am very concerned that the energies generated by Reiki therapists could be slightly misplaced and have malign effects on their patients.
Given Reiki therapists at grade II can transmit their energies over international distances, how do we know they are not the cause of the COVID outbreaks?
Or any other disease?
I repeat: How do we know?
Unless of course the therapists ‘fess up’ and admit they are unable to produce any energies whatsoever.
We must be told.
The Mayo must tell us.
And can we please see a copy of the approval the Mayo’s Ethics committee gave to this project?
Is Mayonaise a variety of malaise itself?
Not to worry, I devised a procedure to turn any negative energy into positive energy. This is done by administering a wasabi enema concurrently with the reiki treatment, in essence creating a so-called rectumfire. This works particularly well in cases of fatigue, lethargy and listlessness.
Reiki practitioners can license my procedure for the bargain price of just $100 per treatment.
Academic Consortium for Integrative Medicine & Health, Member Listing includes Mayo Clinic, Minnesota.
One of the authors of the ‘study’ is Brent A. Bauer, MD, Mayo Clinic.
https://www.mayo.edu/research/faculty/bauer-brent-a-m-d/bio-00077560
Dr. Bauer featured in:
Uff Da! The Mayo Clinic Shills for Snake Oil
Kimball Atwood, Science-Based Medicine, 2010‑10‑15.
Ouch! That paper is just baaaaaaad!
If I’d turned in something like that as a science under-grad, I would have had my head handed to me in a basket by an annoyed tutor, who would, correctly, have assumed that I had not paid the remotest bit of attention to anything.
Equally, in my professional MH life, if I’d tried any BS like that I owuld have been up before my professional regulator and slapped around the head with a load of NICE guidelines and my professional code of conduct.
I tought the Mayo Clinic had a hint of credibility: looks like I was wrong.