Table 7.
Key Outcome Themes and Exemplary Quotations
| Outcome themes | Exemplary quotations |
|---|---|
| Reduced Pain Levels | • Subject 1 “Before [the study], pain seemed out of control . . . The [pain education] group helped me accept what's going on in my body. The study took it a step further. It changed my attitude . . . It [the treatment] made me understand more fully how I needed to take steps to help myself and that I could.” |
| • Subject 11 “I'm taking less pain medication.” | |
| • Subject 5 “[The treatment] helps me get beyond spasms to a quieter place.” | |
| Relaxation | • Subject 1 “I have a better grasp on what it means to relax.” |
| • Subject 4 “My body can relax! I've never been so relaxed.” | |
| Different Orientation Toward Oneself | • Subject 1 “I feel I can't change the physical part of me but I know I can have more mental/emotional control.” |
| • Subject 7 “I have definitely turned a corner and headed in a new direction. I've known for a long time I have to be responsible for my own healing. In my gut I've understood that but I really didn't get fully what it meant . . . I've figured out that I've never really trusted that I could heal myself . . . I've used bodywork so much, trying to get my muscles to unlock their secrets, and that was such hard work and this stuff just opened [me] . . .” | |
| • Subject 9 “I just felt bigger. I've been feeling very shrunk because I feel like I'm aging. Ability and sense of self shrunk—it [treatment] got me to walk a little taller, feel more like person I used to be.” | |
| • Subject 12 “[My husband] likes the new me . . . I feel like my old self. I've been in this pain/fog sleep for many years. It's [the treatment] helped tremendously. When I'm focused and centered my perception is more accepting of who I am.” | |
| Different Orientation Toward One's Life | • Subject 1 “I know there are things in my life I'm not going to get rid of, but I know I can do something to counteract this that isn't taking [pain] medications . . . Being in the study has made me more mindful – even when something happens to me, there are others who are worse off. It helped me get outside of myself.” |
| • Subject 5 “In the last 4 months I have become more social than I have been in the last 3 years . . . when you have a chronic illness . . . people don't know what to say anymore, so they shift away. I make an effort now to maintain contacts . . . These treatments and experiences have helped me bring light into places in my life where there was darkness . . . Some harmony has entered into this [my life], which I haven't experienced in years. I didn't realize that I'd lacked that sense of harmony.” | |
| • Subject 7 “I just turned 58. I have spent all my life, probably from the minute I came out, trying to please everybody else . . . .I've been so careful trying to have my body do all the things everybody else wanted it to do. So I've been like a puppeteer . . . . I don't think I've ever lived in my body before . . . It's a presence that's very different for me . . . .I get it. I just get it . . .” | |
| Quality of Transformation | • Subject 5 “Treatments were for me beyond just helping me have headaches lessened . . . It's been an absolutely phenomenal experience . . . like finding inner peace . . . helps me get beyond spasms to a quieter place. The pain is still there but it mutes the pain . . . This [study] has been an oasis for me. It's enabled me to use tools I learned at the [pain education] group. I knew about them [the tools], but until the energy work, I couldn't utilize them. I had a framework but it was wobbly. Energy work makes my framework strong.” |
| • Subject 6 “. . . something locked up inside of me. It's opening up. I had an abusive childhood. I've been told by a lot of doctors the pain was probably brought on by abuse as a child. I feel [the practitioner] was unlocking that . . . to relieve that hold on my body . . . so it can be at peace.” | |
| • Subject 7 “I feel the change is continuing, very much so. I still have the headache, but instead of 6,7,8,9 it's a 1,2,3 . . . .I caught myself responding to pain at a 3 level emotionally and behaviorally the same way I would have if it had been a 7, and I could see it. So I did a ritual and Healing Touch stuff. There are holdover pieces, maybe psychologically or spiritually that hang on a bit to being sickly. I don't know what it's about, but it's out there now, I can see it. I've known it was there, but it's been buried under being sick and now it's out and I can move on.” | |
| Optimism about the Future | • Subject 2 “I'm definitely optimistic about the future.” |
| • Subject 3 “Things feel really up in the air. I think about the future now—that's up in the air too.” | |
| • Subject 12 “The future looks very good.” | |
| • Subject 11 “I'm more hopeful in general . . . I'm more optimistic that this [pain] is not going to stay around for the rest of my life.” | |
| Metaphysical/Spiritual | • Subject 2 “Something was not right and [practitioner] has helped make it right . . . There's something other than physical that [the practitioner] worked on.” |
| • Subject 12 “I'm more spiritually aware, it relates to being centered. I feel closer to my guardian angels and God—it just brings me a little closer . . .” | |
| Psychologic Outcomes | • Subject 1 “. . . I can have more mental/emotional control.” |
| • Subject 12 “I'm not as depressed . . . more positive in thinking. I feel I can accomplish more . . . I'm just in higher spirits all the way around.” |