By Jack Challem

Physician Kenna Stephenson used to be skeptical about Bio-Touch, a type of energy therapy. Until, that is, the day she had a head-splitting migraine on top of a full patient schedule. A volunteer at the clinic where she worked, in Tucson, gave her a brief Bio-Touch session, using two fingertips to lightly touch and stroke various points on her head and body. Within seconds Stephenson’s headache vanished—and she became a believer.

“I’m convinced the effect is more than psychological,” says Stephenson, an associate professor at the University of Texas at Tyler, who now uses it in her medical practice. The technique involves a butterfly-light touch with the index and middle fingers. Each session begins with two touches, one just below the breastbone and the other just left of the back of the neck.

From here, the practitioner touches the back, stomach, and other areas in patterns that, while dependent on the patient’s health concerns, don’t necessarily correspond to acupuncture meridians or the pressure points of any other touch system. She says that many of her patients want nondrug therapies to reduce pain and to help speed healing, and Bio-Touch fits the bill.

Since Bio-Touch emerged a little more than 20 years ago, the technique has quietly gained adherents around the world. At its hub is the International Foundation of Bio-Magnetics (IFBM) in Tucson, Arizona; trained practitioners can be found in many of the 50 states, as well as in Canada, Japan, Egypt, Denmark, and Brazil.

The story behind Bio-Touch makes it easy to see why Stephenson was skeptical. It was founded almost completely by accident by the late Norman Cochran, a chain-smoking mining engineer who lived in Mancos, Colorado. As the story goes, one day he encountered a woman who was pregnant, hemorrhaging, and about to miscarry. Cochran, for reasons he could never explain, asked if he could touch her, and she said yes. Cochran touched her lightly with his fingertips, the hemorrhaging stopped, and she was able to carry her baby to term. Cochran was as surprised as anyone, and word soon got around that he had healing powers.

He developed a pattern of touch based on trial and error, and eventually a loosely knit group of practitioners was formed. Today, IFBM is an all-volunteer nonprofit that trains people free of charge. “It’s an option that helps low-income, uninsured patients with musculoskeletal pain or stress-related disorders,” says Stephenson.

One of Stephenson’s patients had undergone several operations for chronic pain and had just applied for disability insurance when she joined one of Stephenson’s Bio-Touch studies. The woman improved so much that she withdrew her application for disability and soon felt strong enough to build a fence on her ranch.

Bio-Touch is different from energy therapies like reiki and therapeutic touch, says Stephenson, because it’s easy to teach and replicate, which makes it easier to study. And she has documented some of the benefits in several small studies.

In one, of 18 healthy postmenopausal women ages 62 to 84, half received Bio-Touch sessions once a week for four weeks, and the others did not. By the end, Bio-Touch had led to significant increases in interleukin-12, an immune system molecule known to increase resistance to infection and cancer. (No changes occurred in the untreated group.) Stephenson is currently writing up the results ... [continue to next page]