Disturbed Energy Field? Yes or No?

talaxandra · Jun 10, 2009

Only woodenpug knows if he was being sarky, and I have to admit that I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt, particularly as I've been misinterpreted on other occasions. Face to face communication would be impossible on an allnurses scale but at least it would be less ambiguous :)It's hard when one feels strongly about something not to see opposition to it as dismissive, ignorant, provocative or antagonistic. I congratulate you on maintaining some distance, and try to do the same when countered. I have no doubt you're right that a prayer thread wouldn't be subjected to any criticism here, at least not on the grounds of provability of the existence of God - there have been heated discussions about prayer and patients, though. If you're interested in seeing prayer and faith being as hotly debated as this topic is here, check out beliefnet.com - the flame wars there can get really firey!

allnurses Guide · Jun 10, 2009

It just feels like no one would have taken the same tone if this were a thread about prayer - and there's no functional difference for someone with my worldview. I didn't intend to claim I had empirical evidence, and frankly I'm not sure any responsible and thoughtful person would give the community responsible for everything from botox to the atomic bomb a starting point towards exploiting this particular force of nature. I'm not sure exactly what proportion of medical advancements were weaponized before they were turned into therapy, but it's uncomfortably high.

What does this mean? What community are you talking about? If it's Western science, are you painting with the broad brush people like Salk, the Curies, DeBakey, and on and on? If a weapon is developed based on the science of others are they also to blame? If some bad guy develops the mutant monster from hell is it the fault of Watson and Crick?

No one needs to "give" anyone else their capacity for spirituality. It's not conferred from any group whether they are thoughtful and responsible or not.

Anyways, there are threads about prayer. The focus of this thread was questioning whether or not a nursing diagnosis of "Disturbed Energy Field" is appropriate. Please don't think I am in any way ridiculing your experiences. I think it would be kind and generous of you to use the gifts you have to help your patients. If I knew, for example that a nurse was focusing on me bathed in a white light or something like that, I would be grateful.

Woodenpug, BSN · Jun 10, 2009

I am sorry if my post seemed sarcastic or patronizing. I was attempting to be polite and succinct.

I am fairly convinced that energy fields, as described by the NANDA diagnosis, do not exist, but I sincerely would like to be wrong on this.

I would not want to offend someone who could help me.

zenman · Jun 11, 2009

Woodenpug said:
I am sorry if my post seemed sarcastic or patronizing. I was attempting to be polite and succinct.
I am fairly convinced that energy fields, as described by the NANDA diagnosis, do not exist, but I sincerely would like to be wrong on this.
I would not want to offend someone who could help me.

Sit in the middle of say, a gym floor with your eyes covered and ear plugs in. Have someone sneak up on you from all directions and whack you with a bamboo pole. After about an hour you'll feel their "energy field" approaching and be able to avoid their whack. :yeah:

Woodenpug, BSN · Jun 11, 2009

LOL. But it is along the right lines. I would have proof that I can accept even if scientific proof is not possible. The zenman approach could lead to an acceptable scientific experiment as I consistently avoided that pole.

I've emailed several therapeutic touch practictioners. This was a couple years ago. I just explained that I'm a nurse and would need some type of recognition for their work. From a list of about 10, I got one reply. That reply was from someone who said he did not have any outside recognition, but he was sure his teacher did. His teacher was on my original list, so I sent him another email. No reply.

Therapeutic touch works as long as you pay for my thirty hour course and thirty hour fellowiship. Oh, and as long as you don't look too closely or expect any type of results other than my word that it worked.

I would still like to see this be a real thing. I would give it a fair chance.

zenman · Jun 14, 2009

This was so funny. My wife had her last day at her old school June 11th. All the principals and superintendant were telling a little about each teacher that was not returning next year. The high school principal got up and one of her comments was that, "I had this really bad headache and Karen did something around my head and it went away." I almost burst out laughing!

Karen doesn't practice any recognized modality as she doesn't like any "rules and protocols." However, she can make you feel a good buzz.

hypocaffeinemia, BSN, RN · Jun 14, 2009

zenman said:
Sit in the middle of say, a gym floor with your eyes covered and ear plugs in. Have someone sneak up on you from all directions and whack you with a bamboo pole. After about an hour you'll feel their "energy field" approaching and be able to avoid their whack.

What type of energy is their energy field consisting of, pray tell?

In the scenario you highlight I dare say what is really happening is an increased sensitivity in your non aural/visual senses. Sense of touch, especially, if focused on, can pick up minute changes in surrounding by the effects of air on hairs. Olfactory changes are also able to be detected. Interestingly enough, many animals use exactly this. Mammalian whiskers and insect antennae are examples off the top of my head.

In addition, considering humans typically are warmer than room temperature, it is possible to detect an increase in infrared energy radiation from the person along with ambient temperature increase from air convection. I'd imagine removing our two most-used senses helps one focus on this phenomena. Infrared, being a type of electromagnetic energy, follows the inverse-square law and therefore it especially is quite useful to gauge distance from its source.

Purely speculative, here, but I'll wager we are sensitive enough to pick up on minute ground vibrations of someone sneaking in on us, too, if we try hard to.

No energy fields or god of the gaps (same principle) required. ?

allnurses Guide · Jun 15, 2009

Zenman, sounds like your wife got a great send-off! Your description of a heightened sense in the stick-whack scenario is interesting. In general, it's likely true that we often respond to things outside the traditional five senses. The stick-whack scenario, for example added fear to the mix and what physiological changes occur as a result of that. Very fascinating.

Whether or not energy fields are measured, codified and standardized, I will not take the attitude that "if I can't see it, it doesn't exist." Too many weird anecdotal things have happened to me to make such a statement. I am very interested in hearing about how "intuition", for lack of a better word, is experienced by health care workers. We're not supposed to use intuition formally, but probably most of us have had unspecified "feelings" about a patient's prognosis or diagnosis that they can't explain.

If you and your wife are planning to travel this summer, have fun and I'm jealous:)

talaxandra · Jun 16, 2009

Experienced clinicians aren't aware of all the assessments they do unless something's off. For example, except when I'm doing the shift check I'm not aware that I check the O2 + suction equipment when I walk in a patient's room but I notice if it's missing. I don't realise that I automatically glance in every patient's room as I walk down the corridor, unless I see a patient on the floor, half over the bed or in distress.

I agree that many nurses have a 'gut' feeling that something's wrong with a patient, which we often attribute to intuition. I'm comfortable calling for a patient to be reviewed because they don't look right, even if they're fine on paper, and I'm happy to call that intuition.

However, I think it's actually a combination of experience and unnoticed observation - on a subconscious level I'm comparing this patient to the thousands of others I've cared for, while noting subtle indicators that I don't even notice I'm noticing, rather than anything metaphysical.

Maybe it's coincidence but I've noticed it's those nurses who have been working a while, have varied experience, or are particularly on the ball that most often get a gut feeling or intuition about a patient heading south.

zenman · Jun 18, 2009

hypocaffeinemia said:
No energy fields or god of the gaps (same principle) required. ?

Remember, everything is energy...

Woodenpug, BSN · Jun 18, 2009

zenman said:
Remember, everything is energy...

O.K. With all due respect, that's just silly.

I guess a nuclear chain reaction would be a furiously disturbed energy field? Or a psychotic energy field? Antisocial?

Oh well, lol.

hypocaffeinemia, BSN, RN · Jun 19, 2009

zenman said:
Remember, everything is energy...

Until you start defining into existence principles that don't fit into the standard model. ?