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Prayer — Treatment Approaches</p>
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<p>Prayer in the context of health and healing can take many forms. Private prayer can refer to either an individual’s attempt to be in communion with God through readings or reciting of prayers (ritual prayer) or in deep stillness and reflection (meditative prayer). The purpose can simply be connection with deeper levels of being or it can be petitionary, in which the individual asks for some specific desired outcome.</p>
<p>Distant healing or intercessory prayer describes a mental effort by one person with the intention to improve the physical or emotional well being of another person who is not present and may not be known to the person who is praying. Several principles from physics are used to explain how this might work. First is the idea of non-locality, that information exists everywhere at the same time. Second is the concept that time, in fact, is not linear with a past, present and future, but that all events exist simultaneously on a subatomic level. Studies in distant healing have been conducted on animals and other non-human systems as well as on humans over the last thirty years. It has not yet been determined whether there is a genuine healing effect produced by distant healing or whether psychological and other factors are involved in the results seen. However, based on studies of intercessory prayer to date, there appears to be some benefit in some cases.</p>
<p>Prayer can occur in a health care setting when a practitioner prays for or with a patient. This is an aspect of spiritual care, and includes the concepts of being present, connecting, having empathy and compassion, giving hope and love, supporting meaning and transcendence, and touch and healing. The prayer can either be silent or the patient can verbalize prayer. Staff can pray together with the patient or on their own for the patient. Patients may also request prayer from their spiritual community, friends and family, or from a hospital chaplain.<br />
Professional chaplains are specialists in issues of spirituality in<br />
healthcare and often work with other interdisciplinary members of the healthcare team. </p>
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<p class="timestamp">Content last modified on Jul 2, 2004</p>
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