Approches thérapeutiques de transmission d’intention à distance (Distant Healing Therapy) et effets sur la santé : défi épistémologique face aux résultats probants !

Abstract

The therapeutic approaches for transmitting the intention of healing (or care) at a distance such as prayer or certain forms of meditation have been studied for nearly forty years in the Anglo-Saxon literature, giving rise to numerous controlled researches and meta-analyzes. The results of these studies point to a large number of convincing works showing the effectiveness of these therapies by highlighting the non-local aspects of these approaches, which clash and pose a problem for the mechanistic and classical view of science. In the Anglo-Saxon world, and especially in the United States, patients use these approaches very strongly, especially in situations of great suffering. Because of this enthusiasm for these ancient healing techniques, the object of this article is to take stock of this question by identifying and making known on the one hand the key research in this field by highlighting the work of Americans researchers and on the other hand by developing the various method biases which are very numerous and which invite to relativize this effectiveness which, without calling it into question, should allow better study of this legitimate research subject, to finally allow to identify an embryonic conceptual framework in the light of research in physics and psychology and explanatory tracks.