title: Does a Healing Procedure Referring to Theta Rhythms Also Generate Theta Rhythms in the Brain?
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  ThetaHealing® (Vianna Stibal, Kalispell, MT) is a spiritual healing method in which the practitioner and client engage in joint meditations during several healing sessions. It is claimed that these meditation periods are characterized by a "theta state" in which the presence of theta-waves in the electroencephalograph (EEG) frequency spectrum of both the healer and the client is supposed. This study sought to test this hypothesis as well as the presence of synchronicities in the two EEGs.
  
  
  METHODS
  Measurements were obtained with a dual EEG system with 2 × 32 channels, allowing for simultaneous EEG measurements of healer and client. Ten healers and 10 clients performed 10 ThetaHealing sessions while the EEG was measured.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Theta frequency band did not increase in healers or in clients. Rather, the contrary was found, with a significant decrease in theta-2 band during healing in healers. Small correlations were seen between the Fourier amplitudes of healer and client in the theta-2 band, as well as small phase synchronicities in theta frequencies.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The hypothesis that ThetaHealing is associated with an enhanced generation of theta frequencies in the brain could not be confirmed. This finding makes no claim about whether ThetaHealing is beneficial from a clinical perspective.
authors.affiliation: 1 Department of Psychosomatic Medicine, University Medical Center Regensburg , Regensburg, Germany .
authors.forename: Thilo
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Hinterberger
authors.affiliation: 2 Academic Section Evaluation of Complementary Medicine, Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, University Medical Center Freiburg , Freiburg, Germany .
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: von Haugwitz
authors.affiliation: 2 Academic Section Evaluation of Complementary Medicine, Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, University Medical Center Freiburg , Freiburg, Germany .|3 Institute of Transcultural Health Studies, European University Viadrina , Frankfurt (Oder), Germany .
authors.forename: Stefan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Schmidt
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D004569:Electroencephalography / Q000145:classification*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D026443:Spiritual Therapies; D013826:Theta Rhythm / Q000502:physiology*