Non-Pharmacological Interventions
Acupuncture, OMM, energy work
15 interventions. None rests on strong human evidence. Ordered with the best evidenced first.
Two and a Half Millennia of Practice, a Modern Mechanism Dispute
A practice with strong evidence for specific pain indications wrapped around a traditional theory of qi and meridians that has no anatomical basis, and the two should never be confused.
Dry Needling (Trigger-Point Dry Needling, Intramuscular Stimulation)
A thin filiform needle, the same instrument used in acupuncture, is inserted into a tender muscle band, with a stated rationale drawn from muscle physiology rather than meridian theory.
Electroacupuncture (EA)
Acupuncture needles wired to a pulse generator, where the measurable physiology of the electrical current rests on firmer ground than the classical point theory it was grafted onto.
touch
Auricular Acupuncture (Ear Acupuncture, Auriculotherapy)
A map of the whole body drawn onto a single ear: ancient Chinese ear points reorganized in 1950s France into a contested anatomical chart that clinics still use for pain, anxiety, and withdrawal.
Cupping Therapy (Dry, Wet/Hijama, Fire, Sliding)
A suction-based skin therapy older than written pharmacology, carried independently by Egyptian, Chinese, and Islamic medicine, where the marks it leaves are easier to see than the mechanism behind them.
Moxibustion (moxa therapy; Chinese jiu)
Smoldering mugwort held over a point on the little toe. This is the one corner of an ancient Chinese fire therapy where modern trials report a signal: turning breech babies head-down.
NADA Protocol (Auricular Acupuncture)
A five-needle ear protocol born from 1970s South Bronx community organizing, now placed by trained workers worldwide as a calming adjunct, though controlled trials do not show it ends addiction on its own.
Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine (OMM / OMT)
A hands-on system of diagnosis and treatment, born in 1870s Missouri but resting on bonesetting and joint-manipulation lineages thousands of years older, with its best evidence concentrated in musculoskeletal pain.
Energy Healing (Biofield Therapies overview)
An umbrella for hands-on and hands-near practices built on a shared premise, a healable life-energy or biofield, that controlled studies have not detected. Classed touch, disputed, caution.
Healing Touch (biofield energy therapy)
A nurse-developed energy therapy whose gentle hands-on or hands-near sessions feel calming to many recipients, even though the "energy field" it claims to balance has never been shown to exist.
Jin Shin Jyutsu (the Art of the Creator through Compassionate Man)
A gentle, fully clothed Japanese touch practice that rests fingertips on twenty-six "safety energy locks," with proponents claiming it releases energetic stagnation; warmth and relaxation are widely reported, but controlled evidence specific to the modality remains very thin.
A hands-lightly-on system that maps the body as a field of positive, negative, and neutral energy poles, built by one mid-century practitioner who stitched Ayurvedic, Chinese, and Western ideas together, and still resting almost entirely on its own theory rather than controlled evidence.
A Japanese Energy Practice Whose Relaxation May Be Real and Whose Energy Claim Is Not Supported
A gentle hands-on or hands-near practice whose relaxation benefits are plausible through ordinary human contact, while its central claim of channeling universal life energy is not supported by controlled tests.
A Branded Energy-Field Practice That Failed Its Own Controlled Test
A specific branded nursing practice whose defining claim, sensing and balancing a human energy field, was tested directly and not supported, distinct from ordinary comforting touch.