Dr. Caitlin A. Connor, DAOM, PG Dip, AMP, EHP-C, Special Projects, IJHC

 Since the Epstein files came out, much analysis has been directed to the names mentioned in the documents. Some of those names have sparked conversations concerning abuse, accountability, and ways to prevent this situation from happening again. While these conversations are important, they largely focus on abuse and potential abuse by prominent individuals. Unfortunately, this ignores the very real problem of abuse by individual practitioners. The scope of the problem is far larger than is being acknowledged within the energy practitioner community.

Not only are there more people involved beyond just prominent individuals, the types of harm are far broader than are being acknowledged. So far there have not been any research studies which specifically focused on energy practitioner abuse, but there have been research studies on therapists and boundary violations with their clients that can be used to extrapolate. Aravind, V. K., Krishnaram, V. D., & Thasneem, Z.(2012) describe different types of boundary violations and the slippery slope these violations can cause. Hook, J. & Devereux, D. (2018) focus on the harm caused to clients. There have long been anecdotal examples of these boundary violations, such as described by Ashley Riley in their blog post titled “How Energy Workers Can Harm Clients When They Aren’t Trauma Informed.” The clearest example, however, concerns the prevalence of advice to not ask for permission in words but instead “ask their higher self” before working on someone. Abuse isn’t just sexual International Journal of Healing and Caring 2026, 26(1) 24 – 28  or physical. The harm caused by ignoring boundaries is equally as real. If you cannot ask your client or the person on which you wish to work, out loud and in words, or the person who holds guardianship of that persons’ health care, you do not have permission to work on them. Instead, you have a fantasy and need to go to therapy to work on your power and control issues.