Reiki technique alleviates varied negative symptoms and enriches the person’s wellbeing, but no targeted studies were conducted regarding its psychological nature and mechanism. Our aims are to assess Reiki efficiency, its feasibility of integration into multiple activities and for interprofessional training, and offer scientific psychologically-based Reiki definition, disclose its mechanism and provide an analysis of Reiki psycho-emotional-somatic-physiological functioning. This review used systematic search-strategy and identified 120 publications in Scopus, Web of Science, PubMed, etc. databases. Reiki proved to improve the body functioning in vide spheres, but it is still being studied at a clinical-medical level without any psychological rationale. We are the first to present Reiki doctrine-technique as emotionally-induced therapeutic means within the author’s explanatory-functional paradigm, focusing on the psychological essence/roots of Reiki which integrate into adequate innovative definition. Psycho-emotional functional mechanisms of Reiki influence on normalization of physiological-somatic indicators, strengthening protective-compensatory resources and circulation of psycho-bioenergetic flow are highlighted. 

• Reiki improves the paramount parameters of the person’s psycho-emotional functioning of the body.
• Reiki can act as an effective tool in interprofessional practice aimed at enhancing and exchanging alternative rehabilitation techniques.
• For the first time, Reiki doctrine-technique was explained within the framework of the author’s psychological explanatory-functional paradigm.
• An innovative psychological-physiological definition of Reiki was given.
• Psycho-emotional-somatic-physiological mechanism of Reiki essence was revealed.

In conditions when a person faces unprecedented stressful situations (pandemics, wars, diseases, natural disasters), existing ancient Eastern means of (self)rehabilitation of the body can act as an effective psychological emotional-oriented form of bioenergy therapy that led to a significant leveling of negative psycho-emotional reactions. How seriously stress will affect health depends on individual psychological-genetic characteristics. Nonetheless, a long staying in an extreme-crisis state in one way or another injures the most important systems of the human body. Although, importantly more than interestingly, stress as itself may be interpreted as a condition for its own overcoming, since in a stressful-critical situation, the person’s efforts are often concentrated and his protective-mobilization mechanism is spontaneously activated involving all internal reserves at maximum, which affords a huge potential and resources for self-recovery. Consequently, stress itself can combat the dangerous psycho-emotional and somatic-physiological repercussions that arise because of stressogenic effects. Notwithstanding, all this negativity leaves a deep imprint on a mental-psychological-spiritual state: reduces adaptation capabilities and stress-resistance, impairs memory and cognitive functions, provokes pessimism, depression, isolation, anxiety and other symptoms of psycho-emotional maladaptation.  Regarding Ukrainians, in addition to the monstrous consequences of the global COVID-19 pandemic, their critical psycho-emotional state of the last almost three years is aggravated by shocking physical-mental suffering associated with Russia’s ongoing treacherous attacks on Ukraine. What can level, neutralize their psycho-emotional distress and improve critical condition they still experience? In our opinion, nothing but strengthening and stabilization of positive emotions. Health management is carried out according to the cause-and-effect relationship of the universal law of Nature, namely, through the psyche to the physical body. After all, the first symptoms of the disease are a kind of SOS-help that the body cries for, at the same time indicating that the human bio-energy field was distorted and unable to recover/normalize on its own, since the internal psychological mental-somatic-physiological-energetic unity in the body was disrupted because of extreme tension and stress: illness NEVER comes out of nowhere, although any disease seems to take a person by surprise and ailment emergence looks to him unexpected. This is where non-invasive non-drug psychological techniques and alternative complementary methods can benefit (such as emotional stimulation, improved attention control, music-/aroma-therapy, preventive breathing exercises, Reiki, Yoga, meditation, guided internal visualization, acupuncture etc.) which really led to significant relaxation and allow to diminish internal overload, modifying negative feelings into a more well-balanced positive inner-state. Everyone can apply any of antique biofield practices without neither restriction, since they do not harm. The key-point of all ancient Oriental body-practices are focused on taking into account a multi-stratum structure of a human body: the basis of this construction is the interconnection of the unity of “mind/spirit-body”, which creates a harmonious, coherent, strong connection between the physical-emotional and spiritual spheres of a person. In modern traditional science it is generally accepted that if facts cannot be dissected, broken down into small parts, then these phenomena, manifestations of some events simply do not exist, since they are not explainable from the point of view of classical science. The positive changes that manifest while using Reiki, meditation, Yoga and other ancient Eastern techniques can also be attributed here. Therefore, according traditional science, such salutary, health-bringing, beneficent replacements should be classified under the heading of parapsychology, esotericism, pseudoscience, and so on. And only a few representatives of the scientific world take into account these facts, visible effects, impacts and try to disclose their essence, nature, mechanism in order to understand how these phenomena function and why these facts occur. All these self-restabilizing means primarily balance the body that produce mental relaxation, which totally is nothing more than the introduction of all functional systems of the body into a normalized channel. In this state, the internal organs function normally, which creates all the necessary conditions for the proper acting and regenerating of the entire organism. The aforementioned inner relaxing balance occurs thanks to a calmed psyche, which is induced by the musical accompaniment and the impact on the energy centers of the body during the Reiki session. Due to such emotional-mental self-perception, a person is projected onto a favorable outcome of some event, fact, etc., which creates an internal positivity in which reside. Then it often happens, as they say, that positive thoughts materialize.  From the point of view of traditional Chinese medicine, just emotions play a paramount role in maintaining the vital functions of the body, internal self-feeling and, accordingly, the person’s health. Excessive negative overloads lead to blocking of inner regulation in the human body, affect the balance among internal organs, thereby causing an imbalance in the functioning of the main body systems, which may cause pathologies and diseases. That is why it is so important to work on maintaining interior harmony and emotional balance which normalize the psyche. This can be achieved both by working by oneself (without using special means, but only by own willpower, directing to this all interior resources), and with the help of ancient-Eastern methods. For example, surplus emotional tension can be pacified by means of acupuncture in order to balance the work of internal organs and improve emotional-cognitive processes. Acupuncture, which has long been used in ancient China as a means of restoring health, has now firmly taken its rightful place among the methods of traditional classical medicine. In the process of using acupuncture, biologically active points of the body are affected by a needle, which increases blood flow, normalizes the regulatory effect of hormones on metabolism and physiological functions in various organs. As a result, a calming anti-stress effect is created. Acupuncture improves the immune and endocrine systems functioning, has a positive effect on reflex centers, which brings a healing effect and helps refine the psychophysiological state of the body. Reiki produces a similar effect. What do Reiki and acupuncture differ by? Principally, only by the duration of the sessions and the fact whether this technique is recognized or not in traditional medicine. In essence, both Reiki and acupuncture affect biologically active points of the body, but in different ways, i.e. by different means: in acupuncture, these are medicinal needles, and in Reiki, the instrumental modus is the energy of the person himself, concentrated in his palm, curved into a hemisphere. Negative somatic and disruptions in the physiological functioning of the body, often accompanying various diseases, were usually eliminated by medical-pharmacological (often expensive) means that did not always bring the required result or even caused an undesirable side effect; whereas varied alternative self-rehabilitation techniques brought noticeable relief, leveling such emotional and psychological symptoms as pain, anxiety, depression and the like. Such a positive impact of Reiki on the body could not remain unnoticed. This is probably why the scientific community turned to its study, whose interest in alternative ancient methods of self-healing/self-rehabilitation of the human body did not arise out of nowhere, but was logical, rightfully, quite justified and not without rationale. Such arts of restoration of healthy body-status (Yoga, Reiki, meditation and others), being in essence bioenergetic techniques, have existed for centuries in the cultures of the ancient peoples of the Far East and Latin America. And only over time, precisely thanks to scientific, digital and Internet technologies of recent decades, these practices were spread and became widely known, which allowed the world community to use them as supplementary – apropos, simple, beneficial, non-drug, and most importantly, easy-to-use and financially economical – means of health improvement and recovery (Bridges & Sharma, 2017; Elstad et al., 2020; Ivanchenko, 2020; Lee et al., 2019). After all, what is no less important is that Reiki can act as an effective tool in interprofessional practice aimed at enhancing and exchanging alternative rehabilitation techniques. Nowadays, many of these techniques are successfully introduced both to reduce certain undesirable psychosomatic-physiological symptoms and against specific diseases. As for the other ancient Eastern methods of self-destabilization of the body, they still have to go through a difficult path to obtain deserved recognition, full approval in the modern world conventional science and acceptance in medical-pharmacological area. Reiki is no exception. Scientific discussions and debates about what Reiki is and what benefits this biofield therapy provides still continue, herewith, only clinical-physiological data and medical-somatic rationale have been provided. Since in scientific psychological literature there has not yet been a comprehensive study of the positive effect of Reiki (considered and dissected just under a psychologist’s focus), so an analysis of the psychological basis and mechanism of this ancient-Japanese doctrine-technique has not been made, too. We tried to fill this gap in our research. The aim of this review was to present the results of the analysis of experimental, theoretical and review Reiki research conducted in the world and published after 2000 in peer-reviewed journals. The main strategic directions were aimed not only at revealing the Reiki impact, but at providing a psycho-physiological definition of Reiki, at understanding its impact on the human body and explanation of its psycho-somatic functional mechanism. That was presented from the psychological point of view and carried out for the first time in psychological research. Based on the foregoing, we hypothetically assume that in the world scientific literature there is a predominantly positive view on Reiki as a supplementary means of beneficial, regenerative-healing influence on the human body. Another hypothesis of this study is that issues concerning the phenomenology of the Reiki technique (related specifically to the psychological justification-explanation of the essence and functional mechanism of Reiki) still remain completely open in all the studies conducted. The main objectives of this review are the following: 1) carry out a systematic analysis of studies on the Reiki impact and a generalized assessment of the results obtained; 2) just from the standpoint of psychology, to present the author’s opinion/view on the definition of Reiki, understanding the nature of Reiki and the interpretation of its psycho-emotional, physiological-somatic functional mechanism

As to our second hypothesis, which concerns the psychological justification-explanation of the essence/mechanism of Reiki functioning, a complete absence of such data was revealed.

Psychological category and construct of Reiki technique 

Thus, from our point of view, the psychological roots, genesis and psychological essence of the doctrine-practice of Reiki are based on viewing a person and the vital activity of his body as an inextricable mechanism “body-mind-emotions-spirit”, in which the emotionality (in the form of power of thought) is of no small importance. Just this emotional power allows one to project the work of the body internal systems towards self-rehabilitation/self-recovery. The thought power factor plays a leading role in positive psychology. Already centuries ago, the forceful operative power and value of positive thinking has been recognized by many ancient philosophers-thinkers. To restore the lost internal balance and harmonious order between the energy-informational shells located around the human physical body, there is no simpler and more effective means than positive thinking. In traditional Chinese medicine, the psyche and body are never divided: a person is considered a single psychosomatic creature, all elements of which are functionally connected not only with each other but also with external space, and the origin of pathologies is associated with the lifestyle, inner world of a person, the terrain and climatic conditions of one’s residence. This postulate is fully consistent with modern points of view of classical world medicine, which fact evidences the common roots of ancient and contemporary medical systems. Generally, all ancient-Eastern directions/branches of medicine always proceeded from the only position: every person is a priori knowledgeable, skilled in the self-government of own body, represents by himself a powerful machine with a unique nature-provided, built-in mechanism which any individuum can launch on one’s own (Ivanchenko, 2014, p. 255, 263). As a result of such self-government, a harmonious balance in the area of emotional health is restored. In the process of using Reiki, a special positively oriented emotional mood is created: internal contact arises both with one’s own psycho-emotional-spiritual world and with external events, wherein, a person involuntarily manages to abstract, distance himself from harmful or irrational challenges. The appearance of this emotional state, characteristic of all ancient-Eastern body self-recovery techniques, stimulates the formation of positive thinking, which promotes awareness of the causes of problem situations and the identification of possible ways for resolving. For this reason, instead of projecting himself onto illnesses, a person tries to direct own thoughts towards self-rehabilitation (which is nothing more than self-inculcation, a widely used method of psychotherapeutic work in modern medicine, based just on the unity of “body-mind-emotions”). Reiki in this case is a type of psychotherapy: a person helps himself through emotional self-projection, by means of focusing exclusively on positive expectations, on desire to change himself, his life for the better and express gratitude/kindness to people, but, at the same time, enjoying the life in accordance to the philosophical principle «Hic et Nunc» («Here and Now»). At this point, the emotional and mental substrates of human essence, of person’s nature are inextricably linked, therefore the emotional and mental spheres are closely intertwined in the body activity. Consequently, the psychological roots and primordial essence of Reiki are emotions, included in the inseparable interdependent and mutually influencing psycho-energetic complex “body-mind-emotions”. The capability-ability to manage emotions (namely, suppress-neutralize negative self-feelings and activate-create positive ones) is a unique tool for activation/mobilization of internal reserves while overcoming traumatic factors or prolonged overexertion, which allows one to positivize hormonal body background, to cope with extreme-crisis situations, level stress-depressive states and produce endorphins (so-called “hormones of happiness”). 

Innovative explanatory-functional paradigm of Reiki: psychological rationale, definition and mechanism of Reiki 

Thus lack of a psychological justification for the essence of Reiki and an explanation of its psychophysiological mechanism does not allow us to clearly understand the beneficial influence of this technique on psychosomatics and the social sphere of human life (albeit, understanding the psychological aspect of Reiki functioning would have contributed to greater Reiki scientific recognition and larger use in a multinational community). As far as it is known, we are the first to announce the all-important significance and necessity of identifying/explaining the Reiki psychological mechanism of action. In this regard, we would like to emphasize that our vision of Reiki (as a means of enhancing a person’s protective functions, achieving balanced psychophysiological functioning of the body, emotional competence and a healthy lifestyle) analyzes this method exclusively from a psychological point of view, since a purely medical-physiological or clinical-somatic experimental approach is only additional, effective, but insufficient for revealing the true, original essence and functional mechanism of Reiki. To the best of our knowledge, there has been made the only one attempt to define and explain Reiki (Townsend, 2013), although Townsend has discussed not the Traditional Japanese Reiki that we analyze. The author introduced a «new type of Reiki», specifically – Temari Reiki (as some form of Reiki offshoot), and during last 10-13 years applies it for clients at own Temari Reiki center in Washington, USA. Believing that Dr. Mikao Usui’s Traditional Reiki «needed refinement», she defines Temari Reiki as follows: «In contrast to traditional Reiki, Temari Reiki, as a hands-off technique, is a simultaneously physical, emotional and spiritual experience…» (idem, p. 34, 35), highlighting that Temari Reiki influences exclusively on the chakras in order to «transmit energy through the balls to the chakras» (idem, p. 36). It should be clarified that this understanding-explanation of Reiki is fundamentally different from ours; we have tried to present Reiki as professionally from a psychological-physiological point of view as possible. However, we fully agree that the author connects Temari Reiki with an emotional background – «emotional experience», and rightly supposes that the «bodies’ innate ability to heal» in her clients is often inactive that can provoke body’s psycho-somatic disbalance (idem, p. 36).The ancient-Eastern Reiki doctrine-technique, being a system of the body self-regeneration, is based on two fundamental starting points: the first baseline is that a person is perceived as an integral structure, consisting of various interconnected and mutually influencing parts; the second comes from the inextricable unity of “mind-body”, in which just the psyche is of paramount importance, which includes a positive emotional attitude, well-inclined thoughts and favorable mood. If to rely on the psychological and philosophical foundations of ancient Chinese medicine and the roots of Indo-Tibetan healing traditions, a person’s internal positivism harmonizes the spiritual-creative sphere, changes consciousness at the psycho-bio-physiological level and at the same time regenerates the relationship between the energy-informational shells surrounding the human physical body, thereby restoring the integrity of the biofield (Ivanchenko, 2022). Most importantly, using Reiki allows you to achieve relaxation, a sense of inner well-being, peace of mind, increased self-confidence, reduced irritability/stress and the development of an optimistic outlook on life, which simultaneously creates a balanced, positive energy flow. Such emotional positivity stabilizes physiological parameters necessary for the normalization of the immune system. Positiveness of the thoughts has a regenerative effect on the entire body, while the normalized body functions, in response, contribute to an increase in positive, goodness-filled thoughts. From a physiological point of view, Reiki leads to inhibition of the posterior and sympathetic areas of the hypothalamus, which optimizes the body’s sympathetic reactions to stressful stimuli and restores regulatory reflex mechanisms destroyed by stress (Ivanchenko, 2014). It is worth particular mentioning, as established, the use of Reiki technique by Reiki-Masters does not create high-intensity electromagnetic fields, i.e. does not increase the strength of the electromagnetic field emanating from their hearts and hands, that was measured, apropos, in all possible situations, namely: (i) when Reiki-Masters did not use Reiki on a client, (ii) when Reiki was applied at a distance, and (iii) to a person located in the same room (Baldwin et al., 2013b). Hence, the positive effect is created not by the Personality of the Reiki-Master, but by exactly Reiki technology itself, which transforms the state of the human body for the better due to the inducing the energetic centers of the human body, namely, switching on bio-neurological-active points. Nonetheless, the phenomenology of Reiki is still associated with an unresolved psychological problem, which concerns overcoming the traditional gap between the bioenergetic basis of Reiki and the psycho-emotional somatic-physiological reaction that occurs in the human body during and after its application. To begin with, it should be recognized that this psycho-biotherapeutic method affects two most important interconnected aspects of the human psyche: emotions and behavior. It is this relationship that underlies our innovative explanatory-functional psychophysiological paradigm, that was the cornerstone on which all our previous studies, related to methods of body self-rehabilitation, were based (Ivanchenko, 2020; Ivanchenko & Zaika, 2017; Ivanchenko et al., 2024). But only here, below, is the full range of the main arguments, conclusions, concepts and original thinking patterns that shaped this paradigm presented in as much detail as possible. Based on these reasonings, view and assumption, we should highlight the most important thing. In the process of applying the Reiki technique, emotions are regulated by changing the affective reaction from negative to positive: such a liberating transformation of emotions helps to reduce emotional overload, increase one’s own stress-resistance and, thereby, improve subjective well-being at the psycho-emotional-somatic-physiological level of a unified sphere of human life-activity. Physiologically, the effects of Reiki can be partially compared with methods long recognized and applied in classical and biophysical medicine, namely: 1)  an acupuncture that stimulates nerve receptors, and thus increases blood flow, activates the brain subcortex and metabolism, enhances the body’s resistance and promotes the production of endorphins; 2)  applying the microwave radiation for the treatment of human internal organs, i.e. the use of focused effect of electromagnetic waves on concrete organ of the human body which leads to the activation of the functioning of this organ (but such an impact must be at certain resonant frequencies, carried out with a certain radiation power and last for a certain period of time). All in all, similar to a number of cognitive-physical activities (such as sports, dancing, reading, drawing), Yoga, acupuncture or meditation, Reiki fulfills a preventive function, acting as an internal protective-regenerative mechanism and providing a total therapeutic effect.  Within our paradigm, we consider the Reiki technique like a «psychoprotective neuroprophylactic emotion-oriented kind of therapy» and interpret it as a means of self-rehabilitation/self-stabilization, leading to the formation of a specific (enough permanent) emotional state and ensuring the balanced operation of a single “mind-body” interconnection. From a psychological-social point of view, Reiki should be assessed as a psychically-emotionally-oriented form of therapy that unites, mutually binds the mental, spiritual and physical foundations of a person that contributes to increasing his stress-resistance and developing optimal social interaction in society. Violation of the psycho-energetic unity of the human body (which is often just the root-cause of any disease) will always be primary, while damage to the body shell will be secondary. Based on the above, precisely the following definition of the Reiki seems logical, reasonable, founded, justified and valid from a psychological point of view, namely: Reiki is an emotionally-oriented psychotherapeutic means of maintaining a healthy status of the human body, which is leaned on the ancient Eastern philosophical-psychological tradition of considering and accepting the human body in the unity of the inextricable triad “body-emotions-mind”. 

Explanation of the psychological-physiological functional mechanism of Reiki's impact on the human body 

A Reiki session/auto-session, conducted under quiet, calm, harmonizing melodies, implements as follows. Primarily, the palms of the hands, bent in the hemisphere, alternately are applied to the 12 bio-neurologically active points of the human body to activate them (i.e. to the points of accumulation/intersection of nerve endings), in Indo-Tibetan medicine, some of these biologically active points, or energy centers, are called chakras. Simultaneously, the information that a person receives meanwhile, is perceived through auditory-tactile receptors. Impulses entering the brain are created and processed in the limbic system of the cerebral cortex, which is responsible for the emergence and processing of emotions. Emotion is a biochemical derivative of the hypothalamus in response to a specific stimulus entering the brain. The amygdala of the limbic system is connected to sensory centers and systems that control the autonomic-hormonal response. Since the stimuli arriving the brain are positive (thanks to harmonious soothing music), they produce a beneficial response, namely, they have a normalizing physiologic-somatic therapeutic effect on many bio-regulatory and psycho-behavioral processes, particularly: cortisol levels decrease, pulse and breathing normalize, mood improves, calmness, tranquility and relaxation appear. Accordingly, various types of discomfort, namely fatigue, irritability, fear, stress and others, are leveled, reduced or completely disappear. At that, negative emotions are replaced by positive ones, which normalizes the functioning of the cardiovascular, nervous, respiratory systems of the human body, and then reflects in balanced indicators of blood pressure, encephalogram, pulse rate and others. So, the psychophysiological mechanisms of Reiki are activated by psychodynamic and emotionally-oriented influence on the bioenergetic points of the human body. This promotes the effective interaction of the first and second signaling systems of the brain, which, in turn, forms a stable connection between the emotional-motor centers of the brain and the cortex. Reiki leads to inhibition of the posterior and sympathetic areas of the hypothalamus, which fact optimizes the body’s sympathetic reactions to extreme-negative stimuli and restores regulatory-reflex connections impaired by stress or severe overload. Feelings are formed on the basis of emotions. Emotions and feelings are closely interrelated. Emotions are created on the basis of those stimuli that enter the brain and since they are positive in our case, the effect is beneficial. The positiveness of music-therapy is beyond doubt (Li et al. 2021). Feelings, in turn, shape thoughts, so we guess, would be correct to accept the idea that emotions directly influence a person’s thoughts and behavior. Since the research of Friedman et al. (2010) medically supports our Reiki definition and explanation of its mechanism, their work deserves special mention. The authors, professionals in medicine, measured the base parameters of human body that were bettered in post-Reiki condition. As a second aim, they deliberately examined the participants’ emotional response: comparing the Reiki group with the music-therapy group and the control group, they found a significant increase in all positive emotions and a decrease in all negative emotions in the participants after Reiki therapy. This research confirms our vision on the emotional component in the Reiki technique as a basic paramount foundation while producing the beneficial, no-side effect, and long-term impact that result in the healthy body functioning. Unfortunately, the emotional component of the Reiki technique was not taken into account and under study till now, whereas Reiki’s emotion component, we suppose, is of paramount significance. The stress condition or staying stressed is atypical, alien state for a person, contrary to his nature as homo sapiens. Nevertheless, throughout the life people repeatedly find themselves in one or another extreme-crisis situation. It is common knowledge that stress, especially protracted one, leads to disruption of the entire body, provoking various negative symptoms, primarily from the cardiovascular, nervous systems and gastrointestinal tract. However, minor/short-term stress often allows us to adapt, mobilize, harden the body, thereby activating and releasing a person’s internal protective reserves in order to stimulate the elaboration of an optimal response stereotype to traumatic events. Howbeit, the truth is that stress in any case causes the body’s organs and systems to work at an undesirable, unusually intense pace and function. When such a situation occurs, Reiki not only improves the somatic-physiological functioning of the human body, reduces undesirable affective-behavioral reactions and replenishes its protective-compensatory resources, but also normalizes the circulation of internal psycho-bioenergy flow: as a cumulative positive effect, physiological-somatic indicators improve. Importantly, Reiki (similar to meditation, Yoga) brings the nervous system into a unified state of recreation-refreshment-comfort, physiologically comparable to statically balanced wakefulness, namely: Reiki induces the human brain to enter a certain state, which can be easily registered encephalographically in medical parameters, explained with the help of physiological-somatic data and interpreted biochemically. When the nervous system and brain are in such a beneficial state, a person can better tolerate stress, anxiety, huge fatigue or the impact of other negative stimuli. In other words, the human body’s reaction to external stress factors becomes more adequate, calm and balanced. This is explained by the improvement of the regulation of the nervous system, the strengthening of the endocrine and immune systems, which is expressed in the normalization of motor-behavioral reactions. A Reiki auto-session is comparable to a self-psychotherapeutic emotion-stabilizing work: the brain areas responsible for emotions enter a state of regulated comfort, which allows achieving optimal psycho-emotional and somatic-physiological functioning of the body; at the same time, positive thinking develops, supported by the power of positively filled thoughts. 

Conclusions

Our review revealed the following: 1) the majority of analyzed studies confirmed the efficiency of Reiki; it was statistically established that the use of Reiki has a positive effect on a person’s subjective wellbeing, psychosomatics and social sphere; 2) the attention of universal scientific community to the study of Reiki has increased over the past two decades; 3) since the first research of Reiki appeared in the world, there has not been a single directly psychologically based comprehensive fundamental study: not a single study has revealed the psychological essence, roots and mechanism of Reiki; 4) an innovative definition of Reiki and an explanation of its psychological functional mechanism within the framework of the author’s Explanatory-Functional paradigm are presented.  Overall, the high research interest in Reiki is well justified. First, Reiki is fully supported by patients and nurses who consistently report the efficiency of Reiki in reducing pain, anxiety and normalizing the major body systems functioning. Second, the implementation of Reiki has already begun: it has shown positive results among students and teachers who have included it into the educational process in order to carry out holistic care for their own psychosomatic state, as well as in hospital structures among nurses and patients with various disease profiles (Berger et al., 2013; Bremner et al., 2014; Fleisher et al., 2014; Hahn et al., 2014; Kryak & Vitale, 2011; Mehl-Madrona et al., 2011). At our view, Reiki can be easily learned and integrated into numerous intentionally-focused or interprofessional activities. Coordinated interprofessional practice can ensure effective cooperation between professionals to improve health services, which implies mutual respect, competence, trust and synergy among team specialists. The use of Reiki techniques seems particularly relevant at present, namely in war conditions: on the one hand, there is an urgent need for training/rehabilitation of personnel of professional contingents of security, defense and emergency rescue forces not only in Ukraine but also in other countries; on the other hand, the use of Reiki can promote work with the population as a whole, aimed at improving people’s health.This article is a review with a less rigorous methodology. It provides substantial attempt to present a comprehensive clarification the psychological essence of Reiki, as well as to delve into the disclosure and adequate explanation of the mechanism of its psychological functioning: Reiki doctrine-technique with its innovative definition is given for the first time, just within the framework of the author’s explanatory-functional psychological paradigm.However, more studies into the effects of Reiki is still needed to achieve strict standardization, control over results, and consistent, detailed coverage of the problem at hand. Based on our findings and the accompanying psychological-analytical substantiation of the issue, future research should evaluate the usefulness of Reiki for the relief of a wider range of psychosomatic symptoms, focus on deeper understanding of Reiki mechanism and elucidate how this technique can help level undesired symptoms and improve subjective well-being. Measuring the statistical-therapeutic effect of Reiki (from a psychological standpoint) will expand the possibilities of future research, in order this technique might have been used as an additional intervention model or a part of psycho-emotional-social rehabilitation program, as well as a means of “mind-body” system for a person self-stabilization. 

Andreyanna Ivanchenko: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation, Formal analysis, Validation, Data curation, Project administration, Supervision, Writing-original draft, Writing-review version and editing. The author has read and approved the submitted version. 

Strengths And Limitations

Conspicuous strengths of this study lie not only in the strategy of a systematic search for scientific articles on Reiki, but also in identifying a psychological explanation for the essence and mechanism of action of this ancient-Eastern technique of self-regenerating of the human body. The limitations are that this review lacks results involving larger ethnographic researches.   

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s). 

Funding

None. 

Andreyanna Ivanchenko is Full Professor, Doctor of Psychological Sciences (2017), PhD in Psychology (1985), a researcher working at the Department of Practical Psychology of Kyiv M. P. Dragomanov National Pedagogical University and at the Department of Psychology of Kharkiv Institute “Interregional Academy of Personnel Management”. Her research interests include Social psychology, psychology of psychoemotional negative effects, Positive and Creative psychology, Extreme and Crisis psychology, psychology of ancient-Eastern mind-body therapies, Sport and Political psychology.

The data presented in this study are available from the corresponding author on request.