Krieger, Delores (1921-)

Delores Krieger was born in Paterson, New Jersey, and educated at New York University (B.A., 1960; M.A., 1962; Ph.D., 1967). Krieger became a professor of nursing in the Division of Nursing Education at New York University and burst into public consciousness in the late 1970s as the advocate of a somewhat traditional laying-on-of-hands technique as an additional tool for nurses in their treatment of patients. Krieger had become intrigued by the work conducted by Canadian cancer researcher Bernard Grad in the 1960s with healer Oscar Estabany. Grad published some of the most impressive data in parapsychological literature on the effects of psychic healing. Krieger decided to test Grad's findings, which had been conducted in a laboratory on plants and laboratory mice, on human beings in a hospital setting.

In 1971 Krieger set up a program with Estabany and discovered that his healing touch appeared to increase the presence of a protein pigment in the blood of the initial patients with whom he worked. The change, confirmed in a second series of experiments, led her to begin teaching the technique to the nurses in her classes. She referred to the laying-on-of-hands, a term that has significant religious connotations, as "therapeutic touch," a more nonreligious designation. Krieger's work, while presenting little new data to parapsychologists, was of significance because it spread parapsychological knowledge into an established field.

Sources:

Krieger, Delores. "Healing by the Laying-On of Hands as a Facilitator of Bioenergetic Change: The Response of In-Vivo Human Hemoglobin." Psychoenergetic Systems 1 (1976): 121.

——. "Therapeutic Touch: The Imprimatur of Nursing." American Journal of Nursing 75, no. 5 (May 1875): 784-87.

Leaders in Education. 5th ed. New York: R. R. Bowker, 1974.