Can biofield therapy be considered a form of pseudoscience?
Executive summary
Biofield therapies are a family of practitioner-mediated “energy” treatments—Reiki, therapeutic touch, qigong and others—that claim to interact with a human “biofield” to stimulate healing, and the literature shows mixed clinical signals alongside persistent methodological limitations [1] [2] [3]. Given the combination of culturally rooted claims beyond current biological mechanisms, variable trial quality, and some reproducible clinical findings for limited outcomes, labeling biofield therapy as outright pseudoscience is too blunt; a more precise verdict is that parts of the field display features commonly associated with pseudoscience while other parts are engaged in evolving, if fragile, scientific inquiry [4] [5] [6].
1. What biofield therapies claim and how they are defined
Practices grouped as biofield therapies present themselves as noninvasive interventions in which a practitioner works with an energetic “biofield” surrounding the body—terms like prana, qi, or subtle energy are routinely invoked—and the term “biofield” was explicitly coined to create a scientific-friendly umbrella for such traditions [1] [2].
2. The empirical record: mixed signals, some positive outcomes
Systematic reviews and scoping maps find hundreds of interventional studies with widely mixed results: roughly half of trials report positive outcomes for at least some endpoints, many report null findings, and a minority report negative results, while some reviews conclude moderate-to-strong evidence for short-term pain or anxiety reduction in specific populations [3] [5] [7].
3. The problem of mechanisms and scientific plausibility
A core scientific objection is that no accepted biological mechanism explains non-contact healing or the putative biofield; mainstream biomedicine frames life largely as chemistry and electromagnetics measurable at established scales, and biofield concepts remain largely incompatible with that paradigm until a reliable, reproducible mechanism is shown [8] [2] [6].
4. Methodological weaknesses that fuel skepticism
Authors repeatedly flag methodological gaps—small sample sizes, heterogeneous interventions and outcomes, inconsistent blinding and controls, practitioner variability, and publication bias—which make positive findings difficult to interpret and invite alternative explanations such as placebo effects, nonspecific therapeutic interactions, or statistical artefacts [1] [9] [3].
5. Institutional uptake, research agendas and implicit incentives
Despite skepticism, biofield modalities are increasingly used in clinical settings and studied at medical centers, and leaders in the field are trying to professionalize training, standardize terminology and promote rigorous research; limited public and private funding, however, constrains the ability to run large definitive randomized controlled trials, which in turn slows consensus formation [9] [10] [1].
6. Can biofield therapy be considered pseudoscience? A calibrated verdict
If pseudoscience is defined as claims that are immune to falsification, lack rigorous evidence, resist methodological critique, and rely on anecdote, then significant elements of contemporary biofield practice meet those red flags—especially in doctrines that assert subtle energies without testable mechanisms or ignore negative findings [4] [8]. Yet the field also contains researchers attempting blinded experiments, physiological measurements, and systematic reviews that report both positive and null effects; that ongoing empirical effort means it is not categorically separated from scientific self-correction [6] [3]. The fair conclusion is that biofield therapy occupies a contested middle ground: many of its central claims remain scientifically unproven and therefore risk classification as pseudoscientific when asserted as established facts, but parts of the field are engaged in legitimate, if preliminary, science that could either reinforce or disconfirm those claims with better methods and funding [5] [1].
7. What responsible stakeholders should do next
The literature’s roadmap is clear: prioritize larger, preregistered, well-blinded trials with standardized intervention definitions and mechanistic probes; increase transparent reporting of null results; and resist elevating cultural or anecdotal authority over reproducible data—moves that will either validate useful clinical effects or expose practices that cannot withstand rigorous testing [1] [3] [9].