“Energy healing” is a category, not a practice, and the systems inside it differ from each other more than the label suggests. People book one expecting another and are then confused by what happens.
I am trained in two of the three below and not in Reiki, so treat the Reiki section as an informed outsider’s description rather than a practitioner’s. I have sent people to Reiki practitioners and I have had clients who came from one.
Reiki
Origin: Japan, early twentieth century, Mikao Usui. Transmitted through attunements from teacher to student.
Mechanism as described: the practitioner acts as a conduit for universal life energy, which goes where it is needed. Hands are placed on or just above the body in a sequence of positions.
Session: you lie down, fully clothed, usually for around an hour. It is typically quiet and restful, and many people fall asleep.
What it is good at: deep relaxation, stress load, and the state of being wound tight for months. Widely available and comparatively inexpensive, and offered in a lot of hospitals as a comfort measure.
What to know: it is generally non-directive by design. The practitioner is not trying to locate a specific driver — the energy is understood to sort that out. If what you want is an answer to why has this not resolved, that is a different question from the one Reiki is built to answer.
Pranic Healing
Origin: developed by Master Choa Kok Sui, drawing on older energy-body traditions. I studied it with him directly over five years.
Mechanism: the physical body is surrounded and interpenetrated by an energy body. The practitioner scans it, clears what is congested, and directs energy to what is depleted. No touch.
Session: more structured than Reiki. There is a defined sequence — scan, clear, energize, stabilize — and specific protocols for specific conditions.
What it is good at: pictures of depletion and congestion. Long illness, extended stress, the flattened feeling after a hard year, recovery that has stalled. Because it is systematic it is also repeatable, which matters over a course of work.
What to know: it is a discipline with a curriculum, not an intuitive art. That is a strength if you want consistency and a limitation if your situation is idiosyncratic.
The Yuen Method
Origin: Dr. Kam Yuen — a structural engineer and Shaolin martial artist. I hold Certified Master Practitioner status, studied with him directly.
Mechanism: rapid assessment. Test across physical, mental, emotional and energetic levels, narrow toward what is actually driving the pattern, correct that. Engineering logic applied to a person: find the member that is failing rather than reinforce every beam.
Session: conversational and fast. You describe the problem, I test against it, we narrow. Usually no touch. Corrections are made during the session.
What it is good at: specific, stuck, stubborn things. The injury that did not resolve. Pain with no structural explanation. The pattern that returns after treatment. Anywhere the useful question is what is actually holding this.
What to know: it is the least restful of the three. If you are hoping for an hour of quiet on a table, this is not that. You should expect a definite change in your symptom pattern within one to two sessions — and if it does not come, a decent practitioner tells you so.
Side by side
- Directive or not: Reiki is largely non-directive. Pranic Healing is protocol-directed. The Yuen Method is target-directed.
- Touch: Reiki, hands on or near the body. The other two, generally none.
- Pace: Reiki slow and restful. Pranic Healing methodical. Yuen fast.
- Remote: the two that do not rely on touch carry over to video with very little lost.
- Feedback loop: the Yuen Method gives you the clearest early read on whether it is working, which is a real advantage when you are deciding whether to keep paying for something.
Which one should you book?
Roughly: if you are wound tight and need to come down, Reiki is inexpensive, widely available and genuinely useful for that. If you are depleted after a long illness or a hard stretch, Pranic Healing. If something specific is stuck and you want to know what is holding it, Yuen Method.
In my own practice the distinction is less clean than this page makes it sound, because I do not run single-modality sessions. I assess across five levels and use what the situation calls for — often more than one thing in the same session. The modality names are how you find a practitioner. They are not really how the work happens.
If you are not sure which of these describes your situation, describe the situation and let me tell you.
Rodney works with four to six clients at a time and reads every inquiry personally. He replies within 48 hours when he believes he can help. Request a session, or read what a Discovery Session involves.
This work supports the body’s own healing process. It is complementary to medical care, not a replacement for it. Rodney does not diagnose, treat or cure disease, and does not advise anyone to stop or change treatment prescribed by their physician. See the full disclaimer.
Last reviewed September 16, 2026 by Rodney Blount.