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Abstract

Kinesiology as energy medicine is an emerging modality in Complementary and Alternative Medicine. Professional Kinesiology Practice (PKP) is arguably the most holistic form available for study, taking the client beyond their everyday world to a realm of profound insight, transformational experience and moving them physically towards reaching their potential. Mapping these experiences from the observational perspective of dualistic, positivistic science, in the form of measurements, RCT’s, black box studies or comparisons of any kind, holds the experience in the physical world. This paper explores the view that holistic practice cannot fit into a reductionist paradigm of research. The study design discusses making the PKP process explicit by using a phenomenological approach to get a sense of the richness of the subjects’ experiences. This will give practitioners a better understanding of what is happening in their practice. The study will include reflexive views, both the clients’ and also my own, as the research progresses down the rabbit hole in co- operative, heuristic inquiry.

As I wrestle to put my thoughts down on paper, I ask myself the question from the movie, the Matrix, ‘Oh why didn’t I take the blue pill?’ Going down the rabbit hole on an experiential journey with my clients seemed like a good idea at the time, but I am beginning to realise that it might be easier to ask a ‘straightforward’ research question and do a ‘straightforward’ literature review than to do any form of contextual heuristic research. Van Manen (1997) states that, ‘the person who begins a hermeneutic phenomenological study, soon discovers that this is not a closed system’, and that it is hard to describe, or find the words for it. I am at that challenging word-searching part.

Which conceptual framework?

I work in the field of kinesiology, as it is used in the world of alternative and energy medicine. It is well documented that alternative and complementary medicines are at odds with the prevailing models of medicine (Ballantine 1999, Wayne 2005) and also with the prevailing models of science (Goswami 2004, Samanta-Laughton 2006, Oschman 2000). My finished study will include discussion of the limitations of conventional science in researching a holistic therapy, and will include some of the theories emerging in the 21st century science which seem to be proving more useful.

Since Thomas Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions was first published in 1962, the word paradigm is used and misused to describe all sorts of models and ways of being. PKP does not fit completely into the traditional western scientific paradigm of which Kuhn speaks. Indeed PKP uses methods drawn from western schools of thought such as psychology, nutrition, and chiropractic, but also drawn from Chinese and Japanese acupuncture, eastern physiology and physiognomy, Ayurvedic philosophy, as well as healing methods from the Tibetan and indigenous peoples of the world.

There are research challenges facing those wanting to study a therapy which claims to be so holistic in its approach. Some researchers do not believe that any therapy is totally holistic (Ribeaux and Spence 2001), and that it is not possible to explore the person’s mind, body, spirit and way of life all in one session. However, an illness which manifests at the physical

level, also creates certain emotions around the ideas of ill health, thoughts that something is wrong on the mental level and feelings of spiritual separation from God, what Goswami calls the Supraconscious level. It is not possible to treat one area of the whole system without having an effect on the other levels.

While the view of Ribeaux and Spence is that therapies can be described as ‘more or less holistic’, Professional Kinesiology Practice (PKP) is interested in ‘better health, wholeness and high level wellness, physical, mental, emotional and spiritual’ (Dewe and Dewe 1999a). Practitioners use the PKP process for themselves and for their clients to achieve higher levels of wellness. Each PKP session does in fact touch on all the levels traditionally included in holistic health. The participatory paradigm described by Skolimowski (1994) and Reason (1998) is a more fitting worldview for the client’s participatory experiences of PKP.

Users of Complementary and Alternative Medicines (CAM) may be aware of some of the types of kinesiology practised in the U.K., but figuring out which kinesiologist to go to is a complicated affair. It would be reasonable to assume that all kinesiologies are similar, but that is not the case and there are many different uses of even the basic tool of manual muscle testing. Therefore, the PKP method of kinesiology will be described to make explicit how it fits into the energy medicine paradigm and how it differs from both other kinesiologies as well as traditional allopathic medicine.

The history of Kinesiology

In order to describe Professional Kinesiology Practice (PKP) and put it into context, it is necessary to give some account of its origins and development over the past thirty years. The Greek term kinesis, meaning movement, has become associated with the study of movement in humans and animals. It has its origins as far back as Aristotle (384-322 B.C.), and the continued exploration of human biomechanics of Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) in his studies of human movement, then Luigi Galvani (1737-1798) who discovered that muscles can be moved by electrical stimulation. The modern study of neurophysiology had its beginnings in Galvani’s discoveries and the discovery that nerve impulses are electrical in origin and not made of liquids flowing in channels challenged the existing mechanistic Cartesian science of the time. This understanding of nerve-muscle function would be proved later with the development of electro-magnetism and the ampere for electrical measurement. In 1949, Henry and Florence Kendall produced their seminal work on muscle testing and function which is now in its third edition (Kendall and McCreary 1983). This excellent volume has been the foundation of manual muscle function assessment, and has been used by sports trainers, physiotherapists, chiropractors, and other therapists testing for disabilities. Today, for many of the people who have heard of kinesiology, the word is linked with sporting performance and sports medicine or physiotherapy, (Floyd and Thompson 2001). Kinesiology as it relates to sports performance is taught at Loughborough University in the United Kingdom and at many Universities across Canada and the United States.

Chiropractor Dr.George Goodheart’s copy of the Kendall and Kendall book provided him with a solution in 1964 for a puzzling shoulder problem in a client. After testing the muscle using the Kendall and Kendall techniques, Goodheart found that the muscle was not functioning at 100%. He began palpating the muscle and found some tender nodules, to which he applied firm pressure (Goodheart 2005). Re-testing the muscle revealed that the muscle function had been restored. Excited at his new discovery, Goodheart began testing muscles as part of his normal client examination procedure. At the same time he was

exploring other innovative healing methods including Chinese acupuncture, lymphatic drainage, nutrition, and cranial osteopathy, (Frost 2002, McCord 2006) and the combination of the muscle testing findings along with the various healing modalities were combined by Goodheart into what has become known as Applied Kinesiology.

Goodheart came to the conclusion that the body, ‘communicates balance or imbalance, function or dysfunction through its muscles’, (McCord 2006), and this has become an integral hypothesis for all the kinesiology modalities that have emerged following the development of Applied Kinesiology. Of primary importance to the Applied Kinesiologists, is the understanding that kinesiology is designed to be an adjunct to normal clinical diagnosis, and that the techniques should, ‘only be done by one thoroughly knowledgeable in physical, orthopaedic, and neurologic examination and other examination methodology in the healing arts to properly make a differential diagnosis’ (Walther 2000).

As a result of the kinesiology connection to chiropractic, the International College of Applied Kinesiology (ICAK) was established in 1973 to ensure that those using kinesiology were professionals trained in the medical diagnosis of illness. The ICAK states that kinesiology should only be used in addition to other clinical testing facilities, and only ‘to augment normal examination procedures’, (ICAK 2007). Applied Kinesiology is now taught as a postgraduate course at chiropractic colleges.

One of Goodheart’s early chiropractic students, John Thie, had a vision of opening up the teaching of kinesiology to lay people so that families could take care of their own health. In 1977 he produced the first edition of the now famous Touch for Health book, and courses sprang up around the world training lay people to use the amazing effects (Thie 1994). Many branches of kinesiology have emerged from the introduction of the techniques to lay people and these are represented on the picture of the Touch for Health tree. This picture gives a clear indication of some of the many different types of kinesiology that have developed.

Reprinted with permission from Touch for Health Kinesiology Association of the United States.

Professional Kinesiology Practice sits above John Thie DC at the base of the tree, as it developed straight from Touch for Health, to provide more advanced techniques for those wanting to continue their kinesiology training and to become professional practitioners. Medical doctor Bruce Dewe and his wife Joan were early students of John Thie, and they expanded the repertoire of muscles available for testing. The Dewes adapted more techniques from the field of Applied Kinesiology, and added hundreds of other techniques so that no thrusts or chiropractic adjustments are involved in PKP corrections to muscle function. Importantly, they developed a non-verbal method of using finger positions (called Finger Modes) to access what the client needs to restore health and muscle function. This non-verbal language has been found empirically to be fast, effective, and incredibly accurate. Vital to the Dewes’ model of kinesiology is the use of emotions in every muscle imbalance and correction technique (Dewe and Dewe 1999a). The Dewe’s vision was that kinesiology would be a profession in its own right, and things have now come full circle with the development of what has become Professional Kinesiology Practice (PKP). This is taught as a four year diploma course in private training establishments in thirteen countries, with the main International College of Professional Kinesiology Practice based in New Zealand. There is a key philosophical difference between Applied Kinesiology and Professional Kinesiology Practice. The diagnosis and treatment of named medical conditions which is so key to the Applied Kinesiology approach, plays no part in the PKP process. PKP has developed an educational or energy model which means practitioners do not ‘treat’ medical conditions unless they are medically trained. The focus for Practitioners has moved towards education so that the client understands how their body is functioning. The client is an active participant in the process, rather than a passive patient receiving a treatment. Practitioners

assist the client in balancing the body energies in relation to a goal that the client wants to achieve.

The Professional Kinesiology Practice (PKP) method

There are many ways to practice muscle testing, and most are very different from the PKP method. PKP has a very specific use of muscle testing with the tester using the hand with a flat palm and exerting light pressure onto the client’s muscle. A muscle which cannot hold up under such light testing pressure is considered to be demonstrating stress and imbalance in the nervous system. This is very different from muscle strength testing which is used by other therapies.

Some description of the Professional Kinesiology Practice procedure may help in clarifying the reasons for the choice of research methodology. A copy of the procedure is attached at Appendix B.

After taking a client history, and learning why the client has come for the appointment, muscle testing is used to assist with finding and clarifying a goal for the session. This would be the outcome that the client is looking for from this session, and it will not include the names of medical conditions or use of negative language. For instance, a client suffering from arthritis in the fingers and with muscle weakness of the hands might have a goal such as lifting a cup of tea without spilling it. The goal is always stated as a present-time reality, and it will focus on the positive-for example, ‘I lift a cup of tea easily and steadily’. This is the desired outcome, and it will be the factor which determines the course that the session takes. The goal creates intentionality, and complementary medicine practitioners are often heard saying that ‘energy follows intention’. Psychiatrist Stanislav Grof states that there is a fundamental difference in the life of a person who pursues goals, and he likens it to surfing – following the energy. The goal oriented person has much more ability to enjoy the process of life rather than waiting to get there (Grof 2003). Stanford Professor William Tiller (1997) gives his own explanations for the science and mathematics behind this human intentionality and creativity. Coherence of thinking plays an important part in setting and achieving goals, and is discussed by Tiller (1997), Goswami (2004) and Emmons (2003), although each has their own very different perspective of what coherence means. For Tiller it is the wave function, for Goswami it is the coherence of the conscious, subconscious and body minds, and for Emmons it is coherence with the ultimate goal of knowing God. For the mystic, of course, these all mean the same thing.

Muscle testing is then used to find out as many areas of function as possible that are affected by this goal. Information will include, but is not limited to, the following items: The emotion relating to the goal (e.g. frustration in relation to self) % stress over the goal, % life energy available towards achieving the goal they have chosen (of picking up the cup).

Pre-tests which may include any of the following: an analogue pain scale (for emotional or physical pain), limitations in movement or flexibility of joints, functional assessment of muscles, observation of posture, other relevant pre-tests suggested by the goal such as reaching, eye movements, brain integration, gaits etc. Pre-activity such as picking up a cup of water. The balance part of the protocol, which is an interactive process with the client taking part throughout. It is not a passive exercise for the practitioner to ‘do’ something to the client. It may include clearing issues of willingness, psychological self-sabotage, or life path. Age recession is used to clear the goal at all the past/future ages. All the pre-tests and pre-

been resolved as part of the balancing process itself. The goal, emotion, stress and life energy levels are also re-checked.

Any homework for the client is discussed, and a date set for the next session.

Muscle testing can provide a means of obtaining such information with a double heuristic method: a statement made by a client who may believe it to be the truth, can then be tested to determine whether their nervous system and muscle function reacts stressfully or is accepting of that ‘truth’. An example of this would be a statement made by the client such as, ‘I want to be healthy’, which one would expect to be a true statement for most people. In fact their muscles may indicate a stressed response, while their mind thinks this is the truth. This kind of incoherence in the bodymind is what emerges for the client in the pretests, and what is cleared during the balancing session. More coherence in the thinking and living system that is the human body, has effects on many levels, not just the physical, and ensures that the client is better able to achieve their goal.

Moustakas (1994) reminds us that the phenomenological researcher must return again and again to the data to check the description of the experience. In every day clinical practice, and the PKP kinesiologist returns again and again to check the information that the client is supplying. PKP is an heuristic phenomenological practice in and of itself.

Researching Complementary and Alternative Medicines

Although traditional approaches to health have been around for centuries, research into the safety and efficacy of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) is a twentieth century phenomenon. CAM research has been compared by Lewith, Jones and Walach (2002) to the early research undertaken in the field of psychotherapy in the 1960s. Practitioners and users of psychotherapy were generally agreed that it worked but there was no evidence. Initial research attempts to provide the required evidence followed the models that had developed in the field of medical research. Blinded and placebo controlled trials were tried first, and then comparison trials. Kinesiology research has started down the same route of the medically led model, with most of the research so far focussing on internal validity issues such as proving that manual muscle testing works.

It is not necessarily the case that users of CAM or kinesiology are looking only for effective cures or solutions to their health challenges, and that as Lewith states (2000), they may also be looking for ‘meaning and context for their illness’. The gold standard clinical trial is unlikely to be the best way forward in researching CAM therapies such as kinesiology.

Searching for papers

The parameters I used for searching for kinesiology papers must be specified, as there are so many more understandings of the topic than those that appear on the Touch for Health tree. The PKP method is so different from many other practices of muscle testing, that studies using dissimilar muscle testing techniques were excluded. Those kinesiologies which use firm pressure muscle strength testing such as in physiotherapy or sports medicine (Kendall and McCreary 1983), are excluded, since the purpose, the technique and the outcome of such muscle testing bears no relation to the PKP energy model of health. Papers relating to muscle testing done using machines to test rather than a manual test (Hsieh and Phillips 1990) are also excluded as no machines are used in PKP. It is not the process of muscle testing that is the topic of this study, but the phenomenon of the PKP process in which the muscle testing is a tool. Energetic methods used to correct imbalanced muscle function include techniques based on acupuncture theory, or from the world of vibrational medicine such as flower

essences, gems and sound (Gerber 1996). If energetic corrections are not used as part of a kinesiology approach, as in sports medicine or physiotherapy diagnosis, those forms of kinesiology will be excluded. Studies using kinesiology as a means of assessing muscle strength or weakness as part of a diagnostic assessment of ill health or poor functioning and