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By Bernie Smolnik, Reflexologist,
Hypnotherapist
Foot Reflexology is a science dealing with the
principle that there are reflexes in the feet relative to each and
every organ and all parts of the body. Foot Reflexology is a natural
way to aid in relaxation to relieve stress and tension, improve blood
supply and promote the un-blocking of nerve impulses, and to help the
body maintain normal homeostasis (a natural balance between systems).
Bernie Smolnik practices Foot Reflexology in
Springfield at Crystal Gardens Healing Center. He has had intensive
training in Foot Reflexology, is board certified in Hypnotherapy
through the National Guild, and has also received certificates in the
Science and Art of Herbalism from Rosemary Gladstar, Sage Mountain
Herbal Center and from Crystal Garden Herbs in Springfield, VT.
INTRODUCTION
First of all, I'd like to thank all of you for
coming and for inviting me to talk about Foot Reflexology. I'm glad to
see an interest in this topic and especially hope this will reoccur
with future talks concerning "alternative healing" with
other speakers.
I would like to pass along a few statistics about
alternative therapies.
Recently Beth Israel Hospital and Havard Medical
School announced a landmark grant from the National Institutes of
Health to fund their newly-created Center for Alternative Medicine
Research. The $935,696 grant will be put toward research on the
safety, efficacy and cost-effectiveness of alternative therapies for
common, chronic medical conditions over a period of three years. David
M. Eisenberg M.D. and director of the Center for Alternative Medical
Research, concluded in a published study in the Jan. 28, 1993 issue of
the New England Journal of Medicine that one in three Americans seek
alternative therapies for serious illnesses, logging a total
425,000,000 visits to alternative therapy providers in 1990 alone.
Other places, such as Dartmouth-Hitchcock, have
offered seminars to their staff and students on a variety of topics
dealing with alternative therapies. Among them the subjects of
accupuncture, herbal remedies, massage therapy and foot reflexology
have been given.
It is time for us, in the age of information, to
educate ourselves and become responsible for our own health and decide
for ourselves how we want to treat ourselves, with the guidance of
professional recommendations after diagnosis from a competent medical
practitioner. Once diagnosed, each one of us has the right of choice
as to how we want to follow through to prevent or treat illnesses or
deformities
Foot Reflexology is not a panacea, it is a
supplement to the health field / an adjunctive to medicine and should
be regarded as such.
A Reflexologist is not a physician and does not
practice medicine. Nor does a Reflexologist treat for specific
conditions. Reflexology helps the body to maintain normal homeostasis
(a natural balance between the systems), aids in relaxation to relieve
stress and tension and improve blood supply and promotes the
unblocking of nerve impulses.
All Reflexologists agree, no matter
what techniques or theories they use, that:
1. The body is reflected on the feet through a
system of reflexes; and
2. The objective of the Reflexologist is to
stimulate these reflexes.
In the average 70-year life span, our feet cover
about 70,000 miles, or 1,000 miles a year. Considering how much our
feet do for us, how much do we do for our feet in return? The answer
is: not much! In western culture, millions of people are treated every
year for foot problems and deformities. Very little attention is given
to proper foot care.
Foot disorders, developed by about 80% of adults,
disrupts our center of gravity and can cause knee, leg, calf pain,
backaches and other pains. As the reflexes in the feet are also
affected, problems can arise in corresponding body parts.
HISTORY
It is not surprising that, new forms of therapy are
not so new. Much of what is alternative practice, which is
"new" to many people, can be traced back hundreds, sometimes
thousands of years.
Reflexology has roots reaching way back in ancient
history when pressure therapies were recognized as preventive and
therapeutic medicine. Exactly where and how it all began is somewhat
elusive, but evidence indicates that therapeutic foot massage has been
practiced throughout history by a variety of cultures.
One widely held theory is that Reflexology
originated in China some 5000 years ago. Egyptian and Babylon cultures
developed before Chinese culture, however, and Egypt contributed a
valuable piece of evidence.
A pictograph dating back to 2500-2330 BC was found
in the tomb of an Egyptian physician, Ankmahor, at Saqqara. The scene
in the pictograph depicts two dark skinned men working on the feet and
hands of two men with lighter skin.
The patient on the left has his right hand on his
right knee and his left hand under his right armpit. The other patient
is opposite. There is a relationship between the kind of problem the
patient has and where the practitioner touches. This determines the
points of pressure he and the patient use. The hieroglyphics above
reads: "Do not let it be painful", one of the patients says.
The attendant replies, "I do as you please."
Another theory claims that a similar form of
reflex-therapy was passed down to the American Indians by the Incas.
The use of reflex-pressure applied to the feet as a healing therapy
has been practiced by the North American Indians for generations.
This knowledge of foot reflex therapy may have been
lost to antiquity had it not been for the inquiring medical minds of
the late 19th and 20th centuries. People intrigued with the concept of
reflex therapy brought on a resurgence of interest in the study of
reflexes. The study and development of reflex therapy by pioneering
Europeans and Americans laid the foundations of reflexology as it is
known today.
In Europe a form of reflexology was known and
practiced as far back as the 14th century.
The scientific basis of reflexology had its roots in
neurological studies conducted in 1890s by Sir Henry Head of London.
In 1898 he discovered zones on the skin which became hypersensitive to
pressure, when an organ connected by nerves to this skin region was
diseased. After years of research Head established what became known
as "Head's zones" or "zones of hyperalgesia."
In the late 1890s and early 1900s massage techniques
developed in Germany became known as "reflex massage". This
was the first time that the benefits of massage techniques were
credited to reflex actions.
Europeans went on to expand their research. But
credit for putting modern reflexology on the map must go to the
Americans. Dr. Wm. Fitzgerald, commonly known as the founder of zone
therapy, was born in 1872. He graduated in medicine from UVM in 1895
and practiced in hospitals in Vienna and London.
While in Vienna he came in contact with the work of
Dr. H. Bressler who had been investigating the possibility of treating
organs with pressure points. Fitzgerald continued his research while
head physician at the Hospital for Disease of Ear, Nose and Throat at
Hartford, CT. Fitzgerald found that if pressure was applied on the
fingers it would create a local anesthetic effect on the hand, arm,
and shoulder, right up to the jaw, face, ear and nose. Applying
pressure using tight bands of elastic or small clamps on the middle
section of each finger, he was able to carry out minor surgical
operations.
Dr. Fitzgerald divided the body into zones, which he
used for his anesthetic effect. By applying pressure on a specific
body part he learned to predict which other body parts would be
affected. Fitzgerald established ten equal longitudinal zones running
the length of the body from the top of the head to the tips of the
toes. Each finger and toe fall into one zone. If a line were drawn
through the center of the body there would be five zones on either
side. The zones are of equal width and extend right through the body
from front to back. The theory is that parts of the body found within
a certain zone will be linked with one another by the energy flow
within the zone and can therefore affect one another.
In 1915 Dr. Edwin Bowers wrote an article that first
publicly described this treatment and called it "zone
therapy". It was published in Everybody's Magazine
entitled "To Stop That Toothache - Squeeze Your Toe!"
In 1917 the combined work of Dr. Bowers and Dr.
Fitzgerald was published in the book Zone Therapy.
Fitzgerald and his theories were not
enthusiastically received by the medical profession. One physician,
Dr. Joseph Shelby Riley and his wife, were taught zone therapy by
Fitzgerald and they used this method in their practice for years.
Riley refined the techniques and made the first diagrams and drawings
of the reflex points located in the feet. His first book Zone
Therapy Simplified was published in 1919.
It was Riley's assistant, Eunice Ingham, who
probably made the greatest contribution to the establishment of modern
reflexology. It was through her tireless research and dedication that
reflexology finally came into its own. She separated the work on the
reflexes of the feet from zone therapy in general.
Eunice Ingham should be called the Mother of Modern
Reflexology. She used zone therapy in her work but thought the feet
should be specific targets for therapy because of their highly
sensitive nature. She charted the feet in relation to the zones, and
their effects on the rest of the anatomy, until she had evolved on the
feet a map of the entire body. Her work was so successful that her
reputation spread and she is now recognized as the founder of foot
reflexology.
Eunice Ingham took her work to the public speaking
at conventions and sharing her knowledge with massage therapists,
osteopaths, naturopaths and physiotherapists. She traveled throughout
the U.S. for over 30 years teaching her method through books, charts,
and seminars to thousands of people in and out of the medical
profession. She wrote two books Stories The Feet Can Tell in
1938 and Stories The Feet Have Told in 1963. She died in 1974,
but her legacy continues under the direction of her nephew, Dwight
Byers who runs the International Institute of Reflexology in St.
Petersburg, Fla.
WHAT IS REFLEXOLOGY AND HOW DOES IT
WORK?
Reflexologists do not isolate a disease and treat it
symptomatically, nor do they work specifically on a problem, organ, or
system, but on the whole person with the object of inducing a state of
balance and harmony. It is a specific pressure therapy, not to be
confused with a basic foot massage, which works on precise reflex
points on the feet based on the premise that reflex areas on the feet
correspond with all body parts. As the feet represent a microcosm of
the body, all organs, glands and other body parts are laid out in a
similar arrangement on the feet.
Pressure is applied to the reflex areas using
specific thumb and finger techniques. This causes physiological
changes to take place as the bodies own healing potential is
stimulated. Thus, the feet can play a major role in attaining and
maintaining better health.
There is no use of high tech, complicated equipment.
The technique is quite simple and does not require years of training
to master. A good practitioner needs a sensitive but sturdy pair of
hands, a genuine desire to ease pain and suffering, compassion,
intuition and understanding of human nature. The practitioner acts as
a mediator to activate the client's healing potential.
The goal of reflexology is to trigger the return to
homeostasis - a state of balance. Reducing tension and inducing
relaxation are the most important steps toward achieving this.
Relaxation is the first step to normalization. When
the body is relaxed, healing is possible. This form of therapy is
useful for treating ill health, and effective in maintaining good
health and preventing illness.
As a holistic therapy, reflexology aims to treat the
body as a whole and endeavors to get to the root cause of disease and
treat this, not the symptom. For best results, the participation of
the client is required. Ultimately the Reflexologist is not
responsible for the client's health. In all holistic therapies,
emphasis is placed on taking responsibility for one's own state of
health. In orthodox medicine, the tendency is to hand over the
responsibility to the doctor and expect him to cure all ills. This is
a bit of a tall order, indeed.
The human body is a magnificent machine with
thousands of parts working together to keep the body functioning at
optimum levels. The negative effects of emotions, attitudes, stress,
lifestyle and diet can throw the body out of sync, causing
malfunctions. Reflexology can be considered a 'body tune up'.
The Reflexologist does not heal - only the body
heals. But reflexology helps to balance all the body systems,
stimulating an under-active area, and calming an over active one. It
is harmless to those areas functioning properly.
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