Does it seem like Alternative Medicine is a new-fangled therapeutic concept – a rising star of the medical community? The reality is, the alternative therapeutic technique of massage therapy dates back 47 centuries, to China 2700 BCE.
Most industry professionals agree that the growing popularity for Complementary & Alternative Medicine (CAM) represents the patient population’s disenchantment with western medicine’s allopathic principles.
An Allopathic doctor best describes a medical professional who practices in accordance with the principles of scientifically based western medicine. This medical approach intentionally discounts the wisdom of the ages because the allopathic doctor has no scientific evidence to support sage knowledge.
Western Medicine is quite effective and in countless ways, has improved the world population’s health and the average lifespan of a human being. The need for western medicine is self-evident. A world without hospitals would be absurd.
Western medicine has not, however, scientifically recognized every medical possibility; because even the most modern equipment cannot measure what it does not know exists. Additionally, the expanding interest in Complementary & Alternative Medicine can be attributed to the fact that allopathic medicine is delivered clinically; patients tend to feel as if they have been excluded from their own healing process.
Regrettably, isolating a patient from his or her own healing process is counterproductive to healing itself.
Complementary & Alternative Medicine (CAM) includes yoga, aromatherapy, acupuncture, hypnotherapy, and meditation, among others. This article focuses on three specific alternative therapeutic approaches currently gaining recognition and demand — Reiki, Polarity Therapy, and Massage Therapy.
Reiki
Reiki is a vibrational energetic healing technique that re-balances a patient’s physical, emotional, and mental energy fields — simultaneously. Reiki’s healing life force energy fills, balances and heals a patient’s entire body, from the inside out.
Combining two Japanese concepts creates the word Reiki:
Rei — Rei has several meanings — Soul, Higher Power, Spirit, and God’s Wisdom; and
Ki — Ki is vital energy. Traditional Chinese Medicine refers to it as Chi. Ayurveda practitioners refer to it as Prana. Ki has many names across many cultures — but they all refer to the identical life force energy model.
Reiki is a gentle, hands-on approach that guides a patient’s current displaced/misdirected energy (the actual source of the symptom or disorder) towards equilibrium — a state of homeostasis. Yet, the art of Reiki does not require any touch at all. In fact, Reiki can even be given over great distances.
This balanced state of being is profoundly relaxing and most effective for healing. In fact, many who receive Reiki fall asleep during treatment because of the remarkable, overwhelming peace that fills them.
Reiki is so effective that it reduces body pain for recent surgical patients and cancer patients. This technique supports medical procedures for countless disorders and diseases. Several years ago, The Washington Post revealed that more than 60 hospitals in the country offered Reiki as a support service.
Polarity Therapy
In the 1940s, Dr. Randolph Stone, a naturopath, osteopath, and chiropractor developed a bodywork technique that masterfully integrated the principles of life-force energy — i.e. Reiki.
Polarity Therapy views the body as a wireless device. Polarity Therapists practice from the belief that one law of nature maintains the body’s energetic equilibrium — the energetic flow (push/pull, +/-) between the body’s strategically placed positive, neutral and negative poles.
Similar to Reiki, Polarity Therapy works directly with the body’s energetic fields (KI, Chi, Prana). Polarity Therapy practitioners adjust and rebalance malfunctioning life-energy fields. The practice involves various bodywork techniques that seek to rebalance the disrupted energy — the likely cause of the patient’s disorder.
Polarity Therapy, when compared to Reiki, is more physical. The bodywork varies between a gentle touch, a rocking motion or the elements of massage therapy. A Polarity Therapist generally focuses bodywork in the areas where nerves, bones, and muscles converge.
Balancing universal-life-force energy travels through the Polarity Therapist to the patient. Manipulation and massage techniques direct the intensity of the healing to a target area. Polarity Therapy is an all-encompassing therapeutic model that heals the mind, body, and soul. It is an effective technique with countless disorders.
Massage Therapy
For many years, a massage was considered a way in which to indulge one’s self. And while that still holds true, Massage Therapy is so much more. Currently, Massage Therapy is used as an effective, complementary alternative technique given to patients to aid in their healing process.
Massage Therapy is a complete set of bodywork techniques that utilize a range of strokes to reduce muscle pain, stress, anxiety, and more. There are four types:
Trigger Point — adjusts tight muscles from overuse or accidental injury.
Swedish — a gentle type of massage that seeks to energize and relax the client.
Sports — similar a Swedish massage but designed for sports-related injuries.
Deep Tissue — designed to help heal deep muscle layers and connective tissue.
Massage Therapy studies suggest that Complementary & Alternative Medicine effectively improves digestion, stress, insomnia, strains, fibromyalgia, sports injuries, and headaches.
The Take-Away
Complementary & Alternative Medicine’s fundamental objective is to re-balance the energy fields that permit a body to function without disease and disorder. The energetically balanced individual makes healthy living choices. CAM’s modalities accomplish this by introducing the concept of human touch and/or Mother Earth’s plant and mineral bounties.
Want to learn more about Energy Medicine? Find a Energy Healer near me.
