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Polarity therapy

 
Medical Encyclopedia: Polarity Therapy
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Definition

Polarity therapy is a holistic, energy-based system that includes bodywork, diet, exercise, and lifestyle counseling for the purpose of restoring and maintaining proper energy flows throughout the body. The underlying concept of polarity therapy is that all energy within the human body is based in electromagnetic force and that disease results from improperly dissipated energy.

Description

Origins

Austrian-American chiropractor, osteopath, and naturopath Randolph Stone (1888–1981) developed polarity therapy as an integration of Eastern and Western principles and techniques of healing. Stone discovered the ancient principles of the Ayurvedic philosophy in the course of his travels during a sojourn in India. On a life-long quest to learn the fundamentals of human vitality, he also studied reflexology and traditional Chinese medicine.

Stone became committed to the principles of Ayurvedic medicine, which he interpreted in conjunction with his scientific and medical knowledge to define polarity therapy. According to the philosophy of Ayurved, which is based in a set of principles called the tridosha—the energy of the human body is centered in five organs or regions (the brain; the cardiopulmonary [heart and lungs] region, the diaphragm, the smaller intestine, and the larger intestine). One of five airs or energy forms controls each respective region: prana in the brain, vyana in the heart and lungs, udana in the diaphragm, samana in the smaller intestine, and apana in the larger intestine. The five airs control all directional motion in the body, with each air in command of a different type of movement. Stone established further that the prana, centered in the brain, ultimately controlled the combined forces of the body. Any impediment or restriction to the flow of prana in turn affects the health of the entire body. The prana force is nurtured through the flow of food and air into the body as well as through our interactions with other living beings and through the intake of the five sensory organs.

Stone devoted much of his life to defining an elaborately detailed cause and effect relationship between the human anatomy and illness, based on the energy flow of the prana. He further attributed electromagnetic energy as the basis of the energy forces. He used the medical symbol of the Caduceus to define the patterns of the flow and described the energy movement in detail in charts of the human body. Polarity therapy is based in charted energy flows. The primary energy pattern is defined in a spiral motion that radiates from the umbilicus and defines the original energy flow of the fetus in the womb.

After determining the exact source of a patient's energy imbalance, the therapist begins the first of a series of bodywork sessions designed to rechannel and release the patient's misdirected prana. This therapy, akin to massage, is based in energetic pressure and involves circulating motions. In performing the regimen, the therapist pays strict attention to the pressure exerted at each location—even to which finger is used to apply pressure at any given point of the patient's anatomy. This technique, which comprises the central regimen or focal point of polarity therapy is very gentle and is unique to polarity therapy. It typically involves subtle rocking movements and cranial holds to stimulate body energy. Although firm, deep pushing touches are employed in conjunction with the massage technique, the polarity therapist never exerts a particularly forceful contact.

To support the bodywork, the therapist often prescribes a diet for the patient, to encourage cleansing and eliminate waste. The precepts of polarity therapy take into consideration specific interactions between different foods and the human energy fields.

Likewise, a series of exercises is frequently prescribed. These exercises, called polarity yoga include squats, stretches, rhythmic movements, deep breathing, and expression of sounds. They can be both energizing and relaxing. Counseling may be included whenever appropriate as a part of a patient's highly individual therapy regimen to promote balance.

— Gloria Cooksey


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Alternative Medicine Encyclopedia: Polarity Therapy
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Home > Library > Health > Alternative Medicine Encyclopedia

Definition

Polarity therapy is a holistic, energy-based system that includes bodywork, diet, exercise, and lifestyle counseling for the purpose of restoring and maintaining proper energy flows throughout the body. The underlying concept of polarity therapy is that all energy within the human body is based in electromagnetic force and that disease results from improperly dissipated energy.

Origins

Austrian-American chiropractor, osteopath, and naturopath Randolph Stone (1888–1981) developed polarity therapy as an integration of Eastern and Western principles and techniques of healing. Stone discovered the ancient principles of the Ayurvedic philosophy in the course of his travels during a sojourn in India. On a life-long quest to learn the fundamentals of human vitality, he also studied reflexology and traditional Chinese medicine.

Stone became committed to the principles of Ayurvedic medicine, which he interpreted in conjunction with his scientific and medical knowledge to define polarity therapy. According to the philosophy of Ayurved, which is based in a set of principles called the tridosha—the energy of the human body is centered in five organs or regions (the brain; the cardiopulmonary [heart and lungs] region, the diaphragm, the smaller intestine, and the larger intestine). One of five airs or energy forms controls each respective region: prana in the brain, vyana in the heart and lungs, udana in the diaphragm, samana in the smaller intestine, and apana in the larger intestine. The five airs control all directional motion in the body, with each air in command of a different type of movement. Stone established further that the prana, centered in the brain, ultimately controlled the combined forces of the body. Any impediment or restriction to the flow of prana in turn affects the health of the entire body. The prana force is nurtured through the flow of food and air into the body as well as through our interactions with other living beings and through the intake of the five sensory organs.

Stone devoted much of his life to defining an elaborately detailed cause and effect relationship between the human anatomy and illness, based in the energy flow of the prana. He further attributed electromagnetic energy as the basis of the energy forces. He used the medical symbol of the Caduceus to define the patterns of the flow and described the energy movement in detail in charts of the human body. Polarity therapy is based in charted energy flows. The primary energy pattern is defined in a spiral motion that radiates from the umbilicus and defines the original energy flow of the fetus in the womb.

Benefits

Polarity therapy unblocks and recharges the flow of life energy and realigns unbalanced energy as a means of eliminating disease. Patients learn to release tension by addressing the source of the stress and by maintaining a healthy demeanor accordingly.

This treatment may be effective to promote health and healing to anyone willing to embrace the appropriate lifestyle. Polarity therapy is reportedly effective for anyone who has been exposed to toxic poisons. Likewise HIV-positive individuals may find comfort in polarity therapy. Additionally this is an appropriate therapy for relieving general stress, back pain, stomach cramps, and other recurring maladies and conditions.

Description

After determining the exact source of a patient's energy imbalance, the therapist begins the first of a series of bodywork sessions designed to rechannel and release the patient's misdirected prana. This therapy, akin to massage, is based in energetic pressure and involves circulating motions. In performing the regimen, the therapist pays strict attention to the pressure exerted at each location—even to which finger is used to apply pressure at any given point of the patient's anatomy. This technique, which comprises the central regimen or focal point of polarity therapy is very gentle and is unique to polarity therapy. It typically involves subtle rocking movements and cranial holds to stimulate body energy. Although firm, deep pushing touches are employed in conjunction with the massage technique, the polarity therapist never exerts a particularly forceful contact.

To support the bodywork, the therapist often prescribes a diet for the patient, to encourage cleansing and eliminate waste. The precepts of polarity therapy take into consideration specific interactions between different foods and the human energy fields.

Likewise, a series of exercises is frequently prescribed. These exercises, called polarity yoga include squats, stretches, rhythmic movements, deep breathing, and expression of sounds. They can be both energizing and relaxing. Counseling may be included whenever appropriate as a part of a patient's highly individual therapy regimen to promote balance.

Preparations

Therapists take a comprehensive case history from every patient prior to beginning treatment. This preliminary verbal examination often monopolizes the first therapy session. Depending upon circumstances a therapist might have a need to assess the patient's physical structural balance through observation and physical examination.

Precautions

Polarity therapy is safe for virtually anyone, even the elderly and the most frail patients, because of the intrinsic gentleness of the massage therapy.

Side Effects

Highly emotional releases of energy (laughter, tears, or a combination of both) are associated with this therapy.

Research & General Acceptance

This is a complementary therapy of holistic, spiritually based treatment, which may be used in conjunction with a medical approach. Polarity therapy is practiced worldwide, but the majority of practitioners are based in the United States. Modern physicists employ concepts similar to Stone's basic theories of polarity in defining the quantum vacuum (QV) as a foundation of all reality. Still, by 2000, this holistic regimen had not achieved the widespread acceptance anticipated by Stone before his death in 1981.

When St. Paul Fire and Marine insurers offered a liability insurance package to therapy providers, the company recognized polarity therapy as an alternative medical treatment along with acupuncture, biofeedback, homeopathy, reflexology, and others.

Training & Certification

The American Polarity Therapy Association (APTA) sanctions two levels of training. The Associate Polarity Practitioner (APP) is the preliminary level, based on a minimum level of excellence in this field. Registered Polarity Practitioner (RPP) is bestowed upon the graduates of an approved training curriculum. Post-graduate and specialty training is available in a variety of fields, and APTA certifies practitioners accordingly.

Resources

Books

Stone, Randolph. Polarity Therapy—The Complete Collected Works. Reno, CRCS Publications, 1986.

Periodicals

Modern Medicine (August 1, 1999): 15.

Organizations

American Polarity Therapy Association. P.O. Box 19858, Boulder Colorado 80308. (303) 545-2080. Fax: (303) 545-2161.

Trans-Hyperboreau Institute of Science. P.O. Box 2344 Sausalito, California 94966. (415) 331-0230. (800) 485-8095. Fax: (415) 331-0231.

Other

Young, Phil. "Prana." http://www.eclipse.co.uk/masterworks/Polarity/PolarityArticles.htm. (16 June 2000).

[Article by: Gloria Cooksey]

Wikipedia: Polarity therapy
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Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Wikipedia
Energy therapy - edit
NCCAM classifications
  1. Alternative Medical Systems
  2. Mind-Body Intervention
  3. Biologically Based Therapy
  4. Manipulative Methods
  5. Energy Therapy
See also

Polarity therapy is a holistic alternative medicine health system developed in the 1940s by Randolph Stone.[1] Proponents claim healing can be achieved through manipulation of what they describe as complementary (or polarized) forces, a form of putative energy.[2] The term Stone borrowed from Chinese philosophy to describe those forces is yin and yang. The practice is unsupported by evidence.[3][1]

Contents

Beliefs

Polarity therapy is a synthesis of ancient Eastern and alternative medicine health care ideas, centered on the concept of a human energy field.[4] Using touch, verbal interaction, exercise, nutrition and other methods,[5] practitioners of polarity therapy seek to balance and restore the natural flow of energy which, it is claimed,[who?] flows from the universe and into the body through the chakras. The aim is to re-establish "balance". In addition to polarity bodywork, specific polarity yoga exercises, counseling/positive thinking, and nutritional recommendations are claimed to enhance vitality.

Between 1947 and 1954, Stone published seven books describing polarity therapy principles and applications. These were subsequently consolidated into three volumes: Polarity Therapy Vol. I and Vol. II (CRCS, 1986), and Health-Building (The Book Publishing Co., 1999), Principles of Polarity Therapy.[6]

Advocates and practitioners of PT claim that a subtle, invisible and intangible energetic system is the substrate for all phenomena. According to proponents, if the energetic flow is corrected and restored to its original design, the form will follow. Further, they claim that blockages in the flow of energy lead to pain and disease (directly contradicting the germ theory of disease), or be experienced as stuck emotions and lack of vitality. They claim that this is similar to the measurable and quantifiable electromagnetic bond between electron and proton that forms atoms, a claim which is not scientific, but pseudoscience. There is no scientific basis for this belief, nor any reproducible measurements of this system. While an electromagnetic metaphor is often used, Stone emphasized that the energy concept had a larger context; he referred to it as the "Breath of Life"[7] and used esoteric language (such as ki, ch'i, prana and life force) from spiritual traditions (especially mystic Christianity,[8] Ayurveda,[9] Taoism, Hinduism[10], Buddhism,[11] Sufism and Yoga[12]) to describe PT.

Practice

Polarity therapists claim to work with the reciprocal, complementary or "polarized" forces, which they describe with the traditional Chinese words yin and yang. Although the concept of polarity implies two forces in opposition, these dualities are said by some to be mediated by a subtle third neutral factor, leading to the idea that phenomena are essentially triune in nature. In Ayurveda, the three factors are known as Rajas, Tamas, and Satva.

Polarity therapists claim expertise in "energetic anatomy" and claim to work with these energetic patterns (similar to acupuncture meridians, and marma points). The Caduseus, representative of the ida and pingala, is another aspect of the nadis/chakra system that is thought to be manipulated during certain types of polarity treatments. Various esoteric energetic patterns inherent in the body, referred to in Kabbalah, and other traditions, such as the five-pointed star and six-pointed star, are traced on the body, allegedly to integrate consciousness and fully connect various part of the being. According to Stone, the purpose of life is "the fulfillment of consciousness".[13]

Polarity therapy is often connected with other forms of alternative medicine, such as Oriental medicine, Ayurveda, craniosacral therapy and osteopathy, which all claim to explore the subtle energetic factors in health conditions from their particular cultural viewpoints. Many chiropractic, osteopathic, and cranial manipulations and naturopathic perspectives and techniques are explored in Stone's writings and diagrams.

Polarity therapy has four distinct areas of technique, by which proponents believe life force energy can be influenced: touch (massage, acupuncture), stretching and exercise, diet, and mental-emotional process. Polarity practitioners registered with the American Polarity Therapy Association should be knowledgeable in all four areas. However, although most current APTA trainings cover the standard curriculum, some practitioners have different interpretations of Stone's work, and therefore different emphasis and styles of practice.

Other systems

Polarity Therapy has many branches from its early beginnings, which produce dramatically different practitioners. Many hybrids and other systems of polarity therapy have evolved out of the initial work of Stone, and as such consistency among different schools and consistency in treatments is lacking in the field.

Research

Main article: Energy (spirituality)

Research and testing on polarity therapy has been carried out primarily by advocates or practitioners, and most evidence is anecdotal.[citation needed] There is no scientific evidence for the efficacy of the technique or its underlying ideas.[1][2] Proponents such as Gary Schwartz claim their ideas about a human energy field to be validated by other believers in the paranormal.[14] .

References

  1. ^ a b c "Polarity". Natural Standard. 2008-04-29. http://www.intelihealth.com/IH/ihtIH/WSIHW000/8513/34968/358862.html. Retrieved 2008-12-27. 
  2. ^ a b Barrett, Stephen. "Massage Therapy: riddled with quackery". QuackWatch. http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/massage.html. Retrieved 2008-12-27. 
  3. ^ National Council Against Health Fraud (December 13, 2005). "Consumer Health Digest #05-50: Massage group denounces "fringe" practices.". http://www.ncahf.org/digest05/05-50.html. 
  4. ^ Oschman, J.: Energy Medicine, The Scientific Basis, page 10. (Churchill Livingstone, 2000).
  5. ^ American Polarity Therapy Association: Standards for Practice (Fourth Edition), page 2. APTA, 2003.
  6. ^ Stone, R.: "Polarity Therapy, Vol. II", page 227 ff. CRCS, 1986.
  7. ^ Stone, R.: "Polarity Therapy Vol. I", page 2. CRCS, 1986.
  8. ^ Stone, R.: "The Mystic Bible." RSSB, 1956. Initially trained to be a Lutheran priest, Stone has dozens of Biblical references scattered throughout all his books.
  9. ^ Morningstar, A,: The Ayurvedic Guide to Polarity Therapy. Lotus Press, 2002. This presents Polarity concepts from the perspective of the Ayurvedic health care system
  10. ^ Burger, B.: Esoteric Anatomy. North Atlantic Books, 1998. This presents Polarity concepts including interpretations from a Hindu mythology perspective,
  11. ^ Sills, F.: The Polarity Process. North Atlantic, 2002. This gives presents Polarity concepts including interpretations from a Buddhist perspective,
  12. ^ Wehrli, K.: The Why in the Road. Earthlit Press, 2005.
  13. ^ Chitty, J. and Muller, M.L.: Energy Exercises, page 123-124. Polarity Press, 1990.
  14. ^ Schwartz, G. & Russek, L.: "The Living Energy Universe," pages 274, 104. Hampton Roads, 1999.

See also

External links


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