So far I've introduced several holistic beliefs and practices that are not accepted by mainstream medicine. The first is probably the most common: chiropractic care. Second is the purported existence of human body energy fields which skeptics claim can not be scientifically proven (they may be right). Third is the reality and influence of negative entities or disembodied spirits upon us. This presupposes a belief in the existence of life after death and a believe that we have a spirit within our bodies, which really is the core of our essence.Fourth is the concept of negative energy stored as memories somewhere in our bodies influencing our behavior and well-being today. I've alluded to the fifth and probably the most difficult one for some people to accept and that is muscle testing or more accurately muscle response testing. It is also known as kinesiology or applied kinesiology. This practice is probably the least known and yet the most ridiculed by the mainstream medical community, or at least by the self-appointed watchdogs of that community.
Muscle Response Testing
What is Muscle Response Testing? MRT is similar to the use of a polygraph machine or a lie detector. The concept is the same. You ask the individual a question and have them verbally respond. The tester then measures the ability of a muscle to remain strong while being subjected to an effort to move it against the will of the person being questioned. The individual can also be asked to make a statement as if it were true and then the muscle is tested for strength. It is usually practiced on one of the arms in which the individual being questioned can be either lying down, sitting or standing.
Muscle testing can also be practiced on the fingers of the individual as they make a circle with their thumb and any one of the other fingers on the hand. The tester attempts to pull the fingers apart after asking the question or having the individual make a statement. I think the practice was first attributed to Dr. George Goodheart, a chiropractor back in the 1960's. He may have been the first to discover that he could use the muscles to gather information from the body.
Your Body Doesn't Lie
The book which I have used the most to understand MRT and which is considered one of the fundamental books for any Holistic Medicine library is "Your Body Doesn't Lie," written by Dr. John Diamond, M.D. and published in 1979. He describes his use of MRT as 'Behavioral Kinesiology'. The book includes photos of muscle response testing being demonstrated. However, I have found that the best source to learn how to practice muscle response testing is from Dr. Brad May.
Dr May wrote 'Muscle Testing Miracles' in 1998 while practicing psychiatry and teaching in San Diego. He produced a video series in 1999 which demonstrates MRT in action both on the arm and using the fingers. He also teaches how you can use MRT on yourself and in fact, may be the only one who has documented this in a video format. I highly recommend his course. It was developed over many years as a counselor in several clinics in the San Diego area. His marketing company and website is called Serenity Systems and he calls his technique ECC - Emotional Complex Clearing. I have spoken with Dr May about his techniques and have used his training material extensively.
What do you think? Can otherwise intelligent people really believe in muscle testing?
1 comment:
Take a look at these:
Chiropr Osteopat. 2007 Aug 23;15:11.Click here to read Click here to read Links
Disentangling manual muscle testing and Applied Kinesiology: critique and reinterpretation of a literature review.
Haas M, Cooperstein R, Peterson D.
Western States Chiropractic College, 2900 NE 132nd Avenue, Portland, OR 97230, USA. mhaas@wschiro.edu.
ABSTRACT: Cuthbert and Goodheart recently published a narrative review on the reliability and validity of manual muscle testing (MMT) in the Journal. The authors should be recognized for their effort to synthesize this vast body of literature. However, the review contains critical errors in the search methods, inclusion criteria, quality assessment, validity definitions, study interpretation, literature synthesis, generalizability of study findings, and conclusion formulation that merit a reconsideration of the authors' findings. Most importantly, a misunderstanding of the review could easily arise because the authors did not distinguish the general use of muscle strength testing from the specific applications that distinguish the Applied Kinesiology (AK) chiropractic technique. The article makes the fundamental error of implying that the reliability and validity of manual muscle testing lends some degree of credibility to the unique diagnostic procedures of AK. The purpose of this commentary is to provide a critical appraisal of the review, suggest conclusions consistent with the literature both reviewed and omitted, and extricate conclusions that can be made about AK in particular from those that can be made about MMT. When AK is disentangled from standard orthopedic muscle testing, the few studies evaluating unique AK procedures either refute or cannot support the validity of AK procedures as diagnostic tests. The evidence to date does not support the use of MMT for the diagnosis of organic disease or pre/subclinical conditions.
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Forsch Komplementmed. 2008 Feb;15(1):40-6.Click here to read Links
A review of the literature in applied and specialised kinesiology.
Hall S, Lewith G, Brien S, Little P.
Complementary Medicine Research Unit, School of Medicine, University of Southampton, UK. s.s.Hall@soton.ac.uk
INTRODUCTION: Kinesiology is a diagnostic, therapeutic complementary therapy utilising subtle change in manual muscle testing results to evaluate the body's energetic balance and select healing modalities. Anecdotal evidence suggests kinesiology is helpful, therefore we wished to critically review the literature. AIMS: (1) To ascertain if diagnostic accuracy including inter-examiner reliability has been established. (2) To review whether there is evidence for its therapeutic effectiveness. (3) To critically assess the quality of relevant studies. Methods: Electronic databases were searched. Diagnostic accuracy studies were analysed and scored for methodological quality and quality of reporting using the quality assessment tool for studies of diagnostic accuracy included in systematic reviews (QUADAS) and the Standards for Reporting of Diagnostic Studies (STARD). Clinical studies were analysed for methodological quality using the JADAD scale and for quality of reporting using the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT). RESULTS: 22 original relevant studies were identified. Their methodology was poor. Items reported on QUADAS scored 1-11 out of a possible 14, STARD scores were between 6-13 out of 25, JADAD scores were all 0 out of 5 and CONSORT 4-6 out of 22. Consequently, we were unable to answer any of our research questions. CONCLUSION: There is insufficient evidence for diagnostic accuracy within kinesiology, the validity of muscle response and the effectiveness of kinesiology for any condition.The standards of reporting were low. We recommend a pragmatic study of the effectiveness of kinesiology as the most appropriate initial step to determine whether kinesiology has any clinical value.
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