The Potential Of Health Kinesiology by Jane Thurnell-Read
First published in  South West/ South East Connection Issue 51 April/July 1998

Like many other people I became interested in alternative medicine because of my own ill health and that of my family. I had been unwell all my life; not seriously, but always I had some minor problem: catarrh, recurrent sore throats, eczema on my hands and feet, hives, frequent coughs and colds, etc. I clearly remember a colleague saying to me, 'What's wrong with you this week?'

I knew I wasn’t a hypochondriac but I couldn’t find out what was wrong, so to some extent I learned to live with it. My first son was born in 1979 and he developed eczema, diarrhoea and hyperactivity. I became determined to find a solution to his health problems. I started reading avidly and became convinced that he was allergic to something. I went to the Festival of Mind and Body at Olympia and came across the Touch for Health Stand, a simple form of kinesiology developed for the lay person to practice. I found that TFH could be used to detect allergies.

I took my son to someone who practised TFH and he detected an allergy to wheat. I took my son home and removed all wheat from his diet. Very quickly the eczema started to disappear and the diarrhoea lessen. I was excited by all this and decided to have a consultation myself. My health too rapidly improved. I decided that I wanted to learn these wonderful techniques for myself and so enrolled on various TFH courses. Shortly after this I found I was pregnant again, and I was very grateful for TFH when my second son turned out to have severe asthma.

As well as looking after two young children I was also continuing to be a University lecturer part time. Gradually I started to see clients and use TFH to find out their allergies. It soon became clear that I could not do all these things, so I decided to give up the University in order to concentrate on the much more satisfying work of helping people improve their health.

Over the next few years I saw thousands of people and helped them with their allergies, using TFH to identify the allergies and homeopathic drops to remove the sensitivity. The work was very rewarding but I gradually became more and more frustrated, as it became clear to me that in dealing with allergies I was still dealing with symptoms. I wanted to look at the underlying causes of these problems: why people were developing allergies. I started to investigate herbalism, iridology, homeopathy and various branches of kinesiology, but none of these felt right for me.

In 1987, Dr Jimmy Scott came over from the USA to teach Health Kinesiology. I was impressed by the systematic, profound and holistic nature of the therapy. I went home and completely re-organised my practice: all my clients got Health Kinesiology. Over the months I became more and more impressed by the power and efficacy of the system. I felt that it really got to the bottom of people’s problems and yet helped them in a gentle and respective manner. I could use the techniques not only to help people with allergy-related problems, but also with any other symptom or illness. I undertook more training and in 1990 became the first person in the world to teach Health Kinesiology other than Jimmy Scott himself. I found that teaching other people to be Health Kinesiologists is a very satisfying experience.

Health Kinesiology uses muscle testing to identify stresses on the individual’s energy system; these can include allergies, nutritional deficiencies, toxicity, psychological stresses, electro-magnetic disturbances, dysfunction of the five senses, chakra disturbances, etc. Once the stresses are identified gentle techniques involving the acupuncture system are used to bring the body back into harmony.

Muscle testing involves applying gentle pressure to a muscle and monitoring the tone of the muscle. The muscle will either lock or be spongy. In Health Kinesiology these two responses are used to ask verbal questions of the body. The practitioner asks a verbal question and then presses gently on an appropriate muscle. If the muscle locks the answer is “yes”, but if the muscle weakens the answer is “no”. So muscle testing can be used to establish exactly what the energy system needs.

It is a therapy which truly honours the innate wisdom of the person. It is a truly holistic system: one moment you can be working with magnets on the physical body and the next moment correcting subtle energy disturbances or childhood distress. At first sight the skill is in the muscle testing and knowing the various techniques, but in reality the skill is in the quality of the verbal questioning. Health Kinesiology teaches the student to be rigorous and precise in the questions they ask: as with computers, it's garbage in, garbage out.

Health Kinesiology consists of a limited number of building blocks, which can be put together in an almost infinite variety of different ways. Once you understand the system it is breath-takingly simple. Getting to that point demands some hard work and lots of practice, but once achieved gives access to an open-ended system of enormous power and versatility.

Health Kinesiology attracts a wide range of different students: existing therapists seeking to add a new therapy, doctors and nurses seeking an alternative to the medical model, women with young children seeking a new career which they can combine with looking after growing children, highly educated people seeking something more satisfying, people stuck in dead end jobs wanting something more stimulating. There is a very low drop out rate from these courses, which shows that people do find what they are looking for and often even more than they dreamed was possible. The essentials of HK are taught in 5 four day courses with lots of practice in between. These courses are recognised by the Kinesiology Federation for professional training and are moderated and accredited a by the Open College Network based at the University of Plymouth.

One of the beauties of HK is that it can be used to help people with a wide range of different problems:

• physical problems [eczema, asthma, arthritis, M.E., vertigo, etc.]
• psychological problems [lack of self-confidence, depression, phobias, obsessions, anxiety, guilt, etc. ]
• mental problems [learning difficulties, poor memory, bad co-ordination, etc. ]
• spiritual problems [ lack of direction, etc.].

People don’t even need to be ill to benefit from Health Kinesiology: it can help improve sporting performance or help people to function better in any area of their life or to realise their full potential for personal development.

Of course, the clients who stand out are the ones who benefited in a spectacular manner: the man in his 70’s going blind through macular degeneration whose sight has improved so much after three sessions that he is now back driving a car, the man who had suffered from depression for 30 years and had one session in March 1994 and told me in December 1997, 'The depression has completely gone; you cannot imagine the difference it has made to my quality of life' or the girl with severe epilepsy who is now drug-free. These and many other stories are exciting, but I also gain a tremendous amount of satisfaction in helping people in less dramatic ways: people who need more appointments or who are less seriously ill, but who find that HK helps them overcome their problems and feel happier and more at peace with themselves. As Jimmy Scott has written, 'Through HK a person can become who they were designed to be'.

Now when I look at my sons, when I contrast how I am now with how I used to be, when I see the change in my clients as they return to health, when I hear from students I have trained about their pleasure and excitement at working with these techniques, I become really aware of what a powerful and amazing system of health care it is.

Jane Thurnell-Read is an author and researcher on health, allergies and stress. She has written two books for the general public: Allergy A to Z and Health Kinesiology. She also maintains a web site www.healthandgoodness.com with tips, inspiration and information for everyone who wants to live a happier, healthier life.