Kinesiology, a clients perspective: Doris. An interview by Dr Anna Rolfes. See Kinesiology, a clients perspective

Doris is a 44-year-old music teacher who had kinesiology sessions to help heal a broken arm and improve her asthma.

Anna: What did it feel for you to be muscle tested?

Doris: At that very first time?

Anna: Yes, or the second time.

Doris: Well, it began to be clearer. It wasn’t really clear at the beginning, how I felt things, but then we worked it, or you worked it, out.

Yes, I became clearer, but that didn’t seem to matter anyway because often you suggested the muscles do their own reaction anyway.

Anna: So, what was the feeling when you were muscle tested? Can you recall that? What your arms and legs did?

Doris: I could feel, yes. Rather than feeling a muscle, one could feel the effect.

It was quite interesting to feel that at times you suddenly felt a weakness in the leg or the arm when certain things were mentioned, like the water on the floor and that sort of thing. 

Anna: So could you feel your strength, or whatever it is in the muscle, changing?

Doris: Yes, I could tell the difference. Nothing at first, as I say, but then when one practised a fair bit, then you thought, yes. Well, I think the interesting thing was you could feel the difference, but intellectually sometimes you weren’t expecting it to be that.

So I felt it wasn’t as if I was anticipating it. The muscle was weak in a room where I have one of my favourite places.

Yet that reaction seemed to happen when we tested at the clinic and in the room itself. There was a weakening of my muscles. Yes, I felt that.

Anna: You felt that? Do you think muscle tests can help you get more aware of your body or how your body reacts?

Doris: I’m sure it could. I don’t think the two sessions are enough for that. I did become more aware. I mean, you actually gave other exercises like the breathing in and the feeling.

The other really interesting thing was that centring, or me feeling where you were giving me energy.

So there was an understanding that things had been thrown off centre a bit. That sort of awareness of the jolt the body had taken has probably enabled me to accept the thing itself more, perhaps.

But the fact that some responses weren’t anticipated was another reason why one would think there is validity in it, because it is not what you might have expected. It is really hard to think back where I was at, and what I was doing. 

Anna: Would you say that the muscle tests enhanced at that time your perception of your reality?

Doris: Yes, it did. It seemed to be actually very physiological in one way. But, then, it is not the way one is used to. As I said with these feelings, where you were touching etcetera, and we realised the whole body is involved.

I suppose that was… that helped me. It was like a perception of where I was at, I suppose, and what the injury had done to the body as a whole, I think.

Anna: What sense did you have of the procedure of the muscle tests? Where did it come from, to be weak or strong? Did you get a sense of that?

Doris: Probably it grew better, and perhaps the second time it was better. But I’d have to say that it is a result of your reaction to it.

Whereas, when I was standing doing the leg going to the rooms, it was more obvious. With the arms one wasn’t and one depends on you being able to perceive what is your feeling with it. 

Anna: When you were standing there and we did the standing up stuff?

Doris: Well, I think because I had to press and that was also a weight-bearing thing, I could feel that it wasn’t as strong.

Anna: What do you think of the results of the muscle tests. Was your mind editing them?

Doris: Well, I think one would tend to. In one way all the questions are to do with one’s intellectual understanding. But when you say “editing”, I don’t think I edited them.

One tried not to edit them in terms of the potential response. It simply took us by surprise, we just went from room to room and there were different responses.

Then we thought it would get better with putting the slippers on and then it was still bad. Then we tested the slippers in another spot and that was also a negative one.

Anna: What do you feel now about these tests of the shoes and that stuff?

Doris: I feel that they’re quite gathered. Yes, I accept them, but I certainly hadn’t gone into any change covering the floors etcetera. I think it is almost too big, that particular one, to deal with at the moment.

But it has probably opened up a whole area that I think is all too much to think of, to be aware of, without at the moment gaining much. I don’t feel I can.

It hasn’t given me much knowledge of how to move in those areas myself, and how to feel my own responses etcetera.

Anna: Right, so would you say your intuition has not been enhanced? What are we tracing with the muscle tests from your perspectives?

Doris: Well, I suppose, it was what things you’re reacting negatively to. I’m very aware that way with my asthma. But it suggested, that something else where my nose and chest wasn’t obviously reacting was still not very good for me.

So in a way, I think I have to work harder at sensing how my muscles would be reacting in that situation.

I mean, I have to get more practice at doing it, or knowing, or perhaps having your practitioner do it, because I think it is a bit of a delicate one, of feeling one’s own muscle response.

Anna: Do you feel it is important that you yourself can feel the muscle response as well?

Doris: What do you mean with “important”?

Anna: You know, if you are weak or strong.

Doris: I imagine that you’re better off. It wasn’t important for the thing itself. In putting myself in your hands as the practitioner, I’m willing to accept your interpretation.

In terms of putting it into practice myself, in a sort of daily feeling, of understanding ones body’s reactions, I think I need more awareness of what that feels like.

Anna: How do you feel being muscle tested? Is that threatening or is it o.k. for you to have that procedure applied?

Doris: It is generally not threatening. I mean, it reminded me of homoeopathy a bit, but there might be in-depth questions or the expectation of an in-depth response or the showing of something from inside.

It is simply saying: “Right, that is a way we can help with sort of muscles etcetera or finding a way to move through an issue”. So, in that, it is not threatening. It is just a bit sort of close. 

Anna: Different?

Doris: Yeah, it is treating you holistically, I suppose, and so that is perhaps a bit hard on some occasions, if you don’t feel like expressing something that is not the obvious.

Anna: There is no machine between you and the therapist in muscle testing. What do you think about the objectivity of muscle tests in relation to a pendulum or a machine in between? What would you prefer? Is there a preference?

Doris: No. I mean, the objectivity was good in the way one was simply lying down. A lot of the time one wasn’t at eye contact. I think one prefers that sometimes.

It is easier just to express it, without the person necessarily looking. So that you’ve got that freedom to just try to express it.

No. I think the personal thing is probably important. Because depending on the relationship or the vibes of the two people, you might not feel like saying things to everyone.

It’s objective to a certain extent but it’s also expecting more than just that obvious from me the client. So I could imagine in some cases it could feel threatening.

Anna: Do you think it helped you expressing what your issues were? What you couldn’t bring into language or into a sentence or so? How to solve issues?

Doris: I think I’m fairly verbal anyway. I mentioned that particular issue to a few other female friends who know about that situation. It is not as if that had never been verbalised before. But I suppose what was interesting was that you, who don’t know all those things about me, found those things in the muscle tests.

It probably did make me realise: “Yes, that issue was tied in with the whole situation and also very important”. A sort of real crunch point.

The power difference in the muscles happened to reappraise that, especially the two adults but the four people in the household, and it was quite interesting looking at one question and the next step, which made me even more incapacitated and happened to change the muscle power again.

The whole formulae had to reconstruct itself again. That was interesting, that all was seen as part of everything.

Anna: Thanks for the interview.

By Dr Ann Rolfes

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