Faure-Alderson Martine - Total Reflexology: The Reflex Points for Physical, Emotional, and Psychological Healing

PART ONE

An Introduction to Reflexology

History

The age of reflexology can be calculated in millennia. Over five thousand years ago, the Chinese were practicing pressure-based therapies. The Egyptians knew the art of foot massage, as evidenced by the fresco of a Sixth Dynasty tomb in Saqqarh that shows two men receiving hand and foot treatments.

In the sixteenth century two European doctors published a book devoted to zone therapy. Later, in Leipzig, a Dr. Bell wrote a book on therapy by pressure, which was practiced during that time in central Europe by people in every level of society, from peasants to courtiers. Various forms of reflexology also existed among indigenous peoples of Africa, Australia, and America.

In 1913, Dr. William Fitzgerald, a general practitioner and ear, nose, and throat specialist in Connecticut, who had earlier worked in hospitals in London, Paris, and Vienna, began research on this technique; it was he who dubbed it zone therapy. Observing that his operations on the noses and throats of patients were sometimes virtually painless, he deduced intuitively that this local anesthesia was produced by the pressure exercised by the patient on his or her own hand. Over time he gradually integrated this zone therapy into his practice. Eventually he drew from his experience to create a chart on which the body was divided into ten zones (five on either side of a median line), with each zone terminating in a finger and a toe.

The zones apply not just to the body surface but to the insides as well; thus we can speak of dividing the body into ten slices. Fitzgerald and his students found that the longitudinal zones of the feet offered especially effective reflex zones for organs that are in the same body zone. The spine, for example, is located in the first two longitudinal zones of the bodys middle line. If you follow these zones inside the legs down to the feet, you will see that these zones run along the inside of the feet. The foot reflex zones for the spine thus lie on the inside edges of the feet. The head zones run across the toes. The shoulder zones run across the ball of the foot in the same way in which the shoulders themselves run across the longitudinal zones of the body. In this way the entire body can be pictured on the feet.

Fitzgeralds reflexology therapy was rapidly refined during the 1930s by another American, Eunice Ingham. Author of the books Stories the Feet Can Tell and Stories the Feet Have Told, she created plates that showed the corresponding zones for various internal systems on the feet.

While these works constitute the foundation of modern reflexology, they still remained at the empirical stage. Lacking in physiological or anatomical basis, they were too symptomatic and insufficiently scientific in their approach. With the advent of Total Reflexology Therapy, reflexology now has a new scientific path.

Why Reflexology?

The British neurologist Sir Henry Head (18611940) described skin zones, called Head zones, on the human body that correspond to specific internal organs. Illnesses of these organs cause the associated skin zones to coreact. Reactions can take shape as pain or sensitivity to touch in the respective skin area. Conversely, problems of the organs, especially pain, can be influenced via these areas. Therapeutic treatment can be massages, applications of heat, or injections.

There is a scientific explanation for the relationship between organs and the skin. The skin contains blood vessels and a dense network of nerves. These nerves come as a bundle from the spine. They run not only to the skin but also to the muscles and organs. Thus, in a simplified manner, skin, muscles, and organs are connected with one another via nerves. These connections can be illustrated anatomically and provide an explanation for why organs can be represented as skin zones and why skin zones can influence organs. For example, gallbladder problems can take the form of shoulder or back pain. Pain in the left arm sometimes indicates problems of the heart. Patients with strokes often describe a pain in the left arm.

It is a similar process in the case of foot reflexology. An illness or disturbance in a certain part or area of the body is translated into a painful or especially sensitive zone in the foot. If this zone is then massaged in the proper manner, the symptoms improve or disappear in the respective body part or area.

Practiced on a regular basis, reflexology can lead to a true regeneration of the body. Much like how it carries its own genetic material, the body contains restorative faculties and immunity. Reflexology can stimulate the bodys ability to self-heal. Natural medicines work by supporting the bodys return to a balanced internal climate: homeostasis, the equilibrium necessary for the harmonious functioning of all the bodys systems.