There are only a few methods in which the therapeutic and diagnostic aspects are as closely related as in reflexotherapy of the feet (RTF). Where the focus of a treatment is placed is a question of professional background, personal approach, and favored priorities.

When I started teaching, I decided to emphasize the therapeutic (and not the diagnostic) side for two reasons. On the one hand, the vast majority of course participants come from manual auxiliary medical professions in which their therapeutic work has to be prescribed by a physician. On the other hand, the diagnostic approach alone does not come close to exhausting the possibilities offered by RTF and inevitably leads to the use of other methods (e.g., drugs, injections), which are at times unnecessary.

As a differential diagnosis, however, RTF can certainly be incorporated into other investigations but there some aspects to take into consideration in this regard:

• Diagnosis and therapy combine in RTF to form an indivisible unit. This characterizes the fluent transition typical of RTF, from findings to treatment: in each diagnosis the approach contains the therapy and each treatment session contains diagnostic statements.

• A reliable and comprehensive diagnosis cannot be arrived at from a number of abnormal zones on the foot because any touch, be it applied ever-so objectively, “touches” the whole person while at the same time altering their emotional state.

• A diagnostic conclusion about the nature and duration of the illness is not possible as abnormalities at the preclinical stage and functionally and organically manifested diseases both appear as irritation in the zones in the same way.

Statements may relate to both symptomatic and background zones.