The healing encounter

CHAPTER 5 The healing encounter


As we have seen in the previous chapter, the rhythms of one person’s electromagnetic field can be registered in the electroencephalogram (EEG) of another person when they are in physical contact, but also even when they are not touching. This is the basis of the ‘healing encounter’. The experienced therapist will use the resonance between the two fields to enlist the receiver’s own self-healing powers in order to amplify the effects of the therapy. The healing encounter is particularly effective if the receiver ‘instinctively’ feels that the giver understands him and what he needs.



As we experience when we visit any kind of therapist, whether taking our dog or cat to the vet or keeping an appointment with a hospital consultant, we assess their ability to help us by the trust we put in them, our instinctive reaction to their field, and this will influence the outcome of the treatment via the well-known placebo effect. (Placebo means ‘I will please’ in Latin, and what pleases us makes us feel better.) But our conscious awareness of affinity or trust is secondary to the resonance between the two fields, which may not be consciously registered at all.


The Chinese are quite matter-of-fact about this phenomenon and call it yuan, the quality of connection that exists between doctor and patient as well as between friends, lovers or close relatives. Yuan is more than the placebo effect of a friendly professional manner. An aspect of the science of Qi, it is a powerful energetic relationship between people. It has the potential to be effective regardless of distance and can be linked to what we would call a ‘sixth sense’ about those people and what is happening to them. A doctor who heals large numbers of people is said to possess exceptionally broad-spectrum yuan.



The nature of yuan leads us to realize one of the most basic, yet most profound, rules of Shiatsu: what you do is important, but not nearly as important as the way that you do it. When training in East Asian medicine, one often comes across the legend of the old doctor in Taiwan, or Macao, or some other vague/specific setting, who only ever uses the same two commonly used acupuncture points for every condition, and achieves miraculous cures. It is a legend with a message; the techniques or ‘treatment protocols’ we use are the vehicle for other healing influences, which include the resonance between giver and receiver.


In other words, from the moment a client walks through the door for a Shiatsu appointment, or perhaps even from the telephone call making that appointment, giver and receiver are in a contact of fields, where signals are being given and received that are often below the level of conscious awareness.



As much as possible, we need to tune in to these signals and accord importance to our perceptions, as they are a part of our yuan, our energetic link, with our receiver. Some lucky individuals are born with a natural ability to resonate with the fields of a wide variety of people and to use that resonance consciously to identify and adjust distortions in the fields of others; this is what is often called the ‘healing gift’. Those of us born without this gift are not devoid of the capacity for sympathetic resonance, since it is inbuilt into instinctual human response patterns; simply, it is undeveloped and we cannot use it consciously in normal circumstances. With application and training, however, it is possible to develop awareness of some of our subliminal responses and this is the theme of Chapter 6 (on Self-development).


There are two aspects to the therapeutic encounter. One is the practical aspect of dealing with clients, their different needs and problems, in conjunction or in conflict with our own needs and problems. The second aspect is the nature of the energetic relationship between giver and receiver, the yuan, the healing connection. What creates it and how do we develop awareness of it? To some extent, the answers to these questions can be sought from the self-development and training methods outlined in Chapter 6; however, there are certain basic qualities to be defined here so that we have an idea of what we hope to develop.



Sep 4, 2016 | Posted by in MANUAL THERAPIST | Comments Off on The healing encounter

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