FAQ

What is Hypnosis?
View Answer

Hypnosis is a scientifically verified and effective technique that can promote accelerated human change. With Hypnosis we can create desired changes in behavior and encourage mental and physical well-being.

The U.S. government defines hypnosis as having two parts:

• The bypass of the critical factor, and
• The establishment of acceptable selective thinking.

This “bypass of the critical factor” simply means the release of limiting beliefs. For example, the use of hypnosis for anesthesia has been accepted by the American Medical Association since 1958. It is well established to be a fact that hypnosis is useful for creating anesthesia. However, if you have the limiting belief that the mind cannot create a powerful anesthesia, you will be unable to do so. However, in hypnosis, this limiting belief can be bypassed, and hypnotic anesthesia can be quickly created. “The establishment of acceptable selective thinking,” the second part of the definition, refers to the process of guiding someone into hypnosis by using a hypnotic induction. The establishment of selective thinking creates the mental environment or state of mind that enables you to reject limiting beliefs (that you picked up by living in our society), so that you can accept new more empowering ones.

What is Hypnotherapy and How Does it Work?
View Answer

Hypnosis, also referred to as hypnotherapy or hypnotic suggestion, is a trance-like state in which you have heightened focus, concentration and inner absorption. When you’re under hypnosis, you usually feel calm and relaxed, and you can concentrate intensely on a specific thought, memory, feeling or sensation while blocking out distractions.

Under hypnosis, you’re more open than usual to suggestions, and this can be used to modify your perceptions, behavior, sensations and emotions. Therapeutic hypnosis is used to improve your health and well-being and is different from so-called stage hypnosis used by entertainers. Although you’re more open to suggestion during therapeutic hypnosis, your free will remains intact and you don’t lose control over your behavior. Mayoclinic.com

Does Hypnosis Occur in our Daily Lives?
View Answer

We use this commonly occurring, and natural state of mind, unknowingly, all the time. It is just natural for us. For example, if you have ever watched a television program or movie and become really absorbed into the program, you were probably in a trance. This trance is what caused you to not hear your mother calling you to dinner, until she raised her voice for the third time. (Advertisers understand this. They use television programs to induce a hypnotic trance and then provide you hypnotic suggestions, called commercials!)

When you are driving down the road, with your mind focused on some other task (a day dream perhaps), and next thing you know, you have passed your next turn. That is called “highway hypnosis”.

How Can Hypnosis Help You?
View Answer

The hypnotic state is an optimum state for making changes in your life. You can set aside limiting beliefs that may have been preventing you from moving toward a more healthy and happy you.

What is Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT)?
View Answer

“The cause of all negative emotions is a disruption in the body’s energy system.”

This is the foundation of EFT and also represents the essence of Energy Psychology (EP). As a result, all versions of EP tune in to the issue at hand and then stimulate the energy points on the body to create energy balancing.

EFT is a powerful new method based on the discovery that emotional trauma contributes greatly to disease. Scientific studies have shown that EFT is able to rapidly reduce the emotional impact of memories and incidents that trigger emotional distress. Once the distress is reduced or removed, the body can often rebalance itself, and accelerate healing.

More benefits…

You can make enormous strides by introducing EFT into your emotional therapy process (whether you are a professional or a client). Instead of taking months or years using conventional “talk therapy,” EFT often does the job for you cleanly and thoroughly in one or two sessions … and we sometimes achieve noticeable results in a few brief rounds of EFT. We label these near-instant results as “one minute wonders.”

Once you have seen how well EFT clears out emotional debris, your next step is to notice how physical ailments start to fade. Headaches, back pains and other discomforts often tend to improve or vanish as emotional issues improve (this is the essence of Mind Body Medicine). Your vision may become clearer and everyday stress may take fewer tolls on your system.

Accordingly, you can apply it to just about everything. That is one of the most astonishing things about it. You use the same basic procedure for your fear of public speaking as you do for improving your golf score. Further, people write on this site on their success with EFT for many emotional issues, including fear, trauma, depression, and grief.

What is Acudetoxification?
View Answer

Acudetoxification method uses a standardized auricular acupuncture protocol for behavioral health, including addictions, mental health, and disaster & emotional trauma.

The NADA 5-point ear acupuncture protocol has been carefully developed and extensively tested. More than 1500 clinical sites in the US, Europe, Australia and the Caribbean currently use this protocol.
While adapted to Western attitudes and conditions, the NADA method derives directly from the Chinese medicine theory of detoxification.

What is the "Nada Protocol"?
View Answer

National Acupuncture Detoxification Association (NADA) Treatment Protocol (from the NADA Website)
“At five designated ear points in each auricle (outer ear), NADA-trained clinicians apply fine gauge, sterilized, one-time use stainless steel needles just under the skin, where they remain for up to an hour while the patient (in most circumstances) relaxes quietly in a comfortable chair. Ordinarily, groups of patients sit together while undergoing the treatment. The procedure functions as an adjunct to a comprehensive addiction treatment program offering the basic therapeutic elements of counseling, education, family involvement, mutual support group involvement, supportive health care of a general nature. Patients in all types of treatment settings including inpatient, outpatient, incarcerated, shelters, harm reduction and street outreach can utilize this treatment. Among the benefits reported by patients and clinicians are improved program retention, a more optimistic and cooperative attitude toward the process of recovery, as well as reductions in cravings, anxiety, sleep disturbance and need for pharmaceuticals.”

What is Acupuncture?
View Answer

Acupuncture is an Asian technique treating many medical problems by inserting fine needles into various active points on the body. Legend has it that acupuncture is 4,000 to 5,000 years old. The first written reference to acupuncture dates back to somewhere between the 5th and 3rd centuries B.C. Acupuncture began in China, but soon spread to other Oriental countries and in the past century has been practiced in Europe and the Soviet Union. Acupuncture is now practiced in China side-by-side and in cooperation with Western medicine. Many conditions have been found to benefit greatly from treatment using a combination of Eastern and Western medicine. According to Traditional Chinese Medicine’s theory, the basic energy force of life which flows through all living things is called Qi – meaning energy flows. When this force flows through the human body, it travels along twelve primary and two secondary channels or meridians. As Qi flows through the channels, it helps circulate the blood and also affect the nervous system. Along these channels there are 365 major acupuncture points.

Qi (energy flow) has two aspects to it: Yin is the negative aspect and Yang is the positive aspect. The twelve primary channels through which Qi flows are divided into six Yin and six Yang channels. For each Yin channel, there is a Yang channel. Despite their negative and positive nature, Yin and Yang are two aspects of the same force and one is no more desirable than the other. Yin and Yang must be in balance for Qi to flow freely and for all living beings to function properly. When Yin and Yang are out of balance, the body is susceptible to pain and illness. The traditional Chinese medical theory says that disease is usually caused by functional disorder first. When we mention functional disorder, we mean poor blood circulation and an imbalance of the nervous system. Only if Qi flows freely through the channels, when Yin and Yang are well balanced, can the function of the body be maintained in good condition.

An acupuncturist, in observing symptoms of disease, is able to locate the points on the body that govern a particular section of the channel that is blocked. The acupuncturist then stimulates those points so as to clear the channel to allow the life energy to flow freely again. By placing and manipulating the needles in the proper points, the skilled acupuncturist brings Yin and Yang back into balance. This restores good blood circulation and a healthy nerve system.

What are Acupuncture Points and Meridians?
View Answer

Qi circulates through the human body along certain pathways or channels, called meridians. Along these meridians, there are certain places, called acupoints, or simply points, which have been shown to have some influence on pain perception or bodily function when stimulated.

The physicians of ancient China discovered these points over thousands of years of close observation and meditation. Under certain conditions, specific areas of the skin can become tender to the touch. It has also been found that traditional acupoints, as identified thousands of years ago, are areas of reduced electrical resistance on the skin’s surface, and can be detected electronically.

The names of the classic meridians are lung, large intestine, stomach, spleen-pancreas, heart, small intestine, bladder, kidney, pericardium or circulation-sex, triple-heater, gall bladder and liver.

Needles?
View Answer

Most people think of hypodermic needles when they hear that acupuncture uses needles. Unlike the stiff, hollow, and thick needles used for injections, acupuncture needles are fine and flexible, in most cases no thicker than a thread or a human hair. The unique construction and design of these single-use disposable needles all but guarantee a smooth and painless treatment.

What are the Chances of Being Helped?
View Answer

No doctor can cure all of the people who come to him, and no individual can be assured of success with a particular medicine or type of treatment.

Acupuncture is not a panacea, nor does it claim to be one, but research conducted here in the States and abroad seems to indicate that in many conditions in which pain is being treated, up to two-thirds of patients may be helped.

Any competent acupuncturist knows and respects the limits of acupuncture, and will frankly advise patients in cases where he cannot help them.

How Does Acupuncture Work?
View Answer

From a Traditional Chinese Medicine perspective, acupuncture helps to keep Qi flowing properly through the meridians or channels of the human body. When Qi flows properly, it carries its life force to all of the organ networks, encouraging them to work harmoniously to promote good health.

Obstructions at one point in a meridian cause a deficiency of Qi downstream, and an excess upstream which can cause diminished activity in some organs, and hyperactivity in others.  This unhealthy state of affairs manifests itself as illness, pain, and other symptoms of disease.

An acupuncturist, in observing the symptoms of a disease, identifies the specific meridians or channels which are blocked, and attempts to normalize the flow of Qi by stimulating certain points along the meridians.

From a purely Western scientific perspective, when a needle is inserted into the skin, it sends a signal to the spinal cord and brain which instructs the nerve system to ignore pain which is present or to modify a particular body function.

Will Improvement be Long Lasting?
View Answer

As a general rule, acute conditions require fewer treatments than chronic conditions.

Some patients respond favorably after only one or two treatments, others show little or no improvement until their eight or ninth visit. And sometimes, despite the practitioner’s best effort and skill, the patient does not respond to treatment.

Many patients who have been helped by acupuncture retain their improvement for months or even years after treatment. In cases where the symptoms return, people may be helped again with just a few more sessions.

Chronic conditions, especially those involving pain, may require a regular course of acupuncture as part of an overall pain management strategy.

What are the side effects?
View Answer

One of the great advantages of acupuncture is the absence of serious side effects associated with its use. This is in contrast to many potent Western medicines in which severe side effects in certain cases may be worse than the disease being treated.

As anyone who has been to an acupuncturist for stress can tell you, acupuncture is very soothing in its effects. Patients are as likely to fall asleep after the needles are inserted as they are to stay awake during their treatments. Very few report a slight tenderness at the point of insertion, and there is occasionally a feeling of heaviness in the head and limbs following treatment. In most cases, this is little more than the result of the deep and profound relaxation that most people experience as a side-effect of treatment.

So mild is acupuncture that it is often used in order to help treat the side-effects of more conventional Western medical interventions and practices. Patients receiving treatment for cancer, for example, frequently use acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine to help treat the side-effects of their radiation and chemotherapy regimens.

Does the Treatment Hurt?
View Answer

Following insertion of the needles, patients usually experience only a sensation of pressure, followed sometimes by a slight tingling. In some cases, patients can actually feel the Qi flowing at or near the acupoint, and some even report feeling the free circulation of their Qi as it is restored.

The needles remain in place for anywhere from twenty minutes to nearly an hour; typically, the patient is simultaneously relaxed and invigorated, and it is as common to fall into a light sleep as it is to become energized. At the end of the treatment, the needles are removed, and in most cases there is no bleeding following treatment.

What is Chinese Herbal Medicine?
View Answer

Herbal medicine is the main treatment method within Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).  TCM is the world’s oldest, continually practiced professional medicine.  Its written history stretches back over 2,400 years and its practice is probably much older than that.

Although acupuncture was the first Chinese method of treatment to gain wide acceptance in the West, Chinese herbal medicine is quickly establishing itself as one of the most popular and effective alternative therapies in the West.

What's the Difference Between Western Folk Herbalism and Chinese Herbal Medicine?
View Answer

Western folk herbalism primarily treats diseases or symptoms, such as headaches, runny nose, menstrual pain, etc.  Chinese Herbal medicine, when practiced as part of TCM, is based on an individualized pattern diagnosis as well as a disease diagnosis.  Your pattern is made up of your signs and symptoms, your emotional temperament, and the overall composition of your body.

The TCM patient receives a custom written herbal prescription designed to treat their individual pattern as well as the symptom or disease.

Are There Any Other Differences?
View Answer

Western folk herbalism usually focuses on one symptom or disease at a time and uses a single herb or group of herbs for treatment.

TCM formulas are crafted to treat your entire pattern as well as the symptoms or disease that prompted you to seek treatment.  TCM formulas may include six to eighteen herbs to treat the symptoms or disease as well as your entire pattern.

Are all the Herbs Vegetable in Origin?
View Answer

Chinese herbal medicine may include vegetable, animal, and mineral ingredients.  However, the majority of ingredients are from vegetable sources.  Leaves, flowers, twigs, stems, roots, tubers, rhizomes, and bark are among the parts of the vegetable used.

Do All the Herbs Come From China?
View Answer

The Chinese adopted and incorporated herbs from all over the world.  Fifteen to twenty percent of the 500 ingredients considered standard originated from outside of China. What makes these Chinese: herbs is that they are prescribed according to Chinese medical theory and a TCM pattern diagnosis.

Does Chinese Herbal Medicine Work for Western Patients?
View Answer

Yes, Chinese herbal medicine works as well for Westerners as it does for Chinese.  Chinese herbal medicine has been used successfully in North and South America, Europe, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and all throughout Asia.

How Are Chinese Herbal Medicines Taken?
View Answer

The most common method of taking Chinese herbal medicine is drinking a liquid, prepared by boiling selected herbs.  There are also herbal pills, tinctures, and powdered extracts for those who do not have the time or taste for drinking the more traditional liquid form.

What are the Benefits of Drinking Chinese Herbal Medicines in Herbal Form?
View Answer

This method allows the practitioner maximum flexibility in writing a prescription. They can put in just what is necessary in just the right amounts.  The formula can be changed frequently, if necessary, and the liquid forms tend to be more potent than other means of administration.

Why Do Liquid Herbal Medicines Taste so Bad?
View Answer

Chinese herbal teas tend to taste very bitter because they are made mostly from roots and bark where the strongest medicinal ingredients are found.  The bitter taste may go away after a day or two.

What are the Benefits of Pills and Powders?
View Answer

Pills and powders are good for:
Prolonged administration, for ailments like chronic conditions;
Situations when formulas do not need to be very potent;
Situations when formulas do not need to be changed very often.
Pills and powders are also commonly used to continue therapeutic results after a successful initial treatment with liquid herbal medicine.

Do Chinese Herbal Medicines Have Side Effects?
View Answer

Most of the components of Chinese herbal medicine have a very low toxicity compared to even common, over-the-counter Western drugs.  When they are prescribed according to a correct TCM pattern diagnosis, they should have few, if any, side effects, only beneficial healing results.

If you experience any discomfort while taking Chinese herbal medicine, tell your practitioner, who will modify the formula until there are no side effects.

What is Chinese Herbal Medicine Good For?
View Answer

Chinese herbal medicine treats the full range of human disease.  For example it is used to treat:
Acute diseases, like intestinal flu and the common cold;
Chronic disease, such as allergies, gynecological disorders, autoimmune diseases, and chronic viral diseases;
Degenerative diseases due to aging.

Chinese herbal medicine is especially good for promoting the body’s ability to heal and recover from illness.

Can Pregnant Women Take Chinese Herbs?
Can Children Take Chinese Herbal Medicine?
View Answer

Yes again.  Pediatrics is a specialty within TCM and children can be given reduced dosages.  There are also specially prepared pediatric medicines in pill and powder form.  Chinese herbal medicine can treat colic, the fussiness of teething, earache, diarrhea, chough, and fever in babies and children.

How Long Does it Take to See Results with Chinese Herbal Medicines?
View Answer

In acute conditions, results may occur in a matter of minutes.  In chronic conditions, some results should be seen within two weeks.  Although chronic conditions may require taking Chinese herbal medicine for a long time, signs that the medicine is working should be apart to the patient and practitioner alike almost from the very start

How Do I Know if a Practitioner is Professionally Trained in Chinese Herbal Medicine?
View Answer

Although Chinese herbal medicines are safe when prescribed by a trained, knowledgeable practitioner, they are strong medicine.  Patients should ask about where the practitioner trained, how long the training was, how long he or she has been in practice, and what experience the practitioner has had in treating the patient’s specific ailment.

Chinese herbal medicine may be part of the testing done where acupuncture is a licensed and regulated healthcare profession.  Ask your practitioner if your state requires a license to practice.

What is Reiki?
View Answer

Reiki is a Japanese technique for stress reduction and relaxation that also promotes healing. It is administered by “laying on hands” and is based on the idea that an unseen “life force energy” flows through us and is what causes us to be alive. If one’s “life force energy” is low, then we are more likely to get sick or feel stress, and if it is high, we are more capable of being happy and healthy.

The word Reiki is made of two Japanese words – Rei which means “God’s Wisdom or the Higher Power” and Ki which is “life force energy”. So Reiki is actually “spiritually guided life force energy.”

A treatment feels like a wonderful glowing radiance that flows through and around you. Reiki treats the whole person including body, emotions, mind and spirit creating many beneficial effects that include relaxation and feelings of peace, security and wellbeing. Many have reported miraculous results.

Reiki is a simple, natural and safe method of spiritual healing and self-improvement that everyone can use. It has been effective in helping virtually every known illness and malady and always creates a beneficial effect. It also works in conjunction with all other medical or therapeutic techniques to relieve side effects and promote recovery.

What is Sujok?
View Answer

SUJOK is a healing technique originated in Korea. In Korean language SU means hand, and JOK means foot. The theoretical basis of this system of healing is the discovery in each hand and foot, shape and points corresponding to each part (organ) of human body. These corresponding micro points (systems) in hands and feet can therefore be used conveniently and effectively as remote controls to treat any diseased organ/part in human body. Treatment is administered by giving simple stimulation of pressure to the specific corresponding points in hands and feet and cure is achieved. This type of therapy is very popular due to its ease to learn, safety, efficacy and pace of healing response is often dramatically fast. It contain no forbidden or dangerous practices. Therefore, it can be practiced by paramedics and laymen for self and others treatment. sujoktherapy.com

What is NAET?
View Answer

Nambudripad’s Allergy Elimination Technique is a non-invasive holistic approach to removing energy blockages and opening energy pathways. In this way, the body takes in new information as if re-booting the computer.

How does NAET work?
View Answer

NAET is a method that helps to balance energies in the body. According to NAET theory, allergies cause energy imbalance in the energy meridians, also known as energy pathways. An energy blockage is the primary cause for any allergic reaction towards any substance. When the energy blockage from an allergen is removed via NAET, that particular allergen has not been shown to produce adverse reactions in the body on future contacts. NAET utilizes neuromuscular sensitivity testing (also known as muscle testing) which indicates the kinetic imbalance in the body caused by allergens. The NAET treatment stimulates pressure points along the spine while the client holds an allergen. After treatment the client will need to continue to hold the allergen vial for around 20 minutes. There will be a list of substances that the client will need to avoid for the following 25 hours.

How many NAET treatment visits will it take to clear an allergy?
View Answer

This will depend on each individual and the many allergies and sensitivities the person is experiencing. Most clients feel and relief in symptoms within the first 3 to 6 visits. However it may take up to 15 visits or more depending on the severity of the illness. The practitioner will evaluate and estimate length of treatment at the initial visit.