During the past year I have been conducting the Treatment Intensive module all over the world. I am getting great feedback, and obviously everyone's talking because my seminars tend to book out within a day or so of putting them online.
One of the most interesting comments made is how easy BodyTalk looks. People watch me and note that I seem to be doing very little in my treatments. I do not appear to be using any of the basic modules or doing all the linking that is required in those modules. I have even had people ask me why we insist they learn the modules when BodyTalk can be so much easier to do.
There seems to be a significant misunderstanding of the processes involved in becoming a good practitioner or, for that matter, good at anything you do. It is a common observation that when we watch highly skilled craftsmen, musicians, practitioners, and just about any skillful pursuit, they make it all seem so easy! Very often we may say: “well, if it's that easy, I can do it!” However, when we try, the results are just not the same. Making beautiful sounds come out of a saxophone looks so easy until you actually try it yourself. Of course, in many of these types of pursuits it is not critical that you are good at what you do because no harm can be done.
In healthcare, the story is different. When you are not properly trained and do not understand what you are doing then you simply cannot get the results on a consistent basis. The fact is that in order to get consistently good results with predictable outcomes we need to have the essential training and understanding of the techniques used. If we do not do the hard work of study and practice, then it is basically dishonest for us to treat people based on some philosophical principle that things should be easy.
The fact is that I make things look easy because of the years of work I have put into developing, evolving and practicing the BodyTalk techniques. What is important to understand is that the basic training one undergoes in any healthcare program is actually serving to rewire the brain into a different way of thinking and understanding. Much of that rewiring occurs as a result of the understanding we gain in learning the principles involved. This takes time and practice as well as some deeper thinking about the principles being used.
Training in the basic modules of BodyTalk is a good example of the principle of brain rewiring during training. In these basic modules you are learning the philosophy and science of Dynamic Systems Theory. You are also learning how to apply this using very specific and detailed protocols and procedures. Each module teaches you a different set of procedures and initiates you into a different level of understanding. At first, this seems complex, as does all new learning that would enable you to develop a specialized skill set. However, once you have learned, and understood, the procedures and techniques, then everything starts becoming much easier.
As you deepen your understanding and the protocol and procedures become second nature, the intuitive process becomes stronger. As this happens, the rigorous yes/no process of establishing formulas ceases to require mental effort. Instead, the formulas start happening spontaneously within the mind. In the wake of this type of training process, by the time the advanced levels are reached, you no longer have to do all the basic procedures in the same way. This is because the wiring of your brain has set up an energy matrix that will run the basic techniques automatically for your client. This is why advanced BodyTalkers rarely seem to be doing the basic techniques and procedures. The fact is that these techniques and procedures are activating spontaneously as part of the interactive entanglement between the practitioner and the client. The practitioner’s focus and intent when doing the treatment session sets up the necessary filters for changes to occur. At this stage everything starts to become simpler.
The danger is that practitioners in the early stages of BodyTalk training can watch these advanced practitioners during sessions and assume they can go back to the clinic and do the same thing. This is rarely the case, because the groundwork has to be done first; the rewiring in the brain has to be done; the understanding has to be there. The point of watching advanced practitioners work is to learn and be inspired to keep learning.
Over the years I have seen a lot of harm being done to the reputation of complementary healthcare by people wanting to make some quick money in teaching seminars. These are often people who are very skilled at a system and can, therefore, get good results consistently. However, they recognize the human frailty shared by many would-be practitioners of always wanting to find an easy way to do things. To this end, they develop what appears to be a very simple system and start teaching it to people who do not fully understand what is going on behind the scenes.
Such teachers can demonstrate treatments that look to be very simple and they will get good results in most cases. However, the reason for their good results is because they have put in the work to gain the skill levels necessary to get good results while making it look very easy.
The problem is that the students will be excited by the possibility of doing so little work for such good results. They leave the workshop thinking they now have the ability to produce the type of results their teacher was getting in class. However, over my 35 years of involvement in teaching healthcare, I have seen so many cases of students using the new, easy, techniques and not getting the same results. This is especially the case with lay practitioners who have established no basic healthcare filters.
The fact remains that because of the placebo effect, any new technique, no matter how good or bad the technique or the practitioner is, will get some results in about 30% of cases. Those occasional results will maintain the enthusiasm about the technique until the long-term overview is gained. Then practitioners start noticing that most patients are not responding well and, eventually, patients become bitter about paying so much money for a “quickie fix.”
Acupuncture is a good example of this. For several years I taught a two-year postgraduate course in animal acupuncture to veterinarians. They had great results and helped establish acupuncture as a viable tool to treat animals. Unfortunately, subsequently, we saw Vets setting up “quickie” two-day courses in acupuncture so that they could charge extra because they were adding to their repertoire by using a few needles on each animal.
These vets had only been taught very simple formulas that are easy to do. Occasionally, results will occur because some of the formulas will work if the situation is just right. In the meantime, this quickie approach meant that many animals were not being helped by acupuncture when the fact is, acupuncture works very well on animals for a wide range of conditions when practiced by a skilled practitioner. Further, the reputation of part of acupuncture within the Veterinary profession has been greatly diminished because of the overall poor results achieved by the “quick and easy” courses.
I have seen the same thing happened in Applied Kinesiology. AK is a great system that has been around for quite a long time. I have been involved with it since 1975. For a while I was one of the teachers. It has never been able to get the recognition it should get from the public, and other health professionals, because of the same situation as the Vets and acupuncture. It takes years to be a skilled AK practitioner. The college in Freiburg, Germany is a 4-year course. The practitioners graduating from this college have very successful practices.
In the meantime, the credibility of AK is being compromised by the fact that many of the well-trained practitioners in different parts of the world are making money teaching quickie versions of the AK protocol. They claim to be making AK much simpler and teaching an adaptation of AK that is just as effective. How these teachers support their story is by demonstrating treatments that appear to get good results. The problem is that the good results are not because of this “special and simple” new technique, but because of their extensive deeper understanding of kinesiology, which comes into play when they're using any technique.
Unfortunately the techniques of the minimally trained students of the “special and simple AK” usually means that these techniques are around for a while until the word gets out that they're not really getting the results claimed. They then fade out of the picture, which is great. However, they have in the meantime, through the poor results, given AK a diminished reputation as a profession. These days, many people do not realize that when practiced correctly Applied Kinesiology is a full profession in its own right. Instead, the fragmentation of the techniques caused by greedy practitioners wanting to make a quick buck in the lecture circuits, has acted like a cancer to the profession. Don’t let this happen to us with BodyTalk.
The BodyTalk system is rapidly being recognized as a full profession in its own right. In the meantime, we must be vigilant not to fall into the trap of being seduced into using quickie versions of aspects of BodyTalk. The big trap involved is the incorrect use of philosophical and scientific principles. Most BodyTalk practitioners are familiar with the term “consciousness is all there is” and that everything is like a hologram, which entangles all aspects of life. This is very true at certain levels. However, the reality is that life still has its complexities because consciousness uses those complexities as seen in the manifestation we have to deal with, as part of the learning curve.
It is ignorant and dangerous to say that “we just have to believe that consciousness is all there is” and that this means we can do virtually anything we want in a simple way because, “provided we have good intentions, healing will occur.” If that were true there would be no need to learn any form of medical science because even a surgeon should be able to just say, “repair your self, Heart” and the surgery would be done instantly.
This does not mean that spontaneous healing can't be done. However, as I teach in Finding Health 2, spontaneous healing on a regular basis requires many conditions to be met. They include right patient, right time, and right practitioner at that particular time. It also means that the practitioner must have the knowledge, experience, and understanding, required for those healing processes to occur. The accumulation of those factors in the practitioner does not occur in a short course. It takes years to accumulate the wisdom, understanding, and knowledge of technique to facilitate that type of change with any degree of consistency.
That is what you go to college for. That is why you learn the modules, and learn to perfect them, so they are fully imprinted as part of the wiring of your brain and mind. When the work is done, then the fun begins. Any of you who have watched our senior practitioners treating a fellow student, will realize that the simplicity of their treatment is a direct reflection of their accumulated knowledge and wisdom.
Over-simplification of profoundly complex philosophical concepts happens all the time. At worst the student’s understandings will remain superficial. However, over-simplification of a healthcare system, through elimination of its complex underpinnings, will result in negative ramifications, for practitioners, their clients and for the healthcare system itself.
Please, let us ensure that the BodyTalk System remains a profession. Let us not support or encourage its fragmentation by endorsing courses that do not follow the scientific and philosophical principles that underpin, and are well established in our courses.
The lecture was very well received, and Juliana has reported great enthusiasm from the people she works with. A current designated committee for writing the policy on health and quality of life at work (of which Juliana is part of) has already included complimentary medicine in the form of alternative health care. After my talk I met with the head of the health care program Pró-Saúde, Mr. Ricardo Kowalski, who expressed similar enthusiasm and assured me that he will be actively investigating the utilization of BodyTalk in the their healthcare’s system. The next step is making sure BodyTalk has legal validation to be practiced in hospitals in general, and ensure only qualified people can practice BodyTalk.
