Polarity Therapy: Energy Medicine to Balance and Heal the Life Force

Abstract

P olarity Therapy is the science of balancing the life energy in the human body, an underlying field that is viewed as the basis for all health and disease. This therapy uses energy-based bodywork and education to promote energetic and cleansing principles of eating and increased self-awareness in addition to using polarity yoga to balance the human energy field (HEF). Polarity Therapy places healing back under the guidance and responsibility of the clients and empowers them with the too ls and resources to create and maintain health. A Polarity practitioner, skilled in locating obstructions to, and imbalances in, energy flow, rebalances that flow through gentle bipolar contact bodywork and deep relaxation. The Polarity practitioner educates the client to support this state of balance by way of a variety of techniques that may affect detoxification of the internal environment, stress levels, li fes tyle, aspects of human interaction, awareness, and exercise routines. If appropriate changes are not made and sustained in the client’s lifestyle and/or attitude, the same imbalance in the energy field may be created repeatedly. As the energy blocks are released, normal body function and alignment are restored and maintained. This is health. Polarity Therapy, developed and introduced by founder Randolf Stone, N.D., D.C., D.O. (1890–1981) has quietly been helping people to regain their health and their sense of well-being, and to gain a clarity of awareness that helps them to maintain their health and guide their healing processes. This therapy has been reported to be helpful in many cases of chronic and acute conditions. Practitioners throughout the world have recorded case studies showing that Polarity Therapy has helped people with arthritis,1 eating disorders,2 autism,3 attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder,4 cancer,5 and cerebral palsy.6 Pain reduction has been achieved in many situations.1 I personally have witnessed that clients previously diagnosed with lumbar sprain, resulting in sciatic-type pain (see box entitled Polarity Therapy for Sciatica: A Case Study), digestive disorders, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, athleticinduced asthma, depression, insomnia, infertility, debilitating menopausal symptoms, and plantar fasciatus have experienced improved health and sometimes a complete absence of their symptoms, after a series of Polarity sessions. Some clients may be treated with multiple modalities, in conjunction with Polarity Therapy, while others respond to Polarity Therapy as the sole modality. It should be noted, however, that Polarity Therapy is used to treat the whole person, more specifically the human energy field, not the set of symptoms or disease. Proponents of Polarity Therapy do not claim to cure any medical condition. Dr. Stone’s protege, Pierre Pannetier, N.D., (1914–1984), who continued Dr. Stone’s teaching after 1974, made this simple statement about Polarity practitioners. “We do not do anything. The life energy is doing everything.”7 We, the practitioners, are life forces interacting with the life force of the client. Surprisingly, our intention is not to heal, but rather to create an interaction for the highest good of the client. Our intent, while communicating, and applying specific protocols, is to be neutrally present and create a safe space for the client to simply “be.” Here the client is accepted compassionately, just as he or she is, in that moment, regardless of whatever crisis, pain or stress brought him or her in for Polarity treatment. This is sometimes called the “therapeutic presence.”8 Healing happens when both the pract itioner and client are present in the moment. This process is a combination of action (doing interventions that typically support healing) and inaction (accepting what is comfortable and uncomfortable) and being guided by the results of both.