Is anyone familiar with psych-k?

I know someone who does it and he gave a demonstration of it at our Life Coaching course. He used it on Gussie (one of the HP moderators) who was also on the course with me. It seemed very effective and yet such a simple technique. I think Gussie was impressed by how it worked for her on the issue she wanted working on.

Certainly seemed as effective as other meridian based therapies such as EFT etc, although the techniques are very different.

All Love and Reiki Hugs

I don't mean to criticise, but would be grateful for any clarification of my odd experience.
A 'practitioner' , also a qualified hypnotherapist, tried this on me recently, but didn't explain any more than I shall recount here.

She asked me to hold out my arm & say "My name is Hubert", then she pressed down on my outstretched arm, & said "resist." So I resisted & kept my arm steady.

Then she repeated the pressure, but asked me to say my real name & resist. So I did.

We did this several times: I said what she told me to, & kept my arm horizontal, resisting her pressure, as instructed.

Then she got frustrated & gave up (?!)
WHY?
What did I do wrong?
I had obeyed, to the letter! What was I supposed to do? Deny that my name was Hubert, perhaps? A grown woman? Why? I remain bemused. :confused:

It seemed a weird waste of time. I was paying a lot, supposedly for a session of hypnotherapy, but she insisted on this instead - plus lots of positive affirmations & advice, which were v good & encouraging, but not what I had asked & paid for. I let it go, but shan't return.
She's a great woman, v bouncy & cheery, & gave sensible advice ... but what on earth was all this supposed to achieve?

I've just looked at the site.
I resisted & was strong, as instructed. She didn't detect any difference in my muscles. I can't see how there can be a difference, unless some people deliberately "act" strong or weak responses to please the 'practitioner'. (The way people play along to please stage hypnotists.)
I was unaware I should have "acted" weak.

And one of my problems is that I am too compliant & not assertive enough! Oh, the irony.
In simply being myself, I failed. 🙁

Perhaps this discussion would get more answers in the kinesiology forum as I believe that the 'k' in psych-k stands for kinesiology.

I have heard of psych-k but don't know much about it. I am concerned that muscle testing/monitoring is being used in the way described by Starshower - kinesiologists registered with the Kinesiology Federation must complete a minimum of 300 hours of training in muscle testing/monitoring as well as completing training in A&P, Nutrition, Practice Management and Inter Personal Skills (as prescribed by the Kinesiology National Occupational Standards) and are therefore extremely competent in their testing and their explanations of kinesiology and/or muscle testing/monitoring.

Qualified kinesiologists will test and correct imbalances as they work and some of the tests will uncover and correct the imbalance described by Starshower - without more information I don't know what was blocking the muscle response but when working with clients it is not unusual for the muscle response to be blocked in some way, especially with new clients.

To clarify for Starshower the practitioner would be looking for a 'weak'/'switched off' response to the phrase 'My name is Hubert' as it is patently untrue in your case - so the practitioner is assuming that you stating that your name is Hubert would be a stress on your system and would therefore show as a weak/switched off response and when you stated your correct name there would be no stress so your response would be strong/switched on - however as I said there are many reasons that a practitioner might not get that response, all of which are easily resolved by a fully qualified kinesiologist. You didn't fail :>) the practitioner did!!!

I'm sorry you had such a disappointing introduction to kinesiology and hope that it hasn't put you off kinesiology - just be careful that you speak to a fully qualified kinesiologist.

Thanks. She was / is 'fully qualified'. But I question the validity of such a naive & simplistic expectation.
Why 'should' my muscles go all weak when I say something untrue? Especially when told to "be strong"?

Isn't the 'theory' rather naive? Surely people lie, pretend, act & make-believe all the time, without weak muscles.
Holding an arm steady under pressure is the kind of thing we do in daily life: in sport, in games, when carrying something heavy, ironing, etc.
If it were that simple, liars & con men would swoon all over the place, & the police would have no problems questioning suspects.

I didn't realise I was supposed to pretend and make my arm go weak.
If I had - would it have helped her to somehow re-programme me?

(I really don't mean to offend, but it was an expensive experiment at £50, which didn't 'work'! I'm not well off at all. I wish I'd gone to someone with a smaller range of practices, who would have actually done some hypnotherapy, as I asked!)

Why would playing a game of saying a silly name put stress on my system? I was in the mood to comply with whatever she did, since I was paying for her help. She was nice & friendly. So there was no stress.

Hi Starshower

Fully qualified in what? Has she done over 300 hours of kinesiology training plus training in A&P, Nutrition, Practice Management and Inter Personal Skills to qualify as a professional kinesiologist or has she done a few weekends training as an adjunct to her hypnotherapy training.

I am a little surprised to hear that you don't think that telling a lie doesn't cause stress in your system even if you do just consider it an amusing little lie - most people show some sign of stress when lying - a tell in the vocabulary of gamblers.

There are may different explanation of how muscle testing/monitoring works but I have copied below one of my favourites. Sorry it is so long.

So why test muscles?
The body stores the trauma of our lives in muscles and each muscle contains a history of its uses and experiences. Muscles are part of the body's communications system. If I want to test a muscle I need to shorten it, and to do that I need to bring its origin and insertion closer together. The origin is the broad end of the muscle that is attached to the non-moving bone and is fixed. So when a muscle contracts it has the effect of pulling the insertion towards the origin. The insertion - is the moving part. When we apply pressure to the arm, we are causing the muscle to stretch. This is sensed by the proprioceptor (spindle) cells in the muscle which send the information to the spinal cord. These spindle cells lie alongside the muscle cells and are attached to them throughout the muscle. When the muscle stretches so do the spindle cells. If a muscle stretches too much that it's in danger of becoming injured, these cells respond by sending a signal to the muscle to contract. This protective mechanism is known as the stretch reflex.
When a doctor taps the ligament just below the knee cap, the muscle cells stretch. The spindle cells' react by contracting in order to protect the muscle: this is what makes the knee jerk. Spindle cells will accept stretching of a muscle when the movement is not too sudden. Just think of how a cat stretches and you get the idea.
So pressure is put on the arm this is sensed by the proprioceptor or spindle cells in the muscle which send the information via the nerve fibres to the central nervous system- the brain and spinal cord. This causes a reflex contraction of the muscle, causing the arm to stay in the same position. This is what we call a 'strong' or a 'locked' muscle. Anything that delays or stops the reflex contraction of the muscle will make the muscle appear weak. Any number of things can do this - messages from the brain, from other limbs or joints can make the muscle appear weak. Also foods, tastes, smells, emotional states like fear, shock etc can make the muscle appear weak. Once a muscle weakness has been determined there are a variety of options available to bring it back into balance.
Communication is going on all the time within our bodies and when we check muscle responses we are tuning into this neurological system.
We are not measuring the power or strength of a muscle - we are evaluating the nervous system that controls the muscle’s function.
Muscle performance is enhanced by the energy from all the body systems flowing freely to that muscle. If the energy is blocked or turned off, the muscle will be working below par. You probably won’t be aware of this because the body does its best to compensate for any undue stress and strain. However when the stress is too much for body to deal with, kinesiology can help us activate our body’s own self-healing abilities.

Aha. Now that makes some sense! Thank you so much for taking the trouble to post all that. I appreciate the explanation.
I suspect that maybe my therapist lady, though qualified & experienced in hypnosis and NLP, had quite possibly only done a weekend or taster session of Psych-K, as you suggest. She seemed more excited than knowledgeable about it.
She certainly has good inter-personal skills, but is perhaps not v scientifically minded.

My nervous system certainly needs some adjustment & fine-tuning. I am often my worst enemy; and I can see that my deeply-programmed responses do not always serve me well. I do need freeing up, and to be more aware of & in control of my physiological responses.

My problems include v high blood-pressure, despite being slim, fit, supple, eating well, etc. My GP says he can find no obvious cause like renal issues - said I 'just need to relax'. Easier said than done, in my case! So I am on 2 medications, & would prefer not to take them and to re-programme my subconscious naturally, if possible.

Can Psych-K help?
If so, I would be interested in giving it another go - with a more experienced person.

Thanks so much for your time.
Blessings - Starshower.

As I don't know much about Psych-K I would suggest that you have a look at the KF website for a professional kinesiologist - see below.

The search on the right hand side of the KF website allows you to go into 'more search options' and you can enter the branch of kinesiology or the issue you want to deal with eg stress, emotional issues, personal development, psychological issues plus your postcode.

There a couple of branches of kinesiology that work more on the emotional issues but in reality your relationship with the practitioner and their level of training are the most important parts of the healing process. You need to be able to trust the practitioner and they need to have experience and training that will facilitate your healing. I always recommend phoning at least two practitioners before making a decision.

If you need assistance in finding the right person please feel free to send me a private message with your postcode.

Kind regards
Joyce

Hi Joyce,

As I don't know much about Psych-K I would suggest that you have a look at the KF website for a professional kinesiologist - see below.

I think the thing to remember is that psych-k and other therapies that use muscle testing aren't doing so in order to correct the imbalances/issues through kinesiology methods, they are just using the muscle testing techniques to determine true/false statements. In psych-k, if I recall correctly (It was about 18 months ago I saw it being done), the muscle testing was to ask the "higher self" (i.e. bypass the conscious mind) if it is ok to carry on with the next part of the treatment. Getting the person to say a name which isn't their own and then say their real name and testing each is usually a way of just gauging the client for the yes/no sensation. Two issues usually arise from this if the practitioner isn't aware of them... one... the person is not "resisting" but is actually actively pushing in the opposite direction, there's a subtle difference and two... asking someone to say "my name is Fred" when it isn't may not always work if their unconscious mind believes that their name has been Fred in a past life (you think I joke? seriously, testing has shown it to be true!), far better that they test with something they can be sure is false such as "I am currently living in a jungle treehouse in the amazon rainforest" 😉

Obviously it's important that if they plan to use kinesiology to correct issues then they are correctly trained in kinesiology, but in the case of psych-k and other therapies, muscle testing is only used in a "reading" sense rather than a "corrective" sense.

All Love and Reiki Hugs

Hi Giles

Although kinesiology training includes many correction techniques the main part of the training is to use muscle testing/monitoring accurately and to understand and correct all the blocks to inaccurate testing. Some branches use yes/no responses others use weak/strong or switched on/off responses but all teach to a level where accurate testing can take place. They teach students to double check the responses throughout the session as working through issues may cause a 'blocking' of the muscle response.

My concern that is that because muscle testing/monitoring is seen, wrongly, as kinesiology by many people and inacurate testing gives inaccurate results this then gives the public a negative view of muscle testing/monitoring.

It would be great if everybody who is using muscle testing/monitoring attended a training that fully explains all the blocks to accurate testing and offered full training in muscle testing. Not going to happen though, is it?

But a good read for anyone who is using muscle testing for a yes/no response is Jane Thurnell-Read's Verbal Questioning Skills For Kinesiologists. Jane is a Fellow of the KF and one of the most experienced instructors of Health Kinesiology in the UK.

Thanks again to Starshower for telling us all how she felt when being inaccurately muscle tested and allowing for a debate on how muscle testing works.

Kind regards