What is a reflexology session like?

Each reflexology session is unique and tailored to the needs of the client in that session. It can be deeply relaxing and regenerative or energizing and enlivening. It can be focused on reducing pain or increasing awareness. Whatever your state or condition, a reflexology session can bring you home. Most often, a reflexology session is deeply relaxing.

A session can include massage techniques to relax and open the feet but will generally also include more focused attention on particular points or areas of the feet, hands, or ears that seem to have particular ability to relax the body, bring energy to certain areas of the body, and integrate the body.

Reflexology is practiced differently around the world. In my practice, I do not use any “implements” to apply pressure and all touch is adjusted to the client to create relaxation and move energy. Reflexology operates on the principle that, in a relaxed state, not having to deal with stress, the body is freed to use its energy, and its internal “wisdom” to attend to whatever is most needed in the body at the time. The reflexologist frees the body to attend to itself.

What are the benefits of reflexology?

Although reflexology’s main claim is that reflexology allows relaxation and, through relaxation, the possibility for the body to put energy towards healing and balance, since the early 2000’s, medical studies have been conducted to try to document clinical benefits from reflexology. The extent of the benefits that can be measured for any given person (using any modality!) depend on many factors, including the complexity or chronic nature of a condition, the number of times a person receives treatment, the number of other treatments being undertaken at the same time, the ability to measure the benefits, the client-practitioner relationship, and more. While a number of studies have been conducted, their results have not always been conclusive. 

Reflexology is much more widely used in the Far East and in Europe, where responses to treatments must be beneficial enough that reflexologists are allowed in hospitals in the UK (especially for birthing) and reflexology “clinics” are much more part of the culture in Denmark and other European countries, and in Asian countries like China, Japan, and Korea.

Is reflexology like massage?

In massage, the massage therapist uses his or her hands to apply pressure directly to muscles, tendons, organs, or connective tissues that require attention.  Though reflexologists can certainly use massage techniques to relax and open the feet, the term reflexology generally refers to the use of focused attention and pressure to activate points or areas on the feet, hands, or ears to relax and integrate both the feet and the body at large.  Reflexology is pleasurable to the feet hands and ears, where the touch is being applied, but also to the rest of the body that is not being touched.  Many people find that reflexology can create a feeling of deeper, total body relaxation more quickly than massage.  In my experience, this is because reflexology somehow activates the body-mind connection to quickly bring the parasympathetic portion of the nervous system on line, so that “resting and digesting” replaces the now societally-usual state of mild to extreme “fight or flight”. 

Is reflexology like acupuncture or acupressure?

Reflexology, acupuncture, and acupressure all  help move energy within the body to create balance and ease.  The depth of the effect from each also depends on the energetic openness of the practitioner and the receiver.  One could say that reflexology combines pleasurable sensations of touch (like massage) with whole-body, energetic effects (like acupuncture).  Acupressure involves touch along acupuncture meridians that run throughout the body while touch in Reflexology focuses on maps of the body found on the lower legs, feet, hands, and ears (though meridian-based reflexology is also practiced by many reflexologists).

Acupuncture and acupressure are deep fields based in Chinese 5-Element Theory.  Manual pressure or extremely thin needles are used to stimulate points on a body-wide system of energy meridians to move “chi” or energy in the body.  Stimulating the points relieves blockages or tonifies energy at the point which opens flow along the meridians, throughout the body, the person, and all the person is connected to. 

In reflexology, “maps” of the body are envisioned on the feet, hands, and ears (akin to the “homunculus” in the brain).  Manual pressure is applied to locations on the map in order to affect the corresponding part on the body at large.  Some overlap of reflexology maps and acupuncture points exists on the ears and many modern-day reflexologists incorporate understanding of acupuncture meridians into their reflexology treatments.  In fact, reflexologists may incorporate portions of other healing arts as well, including Ayurvedic marma points, cranio-sacral theory, lymphatic drainage, polarity therapy, and massage, still working only on the feet, hands, and ears!

What are the maps that are used by reflexologists?

The maps that are currently used in reflexology have developed over time based on the research and practical experience of a line of doctors, physical therapists, and other practitioners.  It is likely that many cultures had local healers who conducted their healing by touching or holding people’s feet and hands.  Even Egyptian heiroglyphs in a doctor’s tomb depict the doctor touching another person’s feet.

Dr. Fitzgerald, an American, was the first western doctor we know of to take interest in reflex-related, local, healing practices that he heard of from his patients while he was practicing in France.  At the same time as the famous Pavlov and other researchers were exploring nerves and reflexes, Fitzgerald created a simple “map” of the human body on the foot – five vertical zones that extended from the foot to the top of the head on each side of the body.  By touching a point in a zone on the foot, he believed one could affect all parts of the body that fell in that zone and called his treatments “Zone Therapy”. 

Back in America, Dr. Scott Riley overlaid horizontal zones on the vertical zones to create a grid that could be used to map any point in the body onto the foot.  Eunice Ingham, a physical therapist who worked with Riley, took this grid, and through many years of application to thousands of people, refined it to a map that also incorporated similarity of shape in its geography. 

In the 1950’s, French Dr. Paul Nogier created maps for reflex areas on the ears that are very similar to acupuncture maps. In Europe, German Hanne Marquart, considered the “mother of European reflexology” further refined Ingham’s map, using “similarity of shape” to enhance the map’s anatomical precision and acknowledging the emotional component of health issues in the body.  Her students, Peter Lund Frandsen and Dorthe Krogsgaard continue to refine the map and incorporate nerve reflexology, physical therapy and energy medicine into their practice as well.  Dr. Martine Faure-Alderson has formalized cranio-sacral maps on the foot.  Robert St. John developed Metamorphosis, using light touch along the spinal reflex to heal “tensions” and wounds that occurred before birth. 

In America, Bill Flocco formalized the integration of foot, hand, and ear work.  Christine Issel researched the history so that current practioners can know where their healing art began and honor its roots, and the Kunz’s have used the internet to increase reflexology’s visibility through books, research summaries, and free tools.  All these people, and many others, have helped to create a vibrant healing art that draws from a range of modalities that recognize the physical and energetic connections in the body and try to use these to improve health.

All current reflexology maps have developed from the initial horizontal and vertical zones used in Zone Therapy.  Peter Frandsen explains the reason that they all work by saying that “every cell in the body knows what every other cell in the body is doing”.  Scientific research is continuously revealing more about how cellular structure and physiology create inter and intracellular communication that connects the body throughout its entirety.

Why choose reflexology over another healing art?

The main reason to choose reflexology is that it feels great.  It is the most pleasurable way I know of to create health, integrate, and transform. Reflexology is especially brilliant in healing, developing, and transforming the body mind connection.  Physical, psychological, emotional, energetic, and spiritual realms can be affected, as the client desires or is ready.

Reflexology is extremely “available” for people who are not comfortable being touched on the torso due to physical or emotional traumas.  Healing can be created in the torso without touching it. Reflexology works beautifully with other healing arts to fill in gaps that may not be quite covered by other modalities. You can’t really know how great it is til you try it!

How can plants fit in to reflexology?

Well….. Plants are part of what some people call the universal consciousness that we are all part of.  They embody that energy, as we do, both in its completeness and in unique ways.  A slight nudge from some plant energy can be just the encouragement the body needs to start a transformation or even turn over a new leaf!  Both plants and reflexology are subtle but powerful and available to the receiver in exactly the strength desired. Plants are not always part of a session with me, but they can be!

Legally, what is Reflexology? 

Reflexology is a practice of applying pressure (touch) to the feet, hands, and ears using specific thumb, finger and hand techniques.  Alternating pressure is applied to a system of zones and reflex areas to affect positive changes both locally and elsewhere in the body.  Schools of reflexology around the world differ in their beliefs about some aspects of treatment including the use of oil, cream or lotion, the use of instruments other than the practitioner’s fingers, the level of pressure that is appropriate, the strength of connections between reflexes on the hands and feet and the same and the opposite sides of the body, and exact placement of some reflex areas.  Scientific research about the actual mechanisms by which reflexology acts on the body is currently being conducted around the world as interest in the positive effects it seems to have grows.

Reflexology is not considered “medicine” and practitioners do not diagnose or prescribe medications or herbs unless they have other qualifications that allow them to do that.  Reflexology relies on the body’s ability to heal itself when stress is reduced and the body-mind connection is activated.  Reflexology does just this – reduces stress and activates the mind-body-spirit connection.

Laws that govern reflexology vary from state to state. Forms of medicine and healing arts that involve touching the body (and receiving money in return) generally require some sort of license to touch the body. Prior to 2002 in Washington, Reflexology was considered a form of massage and could be practiced professionally only by licensed massage therapists, nurses, doctors, or aestheticians. In 2002, it became legal for a person to practice reflexology without any of these licenses as long as touch did not go beyond 6 inches above the ankle, above the wrists, or from the ears. This opened the door for untrained and even unscrupulous people to develop reflexology businesses. The Washington state legislature worked with the Washington Reflexology Association to develop education and experience requirements for licensure that were instituted in 2013.

You should always feel free to ask for documentation of your reflexologist’s education and experience. Currently, in Washington, to become a certified reflexologist, you must complete at least 200 hours of classroom education and 90 documented practice hours that are reviewed by a local school. National Certification by the American Reflexology Certification Board involves an additional 90 practice hours and graded documentation, written and practical exams, and continuing education. Licensure through the WA State Department of Health and an active business license are also required.