Polarity Therapy is a comprehensive health system involving energy-based bodywork, diet, exercise and self-awareness. It works with the Human Energy Field, electromagnetic patterns expressed in mental, emotional and physical experience.
Polarity Therapy was developed by Randolph Stone, DO, DC, ND (1890-1981), who conducted a thorough investigation of energy in the healing arts over the course of his 60 year medical career. Drawing information from a wide range of sources, he found that the Human Energy Field is affected by touch, diet, movement, sound, attitudes, relationships, life experience, trauma and environmental factors. As a result, Polarity has strong, mutually supportive connections to many other holistic health systems.
The Application of Polarity Therapy
In the Polarity model, health is experienced when energy systems function in their natural state; energy flows smoothly without significant blockage or fixation. When energy is unbalanced, blocked or fixed due to stress or other factors, pain and disease arise. Blockages generally manifest in sequence from the subtle to the dense levels of the field. Polarity Therapy seeks to find the blockages and release energy to normal flow patterns, and to maintain the Energy Field in an open, flexible condition.
In a typical Polarity Therapy session, the practitioner assesses energetic attributes using palpation, observation and interview methods. Sessions usually take 60 minutes, do not require disrobing, and involve both touch and verbal interaction. Touch contact may be light, medium or firm. In the session, the practitioner supports the client in increasing self-awareness of subtle energetic sensations, which are often experienced as tingling, warmth, expansion or wavelike movement. The results of Polarity Therapy sessions vary, and may include profound relaxation, new insight into energetic patterns and their implications, and relief from numerous specific problematic situations.
The fundamental concepts of Polarity Therapy touch
The hands are conductors of energy. By placing two hands on the client, particularly on a specific energetic pathway, current flow through that channel is enhanced. Polarity Therapy practitioners learn the pathway locations, then use conscious touch to facilitate energy movement.
The client responds not only to touch itself, but also to the consciousness of the practitioner. By creating an environment of safety and recognition, the practitioner supports the client’s self-healing process. Subtle listening, energetic boundaries, respect and related topics, to maximize the body-mind connection within a bodywork context.
Energy can be palpated by both practitioner and client. The practitioner may feel warming and softening, pulsation, relationship between the two hand contacts, stillness, energetic shaping, and related subtle sensations, as the Polarity contact is held. The client may feel relaxation, tingling, wavelike movement, stillness, and similar phenomena during the contact.
Clients have a subconscious inner intelligence and self-regulating capacity which emerges with awareness of energy movement. In the Polarity Therapy session, the practitioner may employ verbal skills to support the client’s increasing self-awareness of energy movement.
Polarity Therapy explores the relationships of the chakras and their parallel lines of current flow, the “five pointed-star” pattern of the torso, the “Interlaced Triangles” of the craniosacral system, positive-neutral-negative polarized relationships throughout the body, and similar energy mappings which are the basis for hand placement.
Polarity Therapy is very effective for building inner resources to manage stress. As a person is more able to sense and appreciate subtle inner energetic experience.
As always within the Polarity model, the emphasis is on personal responsibility, that is, taking charge of your own life.