Korean Hand Therapy (KHT) reviewed

January 22, 2007
Topic: What's new around here? KHT.

Thanks for checking in and welcome to this site (my first Blog posting!).

I hope this Blog can be the informal touch-stone for patients and readers to receive beneficial information on health and health related topics, with allowances for me to share my thoughts and perspectives on things I think need to be addressed.

So what's new around here??

For starters, I just completed a two-day workshop dedicated to Korean Hand Therapy (KHT), taught by a masterful practitioner and effective teacher, Dan Lobash. Dan has been practicing and teaching KHT methods for 30+years, and is a principle student of the system's founder, Dr. Tae-Woo Yoo.

What is KHT?
Korean Hand Therapy views a person's hand as a microcosic system reflecting the systems found througout the entire body.

Recognizing the inter-connectedness of the body, (afterall, we did each start out as one cell that divided over and over and over...) using the hand to treat the body another way of gaining access to the energetic organization found throughout our entire mind-body field.

The middle finger, in the KHT model, represents the head, neck and torso, while the ring and index fingers represent the arms (up to the shoulder), with the little finger and thumb representing the legs (from hip to foot).

The palm of the hand additionally contains internal organ correspondances, while the front and back of the hand represent their respective surfaces of the body, as well.

How is this applied?
Using the hand to treat the entire body presents a few advantages for the practioner and patient, in comparison to traditional full-body acupuncture treatments.

For starters, the hand is easy to access and treatments can be performed just about anyplace, at any time, without the patient needing to disrobe, stretch out on a special treatment table, or anything like that.

Also, once a patient is shown which points s/he should stimulate on the hand to produce a therapeutic result, s/he can continue enforcing the treatment results, with this home therapy approach.

Granted, KHT is no walk in the park if you really want to master the approach, or wish to use it to treat complicated health imbalances. But, it probably shouldn't be excessively easy to master, as it demands focus, precision and a working understanding of energic flows throughout the body, and how that flow of energy relates to the health of one's body, mind and spirit.

One advantage KHT offers to patients: you don't have to use needles for it to be effective.

Some of you may wish to read that again!

You don't need needles, because the points of the hand can be effectively stimulated using small metal pellets taped over the point(s) which only make superficial contact with the skin.

These pellets are flat discs, about the diameter of a pencil eraser (and even that is too big), and you just tape them onto areas needing treatment, and presto! You are done.

Needles (very small, thin versions of the acupuncture needles normally used) are used in KHT, but generally upon the discretion of the practioner. So, non-needle therapy, producing results similar or equal to KHT treatments using only pellets, will sound attractive to many patients who are afraid of needles.

KHT claims to deliver immediate, or nearly immediate results for patients.

How immediate?

Well, if you came in for a treatment because of back pain caused by injury or strain to the soft tissues (i.e. musculature), you could expect the treatment to produce results as soon as the pellets were placed on your hand/fingers.

Really! Just like that: no more pain.

Sounds exciting, doesn't it?

I think so.

And I will post my KHT results on this Blog, as I gain more experience with this form of therapy.

I hope you are having a good day.

John

P.S. Do you think it's possible to die from drinking too much water? The answer may surprise you. Check this out, if you are curious about the answer:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1994678,00.html