Glossary

Tricky acronyms and terms explained.

Aromatherapy:
Aromatherapy means “treatment using scents”. It is a holistic treatment of caring for the body with pleasant smelling botanical oils such as rose, lemon, lavender and peppermint. The essential oils are added to the bath or massaged into the skin, inhaled directly or diffused to scent an entire room. Aromatherapy is used for the relief of pain, care for the skin, alleviate tension and fatigue and invigorate the entire body. Essential oils can affect the mood, alleviate fatigue, reduce anxiety and promote relaxation. When inhaled, they work on the brain and nervous system through stimulation of the olfactory nerves.

Ayurvedic Medicine:
Ayurveda, which literally means “the science of life,” is a natural healing system developed in India. Ayurvedic texts claim that the sages who developed India’s original systems of meditation and yoga developed the foundations of this medical system. It is a comprehensive system of medicine that places equal emphasis on the body, mind, and spirit, and strives to restore the innate harmony of the individual. Some of the primary Ayurvedic treatments include diet, exercise, meditation, herbs, massage, exposure to sunlight, and controlled breathing. In India, Ayurvedic treatments have been developed for various diseases (e.g., diabetes, cardiovascular conditions, and neurological disorders).

BFRP:
Bach Foundation Registered Practitioner

BS:
Bachelor of Surgery

Body Work:
Manipulative and body-based practices focus primarily on the structures and systems of the body, including the bones and joints, the soft tissues, and the circulatory and lymphatic systems. Some practices were derived from traditional systems of medicine, such as those from China, India, or Egypt, while others were developed within the last 150 years (e.g., chiropractic and osteopathic manipulation). Although many providers have formal training in the anatomy and physiology of humans, there is considerable variation in the training and the approaches of these providers both across and within modalities. For example, osteopathic and chiropractic practitioners, who use primarily manipulations that involve rapid movements, may have a very different treatment approach than massage therapists, whose techniques involve slower applications of force, or than craniosacral therapists. Despite this heterogeneity, manipulative and body-based practices share some common characteristics, such as the principles that the human body is self-regulating and has the ability to heal itself and that the parts of the human body are interdependent.

DPH:
Diploma Public Health

Distant Healing:
Proponents of energy field therapies also claim that some of these therapies can act across long distances. For example, the long-distance effects of external qi gong have been studied in China and summarized in the book Scientific Qigong Exploration, which has been translated into English. The studies reported various healing cases and described the nature of qi as bidirectional, multifunctional, adaptable to targets, and capable of effects over long distances. Another form of distant healing is intercessory prayer, in which a person prays for the healing of another person who is a great distance away, with or without that person’s knowledge.

Energy Medicine:
Energetic medicine as defined within the mind/body/spirit model, involves therapies that affect energy fields that defy measurement. These therapies are based on the oncept that human beings are infused with a subtle form of energy. This vital energy or life force is known under different names in different cultures, such as qi in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), ki in the Japanese Kampo system, doshas in Ayurvedic medicine, and elsewhere as prana, etheric energy, fohat, orgone, odic force, mana, and homeopathic resonance. Vital energy is believed to flow throughout the material human body, but it has not been unequivocally measured by means of conventional instrumentation. Nonetheless, therapists claim that they can work with this subtle energy, see it with their own eyes, and use it to effect changes in the physical body and influence health.

Practitioners of energy medicine believe that illness results from disturbances of these subtle energies (the biofield). For example, more than 2,000 years ago, Asian practitioners postulated that the flow and balance of life energies are necessary for maintaining health and described tools to restore them. Herbal medicine, acupuncture, acupressure, moxibustion, and cupping, for example, are all believed to act by correcting imbalances in the internal biofield, such as by restoring the flow of qi through meridians to reinstate health. Some therapists are believed to emit or transmit the vital energy (external qi) to a recipient to restore health.

Examples of practices involving putative energy fields include:
• Reiki and Johrei, both of Japanese origin
• Qi gong, a Chinese practice

Healing touch, in which the therapist is purported to identify imbalances and correct a client’s energy by passing his or her hands over the patient

Prayer specifically for health purposes – such as intercessory prayer, in which a person intercedes through prayer on behalf of another.

Homeopathy:
Homeopathy is considered a complete system of medical theory and practice by those who practice and subscribe to its philosophy. Its founder, German physician Samuel Christian Hahnemann (1755-1843), hypothesized that one can select therapies on the basis of how closely symptoms produced by a remedy match the symptoms of the patient's disease. He called this the “principle of similars.” Hahnemann proceeded to give repeated doses of many common remedies to healthy volunteers and carefully record the symptoms they produced. This procedure is called a “proving” or, in modern homeopathy, a “human pathogenic trial.” As a result of this experience, Hahnemann developed his treatments for sick patients by matching the symptoms produced by a drug to symptoms in sick patients.13 Hahnemann emphasized from the beginning carefully examining all aspects of a person’s health status, including emotional and mental states, and tiny idiosyncratic characteristics.

LRCP:
Licentiate Royal College of Physicians of London

MA:
Master of Arts

MB:
Bachelor of Medicine

MRCS:
Member Royal College of Surgeons

Meridian:
A traditional Chinese medicine term for the 20 pathways throughout the body for the flow of qi, or vital energy, accessed through acupuncture points.

Meditation:
According to Joan Borysenko, Ph.D., a pioneer in the field of mind/body medicine, meditation can be broadly defined as any activity that keeps the attention pleasantly anchored in the present moment. When the mind is calm and focused in the present, it is neither reacting to memories from the past nor being preoccupied with plans for the future, two major sources of chronic stress known to impact health. “Meditation,” says Dr. Borysenko, “helps to keep us from identifying with the ‘movies of the mind.’”

Mind/Body/Spirit Medicine:
Mind-body medicine (also referred to as psychoneuroimmunology-PNI) focuses on the interactions among the brain, mind, body, and behavior, and the powerful ways in which emotional, mental, social, spiritual, and behavioral factors can directly affect health. It regards as fundamental an approach that respects and enhances each person’s capacity for self-knowledge and self-care, and it emphasizes techniques that are grounded in this approach.
Mind-body medicine typically focuses on intervention strategies that are thought to promote health, such as relaxation, hypnosis, visual imagery, meditation, yoga, biofeedback, tai chi, qi gong, cognitive-behavioral therapies, group support, spirituality, and prayer. The philosophy of mind/body medicine views illness as an opportunity for personal growth and transformation, and health care providers as catalysts and guides in this process.

Naturopathy:
Naturopathy is a system of healing, originating from Europe, that views disease as a manifestation of alterations in the processes by which the body naturally heals itself. It emphasizes health restoration as well as disease treatment. The term “naturopathy” literally translates as “nature disease.” Today naturopathy, or naturopathic medicine, is practiced throughout Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the United States. There are six principles that form the basis of naturopathic practice in North America (not all are unique to naturopathy):

1. The healing power of nature
2. Identification and treatment of the cause of disease
3. The concept of “first do no harm”
4. The doctor as teacher
5. Treatment of the whole person
6. Prevention

The core modalities supporting these principles include diet modification and nutritional supplements, herbal medicine, acupuncture and Chinese medicine, hydrotherapy, massage and joint manipulation, and lifestyle counseling. Treatment protocols combine what the practitioner deems to be the most suitable therapies for the individual patient.

Prana:
Prana is the energy of the Universe.

Qi:
The Chinese term for vital energy or life force. It is pronounced “chee.”

Qigong:
Qigong (chee-GONG) is a current name for what was formerly known as Taoist breathing exercises that date back nearly 5,000 years. Qi means energy, the energy of the universe. Gong means to gather with skill, thus qigong is to gather energy from the universe with practiced skill. There are over 3,000 forms of qigong; tai chi, more commonly known is but one form. Like tai chi, qigong appears to be a gentle slow rhythmic movement, usually done while standing. The practitioner is using mental imagery, breath and movement to gather qi, and bring it into the body. The results calm the mind, energize the body and help to create a sense of balance both literal and figurative.

Reiki:
Reiki is believed to have begun in Tibet several thousand years ago. Seers in the Orient studied energies and developed a system of sounds and symbols for universal healing energies. Various healing systems, which crossed many different cultures, emerged from this single root system. Unfortunately, the original source itself was forgotten.

Reiki practitioners channel energy in a particular pattern to heal and harmonize. Unlike other healing therapies based on the premise of a human energy field, reiki seeks to restore order to the body whose vital energy has become unbalanced.

Reiki energy has several basic effects: it brings about deep relaxation, destroys energy blockages, detoxifies the system, provides new vitality in the form of healing universal life energy, and increases the vibrational frequency of the body.

The laying of hands is used in Reiki therapy also as in spiritual healing. There is a difference though. In spiritual healing, a person with a strong energy field places his or her hands above a particular part of the recipient’s body in order to release energy into it. So, here the healer is the one who is sending out the energy. In Reiki, however, the healer places the hands above the recipient; however, it is the recipient that draws the energy as needed. Thus, in this case, the individual being healed takes an active part in the healing process as opposed to having a passive part in spiritual healing. The individual takes responsibility for his or her healing. The recipient identifies the needs and caters to them by drawing energy as needed.

Although there are a few positions in which the practitioner is in contact with the patient (such as cradling the head), most Reiki treatments do not involve actual touching. The practitioner holds his or her hands a few inches or farther away from the patient’s body and manipulates the energy field from there.

Therapeutic Touch and Related Practices:
Numerous other practices have evolved over the years to promote or maintain the balance of vital energy fields in the body. Examples of these modalities include Therapeutic Touch, healing touch, Reiki, Johrei, vortex healing, and polarity therapy. All these modalities involve movement of the practitioner’s hands over the patient’s body to become attuned to the condition of the patient, with the idea that by so doing, the practitioner is able to strengthen and reorient the patient’s energies.

Traditional Chinese Medicine:
TCM is a complete system of healing that dates back to 200 B.C. in written form. Korea, Japan, and Vietnam have all developed their own unique versions of traditional medicine based on practices originating in China. In the TCM view, the body is a delicate balance of two opposing and inseparable forces: yin and yang. Yin represents the cold, slow, or passive principle, while yang represents the hot, excited, or active principle. Among the major assumptions in TCM are that health is achieved by maintaining the body in a “balanced state” and that disease is due to an internal imbalance of yin and yang. This imbalance leads to blockage in the flow of qi (or vital energy) and of blood along pathways known as meridians. TCM practitioners typically use herbs, acupuncture, and massage to help unblock qi and blood in patients in an attempt to bring the body back into harmony and wellness.

Treatments in TCM are typically tailored to the subtle patterns of disharmony in each patient and are based on an individualized diagnosis. The diagnostic tools differ from those of conventional medicine. There are three main therapeutic modalities:

1. Acupuncture and moxibustion (moxibustion is the application of heat from the burning of the herb moxa at the acupuncture point)
2. Chinese Materia Medica (the catalogue of natural products used in TCM)
3. Massage and manipulation

Although TCM proposes that natural products catalogued in Chinese Materia Medica or acupuncture can be used alone to treat virtually any illness, quite often they are used together and sometimes in combination with other modalities (e.g., massage, moxibustion, diet changes, or exercise).

Vibrational Medicine/Energy Medicine:
Catalyst, harmonizer. Modalities of healing that facilitate the re-balancing of imbalances in the energetic fields in the body.

Yoga:
Yoga is an applied science of the mind and body, involving physical, mental and spiritual forms of practice. It comes from the Hindu Vedas (scriptures). Practice and study of it help to bring about a natural balance of body and mind in which the state of health can manifest itself. Yoga itself does not create health; rather, it creates an internal environment that allows the individual to come to his own state of dynamic balance, or health. Basically, yoga teaches that a healthy person is a harmoniously integrated unit of body, mind and spirit. Therefore, good health requires a simple, natural diet, exercise in fresh air, a serene and untroubled mind and the awareness that main’s deepest and highest self is identical with the spirit of God. As a result, to many devotees, yoga becomes a philosophy that offers instruction and insight into every aspect of life: the spiritual, the mental and the physical.

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