MJB asks: “My counselor has suggested that I consider a treatment called psychokinesiology to treat my stress-related problems. It sounds a little wacky to me. Is it okay to use this treatment?”
In a word, no.
Psychokinesiology (PK) is supposedly a series of psychological and emotional interventions that rely upon the very unscientific practice of muscle testing in order to communicate with your unconscious or conscious mind and correct hidden emotional imbalances in the mind/body system. It is used to treat generalized anxiety, phobic-types of responses, relationship problems, lack of organization, and emotional overreactions.
This site goes so far as to declare PK as the “clearest means of communicating with the unconscious” and says that in doing so, it can uncover the inner workings of the mind and readjust blockages to allow emotional “energy” to flow more freely.
Psychokinesiology is an offshoot of applied kinesiology, aka muscle testing, which is based on the notion that every organ dysfunction is accompanied by a specific muscle weakness. These procedures include pressing on an organ while telling a patient to push against the practitioner’s arm or to chew a substance while the practitioner tests a particular muscle’s strength. Proponents claim to be able to diagnose diseases with these methods and then heal them by manipulating or unblocking alleged body energies along meridian pathways. (Neither the energies or the meridians exist, according to science.)
In PK, muscle testing is combined with cognitive therapeutic techniques. With the latter, the PK practitioner discovers what needs to be done while the muscle testing tells the practitioner what the unconscious
is doing about it.
This technique is the brain child of two psychologists, Alexander Holub and Evelyn Budd-Michaels, Ph.D.
Holub, who has a doctorate in psychology is also heavily involved in New Age practices such as Neuro-linguistic programming and emotional complex clearing. A hypnotherapist, he also practices kung-fu.
His partner, Evelyn Budd-Michaels, has a similar resume. She earned her doctorate in psychology at Summit University and is also very involved in New Age techniques such as those listed above, as well as Bio-Energetic Synchronization Technique (BEST) and Neuro-emotional technique (NET). She is also a hypnotherapist and is considered to be an expert in handwriting analysis.
Because psychokinesiology is based on applied kinesiology, which does not conform to scientific facts about the causes or treatment of diseases, it is considered to be a pseudoscience.
If your counselor recommends something like this, I think it’s time to find a new doctor.
