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Dr. Thie’s vision was to develop a lay person support group like other professions had done

(American Diabetic Association, American Cancer Association, Arthritis Foundation, and so on) with the ICAK doctors providing leadership and guidance about natural health methods and the lay part of the group supporting these efforts and spreading the word to other lay people and potential patients as other professions have so successfully done.

In 2018, “Energetic and Specialized Kinesiologies” celebrated 35 years of kinesiology in German-speaking countries, 35 years of the IAK, and 30 years of the professional association. Kinesiology (TFHK) Association’s annual conference marked 43 consecutive years of AK/T4H/ Educational Kinesiology (EduK)/ SK/ EnK conferences. Their gatherings in the USA (or under the IAK, DGAK and IKC banners in Germany, or the 5th Kinesiology Conference in Moscow, or the 2nd greater China Kinesiology conference in Shenzhen) are at least in part a celebration of the popularization of Applied Kinesiology around the world for lay people and non-physician clinicians.

Energy Medicine and Energy Psychology conferences continue to spread, expand and apply energetic kinesiology principles, though often the speakers and attendees are unaware of the roots of their work in AK, T4H, or other systems of kinesiology.

In 1975, when AK and T4H diverged, some of the ICAK physicians objected to sharing kinesiology methods with the lay public, fearing it could be dangerous, of low quality, or result in a competing profession with a much lower standard of training. As of 2018, the lay peer-to- peer teaching model is alive and well via T4H, Educational Kinesiology, and so many other workshops that have truly spread “kinesiology” throughout the world, with repeatable, similar benefits, in countless languages, cultures and settings. T4H has been taught in more than 100 countries and at least 23 languages.

A new profession of Specialized Kinesiology or Energy Kinesiology has indeed emerged from Goodheart’s “physician only” teachings and continues to grow around the world. It has not resulted in any shortage of “sick people” for all of the AK physicians to help! Indeed, greater mutual awareness and cross-referral will only increase the public knowledge and access to the optimum practitioner for their needs.

Perhaps Energy Psychology has done the most to publish documentation of Energy Kinesiology interventions in the peer-reviewed journals, primarily through outcome studies using Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). EFT has probably spread the farthest and the fastest, impacting millions of lives, and enhancing the practice of many professionals—and many of them have no idea EFT has roots in Dr. Goodheart’s AK and Callahan’s Thought Field Therapy (TFT).

For so many years, literally millions of people have known for themselves that “kinesiology” really works for them, but it is incumbent upon kinesiologists to produce more orthodox, scientific evidence for its wider acceptance and further development.

Dr. John D. Diamond

John Diamond is a psychiatrist who, after he met Dr. Goodheart, became interested in the psychological and the psychiatric aspects of Applied Kinesiology, “as I realized it could give us instant access to the unconscious.” Just as Sigmund Freud (1900) revealed how dreams may prove to be a “royal road” to the unconscious mind, Dr. Diamond has shown how manual muscle testing during psychological questioning functions as another window to hidden motives and emotions. This is what makes Diamond’s work so congruent with psychoanalysis and Applied Kinesiology. The principles of MMT developed in Applied Kinesiology were adapted by John Diamond in his book Behavioral Kinesiology,⁶⁸ and form the basis of contemporary ‘energy psychology’, a popularized form of these psychosocial approaches that originated in Applied Kinesiology. Dr. Diamond has published significant amounts of theoretical and outcomes research related to the diagnosis (using the MMT) and treatment (using psychological, meridian, nutritional, homeopathic, and manual methods) of psychosocial disorders. A review of his writings and research should be made by anyone wishing to expand their knowledge in the area of psychosocial dysfunction.

Dr. John Diamond was the first medical clinician-scientist in the psychological field to use and scientifically write about the meridian system’s influence on human psychological behavior and the link between the acupuncture meridians and emotions. Diamond is a psychiatrist and past president of the International Academy of Preventive Medicine and was critical in bringing many leaders in the field of CAM to Goodheart’s attention, as well as bringing Goodheart’s work to many leaders in the CAM community. Diamond’s pioneering concepts, together with some of the concepts developed by Goodheart in Applied Kinesiology, form the basis on which a new method of holistic psychology developed, and from his work the new field of “energy psychotherapy” emerged.^{69, 72}

Dr. Goodheart said, “Dr. John Diamond has been a friend and physician colleague for over thirty years. He alone deserves a Nobel Prize for his accurate observations on the acupuncture meridians and emotions.” From his initial work Dr. Diamond has spent 35 years developing methods of diagnosing and treating what he calls “The Acupuncture Emotional System,” associating the major positive and negative emotions with each meridian and thereby offering one possible pillar for psychosomatic medicine. In his view the acupuncture system is the communicating link between the emotions, the organs, and the muscles.

Diamond’s work also had a strong influence on the renowned osteopath Robert Fulford, DO, with whom he corresponded. Fulford found Diamond’s book Life Energy essential, (1985) and his discussion of birth trauma were critical to Dr. Fulford’s development of methods to release cranial injuries in children at birth. Diamond relates issues of fear, hate, and envy that may accompany the infant’s leaving the comfort of the womb. As a whole Diamond’s work suggests that the body and the psyche progress in parallel during the developmental process, and that interventions aimed at improving the emotional-adaptive response to the birth experience and life traumas is fundamental for the patient’s development and well-being. Diamond was instrumental in the meetings between Dr. Goodheart and Dr. Willie May, and the salutary results from this interaction have been extensively published in the biomedical and chiropractic professions.

Dr. Diamond’s work was the first in the psychological field to use and scientifically write about the meridian system’s influence on human behavior. His pioneering concepts, together with some of the advanced concepts in Applied Kinesiology, formed the basis on which the new field of “energy psychotherapy” developed.

A brief summary a few of the contributions of Dr. Diamond are as follows:

• Dr. Diamond identified the links between specific meridians and emotions.
• Dr. Diamond discovered how muscle testing of meridian, acupuncture, and alarm points could be used to identify the meridian imbalance underlying an emotional state.
• Dr. Diamond discovered how meridian imbalance may occur in layers, and how these may correspond to layers of emotions. Thus, he used muscle testing to identify the sequence of meridians that required treatment in relation to a particular emotional problem. The complexity of the human psyche was found to be reflected in the complex adaptations made by the human muscle and meridian system.
• Dr. Diamond suggested that manual muscle testing could be extended to exploring emotional truth, as well as the impact of all manner of mental stimuli upon the measurable human muscular system.
• Dr. Diamond discovered how meridians that are out of balance may be corrected by specific affirmations.
• Thus, Dr. Diamond discovered an efficient way of identifying how the meridian system is out of balance in relation to an emotional problem, fear or phobia, and how to correct this.
• Dr. Diamond also identified profound obstacles to healing, such as the “reversal of the body’s morality” (what is called “psychological reversal” in AK).
• Diamond’s work led to profound elaborations on the use of the manual muscle test and AK approaches in many diverse but associated systems of treatment in the field of “energy psychology” and “kinesiology.”

Dr. Roger Callahan

Dr. Phil Mollon (one of the leading writers in the new field of “energy psychotherapy”) credits Dr. Goodheart with a fundamental contribution to the development of this new field of study. Dr. Mollon’s history of Goodheart’s contributions in this area is exhaustive.⁶⁹

Emotional Freedom Techniques, commonly known as “EFT,” is a popular and form of “energy psychology.” Its founder Gary Craig (an engineer) gives Dr. Goodheart credit for its development. Dr. Goodheart demonstrated the effect of the meridian system upon human function for Mr. Craig and his teacher Dr. Roger Callahan, and from their use of these insights, developed methods that have spread to literally millions of people around the world.

Professional Applied Kinesiology is Mapping New Territories for Chiropractic Around the World

Despite the incessant expansion, evolution and redevelopment, much of the original AK approach has stood the test of time and persists in its essentials among the hundreds of thousands of MMT practitioners around the world. The voluntary skeletal muscular system is the source and the recipient of the greatest neural activity in the body, and therefore the AK clinician is one of the most comprehensive “diagnosticians” of human function and malfunction at work in the world today.

Dr. Goodheart and the ICAK have dedicated their lives to the future of integrative healthcare and its realization with Applied Kinesiology. This passion for functional diagnosis – “diagnose the need, supply the need, observe the result” – for the most unusual and the most common patient problems has been shared at chiropractic, osteopathic, medical, and dental colleges, seminars, and lecture tours all over North America, Europe, Australia and Asia. Hailed as a friend and inspiration to many, Dr. Goodheart is a man to be remembered, honored, and modeled. The numbers of clinicians and healing professions that are using and developing AK demonstrate that many of the most famous doctors in the orthodox and complementary and alternative medicine world felt that “the Goodheart’s approach” was invaluable because it focused on measurable physical factors that make up the constellation of dysfunctions affecting the person’s total health picture and happiness.

Dr. Scott Cuthbert practices AK at
Intercare Chiropractic Clinics in Makati Manila.
Dr. Cuthbert is the author of Applied Kinesiology Essentials: The Missing Link in Health Care (2014), and Applied Kinesiology: Clinical Techniques for Lower Body Dysfunctions (2013), and Whiplash Dynamics and Manual Muscle Testing (2019), all of which are available at Amazon Kindle. He has published 15 Index Medicus clinical outcome studies and literature
reviews, and over 50 peer-reviewed articles on AK.