Clinical Reflexology: A Guide for Health Professionals

This book is a welcome addition to the literature on reflexology. It breaks the mould of single-author books about reflexology, written without any critical input and largely for purely promotional reasons. In that sense, it represents the reflexology profession’s coming of age. The editors’ declared aims include providing a research-based information source and identifying core principles of reflexology, which must evolve and adapt to meet the needs of the health system in which it finds itself. They start out from the clearly stated belief that reflexology is ‘not simply a massage but a powerful system of health care’, but within that overall creed, they declare that everything is up for challenge.

The result is a welcome freshness about the content and the text. The authors tackle the nomenclature, clarifying for the first time the slightly separate evolution of ‘reflex zone therapy’, but then losing the distinction between this and reflexology and reflexotherapy, as such. The possible mechanisms are listed with an admission that there is no strong support for any one mechanism in particular.

The authors try to address head-on the thorny question of ‘reflexology diagnosis’. On one hand, ‘clients are frequently amazed what a practitioner is able to deduce about the state of their health’, but on the other hand the system cannot be perfect, since one reflexologist adds astrological signs to make her diagnosis. There is, to my mind, a good deal of confused thinking about reflexology diagnosis. The authors list the various meanings of the word diagnosis and discuss the issues, but the result of their deliberations is still not satisfactory. Of course, a reflexologist needs to make a diagnosis in order to give a treatment but this diagnosis cannot be given in conventional medical terms since reflexologists are rarely trained in medicine. The paradox is that a conventional diagnosis is needed because the patient may need conventional medical treatment.

The crux of this problem seems to be the reliability of reflexology in being able to identify clinical conditions, and this will only be settled by rigorous testing. Until this has been done, and we really know whether the foot can reveal medical diseases, the discussion cannot move forward; and that cannot proceed until the issue of inconsistencies between different charts is sorted. This undermines the tests of the reliability of diagnosis. How ironic that one author highlights the commercial advantage of devising a new chart that can be copyrighted, and another author includes a diagram of his own charts – complete with copyright mark.

This is a broad book, divided into two sections covering generalised key themes and application in specialist areas, respectively. Considerable integration of reflexology within the health service has already taken place. The book addresses issues that range from primary and continuing education and regulation issues to an exploration of holism and healing and therapeutic relationship, practising safely and effectively. Although it is easy to take issue with some of the contents, this is inevitable in any professional handbook – for that is what this amounts to. Every reflexologist should read it.