Reflexology Association of America

1.    Why does the table improve the quality of a session versus a reclining chair?

This answer assumes the practitioner is doing Integrated Foot Hand Ear Reflexology, during each reflexology session.

The most commonly taught palpation technique in the West is the thumb-walk also called the inch-worm technique. The technique has helped hundreds of thousands even many millions of people have better health. In order for the thumb-walk to be moved across the tissues, of the feet or hands, the thumb has to come up, out of the tissue to move forward and then be ‘squeezed‘ or ‘pushed’ in to the reflex area of the feet or hands were the practitioner is working. This repeating pushing in and out, for many practitioners, causes a great deal of strain on their thumbs, hands, wrist. Pushing in and out, can also contribute to poor posture, contributing to discomfort in the arms, shoulder, and neck and spine.
Rather than, pushing in and out of the tissue each time you do the thumb walk technique, instead, roll across the tissue with the thumb roll technique, between the softer surface tissue and the deeper firmer tissue, until the deeper firmer tissue relaxes and invites you to go deeper, with no additional strain to your thumbs, hands, wrist. arms, shoulder, neck or spine. The thumb-roll technique requires a slight forward leverage which is enhanced by a slightly forward motion of the body and hand.
This leads us to the answer of the main question. It’s far easier to have this forward leverage when working on the client on a table instead of on a recliner. Working with your client on a table the practitioner is able to have more forward motion and optimal posture with a straight spine and neck.
The more stable platform your client is on, the more effective this technique. Most stable (and best for your posture) are massage / reflexology tables. Large cushions residential type recliners, such as La-Z-Boy type of reclining chairs, are stable, but not optimal for your posture. Lighter metal framed recliners, sometimes called zero gravity recliners, are less stable and least optimal for your posture. The good news is that they are light and easy to carry around for people who make house calls.

Ear reflexology palpation techniques, are different from most techniques used on the hands and feet. Primarily, various holding techniques are used. With the client on the table, the reflexologist, with the forearms and hands resting on solid table top, can more easily maintain well supported comfortable posture for long periods of time, as-well-as keep steady stable hands.

2.       When working on the ears, how do you accommodate (or not) hearing aids?

You have three options for accommodating people with hearing aids; 1. Avoid using flowing palpation techniques on the ears, rather, only use point and reflex holding techniques. 2. Ask the client if it’s OK for them to remove the hearing aids during the session. 3. A third option is to not work on the ears, instead spend extra time on the desired reflexes on the feet and hands.

3.       Tinnitus protocol please / thank you!

A.   Ear reflexes on the Hands 1st, Ears 2nd, Feet 3rd. 

4. Do you use “intention” when holding the points on the ears and waiting for the pulse to balance? What is the pulse we are feeling? Is it the same as the circulatory pulse?

A.  This is two questions, let’s take them one at a time:
Intentionality.
Working with intention is a delicate and potentially power addition to the caring arts. We want to be sure to be working towards what is best for that person’s highest good, We do not want to interfere with what is best for their highest good on the physical, emotional, spiritual, conscious, or subconscious levels.      
Some schools of thought about intentionality suggested, yes, intended for that part of the body in pain, but add in your thoughts, “or whatever is best for their highest good.” Yet, another school of thought suggest, rather than focusing on one part of the body being healed, to imagine, visualize or intend the entire person, on all levels, in a state of perfect vibrant optimal health
I had a client with a broken facet (the bond that sticks out backwards from each vertebrae) on her lower lumbar spine. It was as sharp as a knife. She lived in extreme physical pain, 24 / seven.  If she were to lift her leg backward even slightly, it could cut the nerves going down that leg, losing motion and sensation in that leg. She needed some pain to remind her to not lift her leg backwards very far. Imagine how difficult that was, since she had been a professional ballerina. During sessions with her, I absolutely worked on her with the intention of her having much less pain,

or whatever was best for her highest good.”

Pulses
Are the pulses yours or theirs?
The pulses could be either yours or theirs. When you feel a pulse change

, you can quietly ask the person on who you’re working, if they felt any shift in their body. The first couple of times you asked this question of a person who is not very tuned to their body, they likely will respond that they did not notice a change. Over time, as they become more self-aware of their body, they will be able to let you know, yes they felt a change. For example, while you are holding lower back reflex on the narrow ridge (Inferior Cruz) you feel a pulse change. It’s usually an indication that lower back muscles have begun to relax, which indicates increased blood flow in the lower back. The momentary increased circulation in the lower back, because of lower back muscle relaxation, can be felt via the pulse change, in this case where you are holding narrow ridge.

5.       Thank you for teaching us! Question: are they my pulses or the client’s pulses that I am feeling? Not that it matters, but I am curious! Thank you.

Please see thoughts about pulses in the answer to the previous question.

6.       Light touch on hands and feet too? Or just ears.

There’s a difference between light touch and nurturing touch. Use nurturing touch on all three feet, hands, and ears.

7.       The homunculus and the model of the man with exaggerated hands, feet, ears…the mouth & lips were also significantly exaggerated but no mention. Anything you can say about that?

That is an excellent observation. Indeed, on the homunculus, there are exaggeratedly larger nerve surfaces on the cerebral cortex, for parts of the body, besides the feet, hands, and external ears. such as face, mouth, lips, tongue and other parts of the body.  The reason for not mentioning them, was my presentation was on foot hand ear reflexology.
A great deal of work has been done by reflexologists all over the world, regarding the map of the face. There are several reasons for these areas, not being as popular as they could possibly should be. 1. Legally, the cosmetology profession claims the face as their scope of practice, not reflexology’s. 2. Sanitation, not touching mouth, lips, tongue, is another reason these areas have not been explored more seriously. 3. A third reason, reflexology is still a very young field. It’s only recently that hands and ears are becoming popular. At the recent RAA approximately 80% of attendees indicated that they were exploring ear reflexology. The theme of the RAA 2026 Conference was Discovered Forward Together In Reflexology. Perhaps you will be the one, who together with other reflexologists, explore the other reflex area related to the homunculus.

8.       On the left side of the brain, the head/face & especially the tongue were also visually larger. Do you see head/face reflexology as a potential critical 4^th component?

It’s hard to show three-dimensional subjects on a two-dimensional piece of paper, consequently what appeared to be distortion. The homunculus is equally balanced on both the left and right halves of the brain.
Many people around the world are already doing extensive exploration of the reflexology maps on the face. Perhaps by embracing the RAA conference theme, Discovered Forward Together In Reflexology,

you could be the person who working with other reflexologists, in the future will discover which of the other aspects of the homunculus, could be 4th, 5th, 6th component … a truly exciting prospect.

9.       How do you do reflexology on yourself?

If you’re asking if I do reflexology personally on myself, yes, most evenings. I work feet hands and ears for my prostate and urinary bladder reflexes. Having previously been a serious lap swimmer for most of my adult life, I work on my ears for occasional swimmer shoulder discomforts.
If you’re asking me, how does somebody do self-help reflexology, may I invite you to the World Reflexology Foundation website www.worldreflexologyfoundation.org where you will find self-help self-care reflexology articles in English, (and in an ever-increasing number of languages) about for health issues in different parts of the body. You’ll also find self-help videos. We are beginning to look into voiceover work for all of the videos in so many languages of the world. Also, several times a year, we offer free self-help online reflexology workshops. All of this is for free - the online workshops, the articles, and the videos, are available with 24 seven for anyone in the world who has Internet access, which at this point as approximately 6 billion people.

1.  Is there a difference in miscarriage rate between reflexology-assisted conception and “natural” conception? 

It is difficult to be definitive in answering this question as we don't currently have research to support outcomes.  However, given the evidenced based approach that we use it would be possible to use a reflexology protocol to support women with increased risk of miscarriage that might be related to progesterone deficiency. We do teach this on the course and provide a means of understanding measurement outcomes for progesterone. If the miscarriage were related to male factor or poor oocyte quality that would need a different approach entirely and the focus would be on improving the quality of both.  As you can see just from these brief statements miscarriage causal factors can be related to an array of conditions and underlying factors so support would need to be individualised.

2.  Do we know why male fertility has decreased? What is contributing to the issue

Sadly the decline has many underlying contributing factors, not least poor diet, increase in disease, reproductive and otherwise, exposure to endocrine disruptors and poorly managed stress levels, to name a few.....there are SO many!  Our understanding is increasing all the time and I hope that leads to greater understanding and improved outcomes.

3.  Would women who have short and light menstrual bleeding typically have issues with fertility?

It is difficult to comment definitively without further information that is individual to the client.  However, it is something that we might see in women with a luteal phase defect, poor progesterone or maybe poor ovarian reserve.  More information from hormone profiling and BBT charting would be needed to provide further support.

1.       Do opioids cause [the] body not to recognize pain warning?

Pain is essentially a warning signal to actual or potential tissue damage that protects us from harm through our own inbuilt alarm system. In response to that alarm signal, the sympathetic nervous system is set up to escape the harm and protect us. When opioids are used to manage short-term severe pain, for example after an operation, they work well. They’re also important to help manage cancer pain at the end of life.  They do not switch oti the alarm signal but instead dampen it, so that the signal is not as strong.

How they work:

Opioids act on the brain by attaching to tiny proteins on nerve cells called OPIOID RECEPTORS, whose job it is to block the transmission of a painful stimulus.

Some of the drugs prescribed are derived from opium whilst others are manufactured to emulate opium (synthetic opioids). They are addictive because they create endorphins which make us feel good and trick the brain into stopping production of our own natural endorphins. In fact, some of the drugs create 100 x more endorphins than is normal or natural so the body becomes reliant on them and also tolerant to them which means the body needs higher and higher doses to get the same effect. If you have taken opioids for 3 months and you are not experiencing an improvement in your pain or activity levels, or you are experiencing side-effects that affect your day-to-day activities, it is highly likely that the medication is not working.

2.       Do opioids interfere with the body’s ability to decrease pain on its own?

Yes, long term use can actually increase pain because you become more sensitive to it. That’s because your nervous system changes. If you keep feeding your body opioids, it thinks it doesn’t need to make endorphins anymore, which means eventually your body loses its natural ability to reduce pain on its own. This causes chronic pain, or something called OPIOID INDUCED HYPERALGESIA –

When used at high doses, opioid painkillers seem to amplify pain because it changes the signaling pathways in the CNS, making the body generally more sensitive to painful stimuli. Our body goes into high alert in order to overcome blocked signals by activating other pain signals and pathways, a phenomenon known as hypersensitization.

In effect our brain finds a new way of forming connections and that alters how the circuits are connected, we call that neuroplasticity. Ultimately painkillers work best for acute pain and will diminish chronic pain by 30 per cent in 30 per cent of patients. Managing pain in its early days makes it less likely to turn chronic.

3.       Any feedback on shockwave therapy? (Acoustic) (for neuropathy)

I don’t have personal experience of using shockwave therapy in my clinic and you don’t mention what type of neuropathy. However, there are pieces of research available that suggest it may be useful alongside standard treatment for neuropathic diabetic foot ulcers…here is the link to the research: hDps://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30557108/

There is however limited research on it for chemotherapy induced peripheral neuropathy at the moment. Whilst I recognize that many physiotherapists are using it for musculoskeletal conditions, there is no hard evidence for using it to treat neuropathy at the moment.

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