Polarity Therapy was founded by Dr Randolph Stone who was born in Austria in 1890 and emigrated to the United States in 1903. He lived to be 91 years of age and was living proof of his health ideas, actively traveling and teaching into his old age with energy, inspiration, and enthusiasm. He studied every major natural healing art, earning Doctors' degrees in Osteopathy, Chiropractic, and Naturopathy. He practiced for over 60 years, all the while experimenting with many diets, exercise programs, and therapeutic methods in a constant search for the most effective ways of achieving and maintaining health.

His book HEALTH BUILDING distills and summarizes the findings and research of a lifetime of unbiased truthseeking, presenting his observations in a clear, simple way that people of all ages can understand and apply.

He studied eastern healing arts such as: Chinese acupuncture, Ayurvedic medicine and Yoga.
Dr Stone’s health concepts are all based on the living energy currents that can be directly experienced through the diets and exercises described in the above book. Dr Stone’s view of health encompasses all dimensions of a human being: the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. His approach acknowledges that nourishing and expressing the soul is as important as nourishing and exercising the physical body.

Polarity Therapy is therefore more than just a therapy, it is a model of the way energy works in the body and a set of approaches that work with this model.

The main areas that Dr. Stone developed for use by therapists were: Bodywork, Counselling and Exercise. In addition, elements of diet, nutrition and herbs were utilised.

In 1987 a Polarity Therapist called Paul Francis took the energy model and the techniques developed to work with it and extended it still further to provide what is probably the most extensive and holistic approach of any therapy available. He founded what is now known as Polarity Energetics. Students of this school are trained in the basic approaches of Polarity Therapy but also receive additional training in Homoeopathy, Flower Essences, Diet and Nutrition, Psychotherapy and Meditation. Thus students of his school are not only qualified Polarity Therapists, they are also Polarity Energetics Therapists and can opt to become Polarity Psychotherapists, Polarity Homoeopaths etc.

The five elements

Polarity Therapy is a broad based system of healing. It has techniques for re-aligning the physical body and improving posture and organ functioning, ways of influencing the nervous system, a complex reflex theory and ways of working with the subtle energies that make up the body and mind of man. It also incorporates a knowledge of the most fundamental of building blocks the five elements. These elements of Ether, Air, Fire, Water and Earth were the way that early man related to the known world. Without the scientific background that we are now familiar with , primitive man could only come to understand his world through his five senses and the basic elements that he experienced around him.

Modern man seems to have very little time for these elemental forces, although some scientists are studying the monumental forces that each element is capable of generating. The way the elements manifest and interact is very relevant even today, and to a Polarity therapist they can give insight into the process of disease thus forming an important tool in energetic diagnosis.

Each of the five elements seeks to express itself through the manifestation of its own quality or vibration of energy. When that natural expression is blocked then the energy, instead of being released externally, is forced back into the system where it interferes with the natural flow and causes disharmony. Let me give you a more concrete example: One of the energies that some people have a problem expressing naturally is fire. Fire’s natural expression is loud, enthusiastic, direct, joyful, angry......get the picture? Many of our early parental injunctions and societal rules suppress this kind of expression. If you never able to release this particular quality of energy then it is expressed internally (it has to go somewhere !) and the vibration of energy that is fire begins to impose itself on the internal organs of the body for instance, interfering with their natural vibration or frequency and freezing the surrounding musculature so that the organ cannot function efficiently - result...... disease states such as ulcers and liver malfunctions.

Of course it is not just the physical body that is affected, the fire energy as it manifests in the mind can cause one to become stuck with obsessive thoughts and the personality become unresponsive and domineering. This is reflected in the interaction with others so that their communication becomes clipped; we might even say they become “short” with others and demanding of their own way. Generally this leads to an inability to empathise or even listen to another’s view point. All this can lead to considerable interpersonal friction and hurt.

Diagnosing the imbalances in the expression of any of the five elements can aid the Polarity Therapist in assessing the cause of someone’s problems. Then through the skilled use of energy bodywork, exercise, diet and communication counselling anyone can come to recognise how the elements are manifesting in their lives; which ones they are familiar with and use a lot and which they shy away from; they can come to know them better and recognise them all as allies and so become more liberated as they give in to full expression of these most basic of energies.

Resources by Morag Campbell

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