COUNSELLING KINESIOLOGY (CK™)
- for Behavioural & Emotional Issues
in Children and Adolescents
Developed by Gordon & Debra Dickson, Counselling Kinesiology™ is a synthesis of mainstream counselling techniques combined with kinesiology (i.e. muscle testing to identify emotional stress). Gordon Dickson ND, Dip.A, B.Eng(hon), ATMS, AKA, AIK is a Naturopath & Kinesiologist specialising in
Gordon holds private consultations at their Sunshine Coast clinic. Gordon & Debra teach Counselling Kinesiology™ Training workshops to kinesiology practitioners & students throughout Australia.
MUSCLE TESTING
Muscle Testing or Kinesiology is pushing gently on an outstretched arm (typically with the child or adolescent lying down), while addressing a possible problem area. The muscle being tested goes “weak” when thinking about a stress (like going weak at the knees on hearing bad news). This gives feedback from the body about what is really causing stress and what is not.
TYPICAL ISSUES ADDRESSED WITH COUNSELLING KINESIOLOGY™
The child or adolescent can address the issue by simply recalling the problem. They don’t even have to talk about it if they don’t want to. For example, they could think of stressful incidents involving -
· Bullying
· Difficulty making friends
· Anxiety (fears and phobias)
· Issues at school or problems in the family
· Acting up behaviours - fighting, bulling, teasing, disobeying, arguing, lying, stealing, acting out
· Acting down problems – worrying, sadness, loneliness, shyness, low self esteem, withdrawal
· Aspects of Asperger’s syndrome (e.g. obsessing, poor communication)
THE PAST AFFECTS THE PRESENT
Frequently an emotional problem in the present is the result of an unresolved issue from the past. The child or adolescent may be completely unaware, at a conscious level, of what is driving them to behave in such unproductive and upsetting ways. Conversely, the child may be aware of this connection but unwilling or unable to talk about it. In both cases muscle testing can again be extremely effectively. It is used in conjunction with another kinesiology technique called ‘time-tracking’, where we address the child or adolescent to each of the past years of his or her life, and the muscle test indicates related stresses stored in memory. Details around stressful emotions and the people involved can also be identified by the weak muscle responses.
It is important to realise that these are the child’s stressful memories. These may be real experiences or simply impressions from the past, where there was trauma or unpleasant feelings. After all, you would not ask a young child for an accurate description of what was going on, and past memories are much the same. They are what we base our reaction on, however.
EMOTIONAL DE-STRESSING
We can gently address these memories or impressions of critical incidents in the past with the child or adolescent, and work through any issues that surface while holding special “brain emotional de-tressing points”. These points change blood flow in the brain and allow the stressful memories to be re-processed and lose their controlling hold. We combine this with positive visualisations and counselling skills. It is important to allow children to understand their feelings (even being able to give names to them), open up, talk about them if they wish, and feel supported when tackling difficult issues.
Even if no issues surface as such, these points are still remarkably effective since the muscle testing has located the “emotional reference” - what the present behaviours and emotional responses are based upon. Often parents will report very real and upsetting things that happened at these times and they usually relate directly to the present issue.
IMPLEMENTING NEW BEHAVIOURS
We also go over change techniques for modelling, practising & implementing new behaviours. This is very affective for assertiveness training and working with fears and phobias. It is not always a past issue that is causing the current problem and the child may need an action plan or a behaviour management plan.
A typical Change Technique for a primary school child that is being teased, is the “high five“ of assertiveness training -
1. Please don’t do that.
2. Stop it, I don’t like it!
3. Ignore.
4. Walk away.
5. Report to teacher or parent.
IHK LEARNING ENHANCEMENT PROGRAM
With children it is often necessary to combine Counselling Kinesiology with our IHK Learning Enhancement Program as there are often underlying learning difficulties (for example learning issues contributing to behavioural problems and vice versa). Frequently children will seem to be underperforming in relationship to their abilities in other areas. When this is the case it is frequently due to an underlying learning difficulty or an emotional issue.
Using muscle response testing we can test the micro-skills of learning, for example eye movement, tracking across the page and recognising letters, which are all important skills for reading. If the arm goes “weak” during any of these tasks, we know the person is experiencing stress even if he or she appears to be doing the task quite well! Children will avoid these stressful tasks and it is often where the label “lazy” is used quite unfairly.
LEARNING ISSUES DUE TO EMOTIONAL STRESS
The learning stress may have an emotional basis, for example, you might have tried to spell your name and been laughed at when you made a mistake. From then on, you remember this bad experience every time you go to spell. This restricts your emerging spelling ability and you get a real “thing” about spelling – performing far below your actual ability. A difficult maths teacher can put you off maths for life.
It may be a family or social problem that gets locked in with the learning task e.g. just learning to spell when there is a death, separation, moving house or change in schools.
Frequently learning problems lead to low self-esteem and behavioural problems e.g. disturbing the class rather than being shown up for what you can’t do.
INVOLVING PARENTS AND TEACHERS
Sometimes it is necessary to involve parents and teachers in resolving the issues especially the interventions of behaviour management programs.
Sometimes we have to involve the parents more directly by looking at effective parenting techniques, or dealing with problems affecting the whole family. At other times it is appropriate to work with a parent’s unresolved issues directly, as they may be making it difficult to relate to a child at a certain age or with particular problems. Counselling Kinesiology™ is very effective with adult parenting issues and for relationship problems.
A major aim of Counselling Kinesiology™ is to build resilience in children so that the can
· Successfully cope with ongoing stress or adverse life conditions
· Recover from past difficulties
but mainly to enjoy a happy & productive life with good relationships with their parents, family & friends.
For more information - see our website at www.ckt.com.au
Email: ckt@ckt.com.au Telephone: (07)5444 5466 Clinic Address: 13 Parkana Cres. Buddina 4575