Focus on Alternative and Complementary Therapies
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Focus Alternat Complement Ther©2005 Pharmaceutical Press
Focus Altern Complement Ther 2006; 11: 08–9
To investigate the effects and efficacy of anthroposophical therapies such as rhythmical massage or embrocation, oil dispersion baths, therapeutic eurythmia, etc., it is necessary to rely on the distinct concepts of anthroposophical medicine (AM). From an AM point of view, humans are an entity made up of body, soul and spirit, represented by four essential aspects, i.e. physical body, life body, sentiment body, ego organisation. The therapeutic aim is to influence the activity of one or more of these elements to regain a healthy balance.
During an intervention with AM-based therapies we expect changes in the reactions particularly of the sentiment body and the ego organisation, resulting in physiological, intentional, affective and cognitive symptoms. We thus developed a questionnaire to address two main relevant aspects: (i) internal heat: sensations, emotions, cogitations; (ii) external warming: sleep, openness, easiness. The first aspect also enrols symptoms of distinct TCM syndromes such as emptiness of ‘kidney-yin’, ‘heart-yang’ resp. ‘heart-fire’. The questionnaire was tested first in 88 individuals.
Reliability and factor analysis of the 17-item topic ‘internal heat’ revealed four factors (Cronbach’s alpha = 0,817: ‘chase of cogitations’, ‘anger, hunger, thirst’, ‘sensation of cold’, ‘affected speech’), and four factors of the 16-item topic ‘external warming’ (alpha = 0,862: ‘openness/contacts’, ‘recreating sleep/enduringness’, ‘easiness’. ‘Openness’ correlated strongly with ‘affected speech’ (r =−0.573), ‘recreating sleep’ (r = 0.515) and ‘easiness’ (r = 0.510).
The questionnaire in its preliminary version seems to be a reliable construct which can be used to study distinct effects of AM based therapies.
