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• Interview with Philippe Vandenabeele

At the end of treatment session, while they are in an open and relaxed state, I like to take some time to teach my patients about exercises they can do at home between sessions.

I feel that doing so helps to empower my patients by giving them control of their own well-being. In my experience it is best to keep it simple, therefore I most often teach only one or two exercise per session. This is actually more powerful and it will make it easier for patients to remember the exercise and the chances are bigger that he or she will actually do the exercise between sessions. On the contrary if we overload the patients and show to many exercises the chances are they will not remember. Good also to be aware that sometimes the exercise will seem too simple to be effective. Here it is good to inform our patients that it is better to practice every single day between sessions, experience has shown that doing one longer practice sessions once in a while will be less effective. It is paramount to inform the patients that repetition is the key!

In my bodywork practice one of the exercises I teach is self-ampuku (abdominal acupressure) treatment. Self-Ampuku can be done while going to sleep or first thing in the morning. Self- Ampuku encompasses a great number of techniques. Here I want to share with you the techniques taken from the Ampuku Zukai, a book that we recently translated from Japanese into English. As you will see, contrary to what is often believed Ampuku is not limited to the abdominal region, it is a whole-body treatment with the focus on the abdominal region.

By Philippe Vandenabeele