Spinal Touch had its origins in the work of an American structural engineer called John Hurley back in the 1920’s. Hurley knew that balance and stress-control were central to the design of buildings which would best withstand the forces of nature. When he turned his attention to the study of the human body there was no doubt in his mind that the same principles of balance and stress would apply to such living structures. He became convinced that there was a direct correlation between bad posture and a high incidence of disease and ill-health. Eventually he studied chiropractic and married fellow practitioner, Helen Sanders. Together they developed a technique combining engineering principles, laws of leverage, physiology and a knowledge of acupuncture meridians.

Over the following decades, Hurley and Sanders went on to use their approach on patients with impressive results. They found that their technique had the ability to help people with intractable physical conditions that had failed to respond to any other forms of treatment.

This unique approach would probably have been lost but for its re-discovery in 1962 by another chiropractor, the late Dr LaMar Rosquist. Susanna Terry trained with Dr Rosquist as a Spinal Touch/Bio Mechanics instructor.

Dr Rosquist’s discovery of Spinal Touch(at the time known as Aquarian Age Healing)

The nephew of Dr Rosquist’s neighbour was extremely unwell. The UCLA Medical Centre had discharged the child without either diagnosis or treatment. His parents were told not to expect that he would live for more than a matter of weeks. However the neighbour brought her nephew back to her home to get some treatment by her chiropractor.

When Dr Rosquist examined the boy he was shocked at his jaundiced and emaciated state. The child could not eat solid food, sleep properly, talk or walk. Dr Rosquist himself accepted that there was nothing he could do to help the boy.

In spite of everyone’s prognoses, the aunt took her nephew to her chiropractor named Dr Göes.The treatment he received from Dr Göes was successful: within a few months the boy felt much better and at the end of a year he was completely well.

Dr Göes had learned the technique which he used from Dr Hurley Rorsquist was very impressed by the successful treatment of the boy and decided to go and meet Dr Goes. He immediately asked him if he would train him in the approach that he had used to cure his neighbour’s nephew. Dr Göes agreed and promptly invited him to receive treatment himself.

A Chiropractor’s Experience of The Treatment

Göes proceeded to apply a light but constant finger contact at a specific point which he had determined at the postural assessment using a plumb-line. Rosquist felt a very well-defined sensation which he has described “as if a hot laser beam was coming from an electrical instrument”. He felt this sensation travel from the contact point throughout his body. Initially he actually thought that Göes was using some sort of electrical instrument to achieve this effect and started looking round to see where the cable plugged in. He soon realised that nothing of the sort was involved and that the sensation which he felt was actually coming simply from the contact point.

In due course Göes continued by using his other hand to apply a series of contacts around the back, sciatic nerve area, shoulders, neck, head and abdomen which produced further remarkable sensations. In all the treatments he had ever received, Rosquist had never experienced anything like this. However, he found himself inwardly doubting that his clientele would accept such a strange form of treatment and he duly resolved that he would cancel the follow-up appointment with Dr Göes.

However, when he got to his car after this treatment he felt a strange sensation as if his pelvis and lower extremities were hollow and that someone had just opened a valve at the level of his navel and poured warm wax into them. This so impressed him as evidence of a therapeutic response that he did in fact return again to study and train in the technique with Dr Göes. He went to Dr Göes for an average of twice a week for 15 months receiving over 120 treatments in order to learn the technique. After each treatment he would take notes. In 1975 he took these notes and wrote his book “The Encyclopedia of Spinal Touch”. Dr Rosquist continued teaching the technique until he passed away in 2012.