Activity Time Or Clock Time?

Activity Time Or Clock Time? by Jane Thurnell-Read

As therapists we often want clients to do something at home: take a supplement or a flower remedy, do a visualisation, etc. It's easy to assume when we give them their instructions that this will be for a definite time period, (e.g. for 6 weeks), but this is not always the case.

I used to make this assumption, until one day I was working with a client and had a lot of difficulty establishing (using muscle testing and verbal questioning) how long she needed to do something. After much head scratching I realised that there was the possibility of activity time. By this I mean that the desired activity is done as long as another activity happens.

Here's some examples:

• Take the supplement, as long as you are taking the drug from the doctor.

• Do the visualisation, as long as you live in that house.

• Do the affirmation as long as you have eczema.

A variation on this is that sometimes people need to do something intermittently, whenever something else happens, or doesn't happen.

Examples of this include:

• Avoid eating wheat, when you eat oranges.

• Sleep for an extra 1/2 hour on days when you see more than six clients. If you see more than eight clients, you also need to take some specific flower remedies.

• Increase your zinc supplement to 15mg in the week before your period.

• Avoid all dairy on days when you do not rest for at least fifteen minutes in the afternoon.

• Do the affirmation before visiting your mother, and 3 times a day at other times. (Here you've got a clock time and an activity time in the same instruction.)

There's more information on this in my book on verbal questioning skills for kinesioogists.