Su Jok therapy

Su Jok was developed by the Korean physician Park Jae Woo in the 1980s. Su means hand and Jok means foot. Its organising idea is correspondence: the hand and foot are held to mirror the whole body, so the whole person can be treated through them.

The correspondence systems

In the standard system the thumb corresponds to the head, the palm to the torso, and the fingers to the limbs. A smaller "insect" correspondence maps the same pattern onto each individual finger. Points are located by probing for tenderness — the correspondence point for a troubled area is usually the one that hurts when pressed.

The stimulation methods

• Seed therapy. Seeds — buckwheat, mung, pepper, radish — taped over correspondence points and left for hours. The seed is chosen for a resemblance to the organ being treated. This is completely harmless and pleasantly low-technology.
• Colour therapy. Marking points with coloured pens, each colour assigned a quality. Red to stimulate, black to sedate, green to balance.
• Magnet therapy. Small magnets over points, with polarity chosen by intended effect. Not for anyone with a pacemaker or implanted electronic device.
• Massage and probes. The simplest approach — find the tender point, work it, repeat.

Triorigin and Tao

Park Jae Woo's later theoretical work extended beyond the yin-yang pair of classical Chinese thought to a fourfold scheme: Neuto, Hetero, Homo and Neutro — origin, opposition, similarity and resolution. It is an elegant philosophical system and the deeper Su Jok practice is built on it.

Auriculotherapy

The same correspondence idea applied to the ear, mapped in detail by the French physician Paul Nogier in the 1950s. The ear is read as an inverted foetus: the lobe corresponds to the head, the upper rim to the spine and limbs. Ear seeds and small studs are widely used, including in some conventional addiction and pain clinics.