Ishta Spinal Touch has its origins with two Chiropractors called John Hurley and Helen Sanders. John Hurley was a structural engineer who had become fascinated with the idea of applying his knowledge of structural stresses to the human body. To further this aim he trained as a Chiropractor. He obtained his degree from the Palmer College of Chiropractic in 1915. While in Chiropractic College he met a fellow student, Helen Sanders, and they married. Together, in the early 1920’s, they developed a technique for postural reintegration using engineering principles, laws of leverage, physiology and Chiropractic. They called it Aquarian Age Healing. Drs. Hurley and Sanders eventually divorced and Dr. Hurley moved to Colorado where he continued to teach the technique until his death in the late 1950’s.
One of the instructors that John Hurley trained was a Chiropractor called Francis Goes. He worked in private practice and kept the technique pure. In 1962 he taught another Chiropractor called LaMar Rosquist, over a period of about fifteen months, who collated all the material. He was later to change the name to Spinal Touch. Dr. Goes encouraged Dr. Rosquist to improve and refine the technique, and in 1975 he published the ‘Encyclopaedia of the Spinal Touch Treatment’ and began teaching it.
Sue Weller and Allyn Edwards, both McTimoney Chiropractors, went over to America to train with Dr. Rosquist in 1998. As they had been the Principal and Senior practical tutors at the McTimoney Chiropractic College for many years, Dr. Rosquist asked them if they would train to be tutors in Spinal Touch, and teach it to health care professionals and to lay people in the United Kingdom. They now run seminars in Ishta Spinal Touch.
ISHTA stands for Integrating Spinal Health with Therapeutic Approaches. They believe that Spinal Touch has the ability to enhance many other therapeutic modalities, either in combination or in alternation with them. They also have a thriving private practice where Spinal Touch is used extensively.
