20260918-1030 – European Shiatsu Congress

Treating and Supporting Chronic Illnesses with Shiatsu

pcab_adm_tb — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 04:43:48 +0000

More and more people today are affected by one or more chronic illnesses. Supportive therapies can vary and may be required for life. Increasingly, affected individuals seek support through the complementary therapy of Shiatsu.

This seminar shows ways we can support patients through accompanying conversations, sensing the relevant Shiatsu meridians, extraordinary vessels/meridians, specific Tsubos, connective tissue techniques, as well as breathing and body exercises (including during the dying process).
The focus will be especially on the Masunaga diagnostic meridians perceived during assessment, their vibrational levels, and three first-generation extraordinary meridians.
This means we consciously integrate Masunaga meridians with the extraordinary meridians Chong Mai, Ren Mai, and Du Mai into the treatment.
We will also sense the vibrational levels of the Masunaga diagnostic meridians and which energy centers (chakras) resonate with each one. We will activate supportive zones, points, and much more.

Seminar contents:
– what it means to live with chronic illness
– how chronic illness can manifest energetically
– learning and experiencing specific elements in Shiatsu treatment for chronically ill people
– learning and experiencing supportive breathing and body exercises
– accompanying conversations, supporting resilience and resources
– therapist’s possibilities and limits

Detailed handouts will be provided for the entire seminar.
Over the past 17 years, I have gathered and analysed experiential knowledge on supporting patients with chronic illnesses such as cancer, multiple sclerosis, autoimmune diseases, clinical depression, anxiety disorders, chronic pain, eating disorders, Parkinson’s disease, Crohn’s disease, fibromyalgia, rheumatism, arthritis and arthrosis, as well as type II diabetes. This seminar includes information on all of these conditions. My work as a therapist is experience-based and practical.

The treatment of the tree of life

pcab_adm_tb — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 04:42:07 +0000

The practice of shiatsu, thanks to the knowledge of Far Eastern medicine, allows vitality to be sustained through treatments that use the free flow of Ki in a longitudinal direction, high/low or Heaven-Earth in the Taoist vision, together with the body’s ability to connect transversally.
This also results in a reference between the relationship, or axis, between Water and Fire and the transverse relationship between Wood and Metal. With Earth, the Spleen, my body, in a central position.
A treatment will be illustrated and practiced that follows the ascending and descending directions of both the two extraordinary central channels and the main or regular meridians, combined with lateral pressures that cross these energy structures. In fact, a sequence can be performed on the back, which will logically follow more Yang channels, and one on the front, which will use more Yin meridians. This is combined with the treatment of three front lines (the support line, the deep nourishment line, and the opening of the Breaths) and two back lines (the strength line and the breath line).
Just as in a tree, we have the ascent and descent of the sap that sustains it and the opening to life thanks to the branches and leaves that nourish it.

Local Shiatsu

pcab_adm_tb — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 04:40:05 +0000

Local work plays a special role in shiatsu alongside meridian work. It is invaluable when the focus of a treatment is on local complaints, or when local areas of a client’s body become noticeable during treatment and require further investigation. Local shiatsu significantly increases the effectiveness of shiatsu treatments.

In this course, I will demonstrate the basic Local Shiatsu techniques: how to examine a local area of the body, identify its patterns and work with them physically and energetically. By doing so, we can see how the situation begins to change during the treatment. A key tool in this process is our relaxed yet focused attention, which enables us to directly address important areas. This triggers substantial changes and simultaneously gives our clients the feeling of being understood.

The steps of local shiatsu are as follows:

Requesting precise information about the local area.
Holding the area in your hands and focusing on it with inner awareness to recognise energetic patterns.
Choosing a specific area and touching its centre with pure awareness.
Supporting the body’s natural movements.
Supporting pure awareness through external touch.
Examining and treating the integration of the local area into the immediate environment.
Connecting the local area with the whole body.

More detailed information can be found in the article ‘8 Steps for Performing Local Shiatsu’, available to download at https://wilfriedrappenecker.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/W.Rappenecker_Local_Shiatsu.pdf.

Shiatsu clinic

pcab_adm_tb — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 04:36:44 +0000

A Shiatsu clinic involves a demonstration of a shiatsu treatment being performed on someone who is not attending the congress. Each clinic involves two practitioners, who deliver their treatments one after the other.

Before starting the treatment, each practitioner will give a brief description of their approach. During the session, they may comment on their work, provided it does not interfere with the treatment itself.

At the end of the session, the practitioner may explain their approach further if they feel it is necessary. Attendees will then have the opportunity to ask questions, share comments and express any doubts.

“Re-discovered bodies” Shiatsu for nutrition and eating disorders

pcab_adm_tb — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 04:32:55 +0000

Since 1996, Shiatsu has been integrated into the rehabilitation pathway provided by the “Child Neuropsychiatry Unit and Regional Center for Eating Disorders (DNA) in developmental age” at Bellaria IRCCS Hospital in Bologna, currently directed by Professor Antonia Parmeggiani.
The activity has developed and been shaped according to the needs of the young patients. Currently, it is offered as group work for the Day Hospital and the Ward, carried out in a midweek session lasting one hour and thirty minutes for each service.
The exercises proposed during the activity, shiatsu and the drawings produced by participants are all practices aimed at expanding perception and awareness of the body, mind and spirit.
Their purposes are to:
– contain and reduce discomfort caused by eating disorders
– modify, through the reciprocal exchange of Shiatsu, the passive and self-centered attitude of the involved subjects
– develop relational capacities through contact
– induce a deep and beneficial state of relaxation in the individual
– enhance individual physical and psychic resources
– improve psychomotor processes, cognitive and intuitive abilities
– stimulate interoception
– promote a new body image
– activate and develop individual bodily and energetic knowledge-awareness
– encourage respect and care of one’s own body in the suffering subject
– develop greater self-awareness and a better relationship with the external world

The aspiration of this pathway is to integrate and make synergistic medical-psychological therapies and Shiatsu techniques, with the primary goal of supporting the person in their rehabilitation and transformation process; to make them the protagonist of their life project, according to a holistic vision.

Stefania Ferri
Shiatsu Teacher/Practitioner, responsible for activities in the Ward and Day Hospital of the “Child Neuropsychiatry Unit, Regional Center for Eating Disorders in developmental age”
stefania.shiatsu@gmail.com

Sei-Ki

pcab_adm_tb — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 03:41:56 +0000

Sei-Ki is the name that Akinobu Kishi Sensei gives to his own expression of manual therapy. Sei-Ki is a further development of his Shiatsu, and also a return to its origins.

What is Ki? Ki is “resonance” that is the work in Sei-Ki, just being there in empty space, doing nothing. That makes us who we are, that makes us shine, that connects us. Human bodies have a natural capacity to move towards health and balance. When this capacity is weakened, we become a shadow to ourselves.

Sei-Ki respects & works with this innate ability, and we regain our original vitality and health. The focus of Sei-Ki is on allowing and working with the natural inner movement towards health and balance, enhancing the ability of the individual to engage with life and employ their personal talents more fully.

Kishi Sensei encourages practitioners to dispense with once learned techniques of treatment and meet their clients in the moment, with ‘no-mind’ which allows the natural intelligence in the bodies to show. It means the Ki “resonance” which is present in the meeting is guiding the session spontaneously. I will try to share this experience with you.