An Interview with Dr. Richard Krassnigg
President of the International Society for
Electro-Acupuncture According to Dr. Voll, Germany
? Dear Dr. Krassnigg, we would like to quite heartily congratulate you on the 50 year anniversary of your society. It is our pleasure in this context to be allowed to ask you some questions. First a completely personal question: How did you come to EAV?
I believe, I came to EAV the same as most doctors – due to a personal experience within the family realm. Many years ago my daughter was seriously ill. My wife and I consulted two university clinics, but nobody knew a recommendation.
When my wife began to look for alternatives she discovered EAV. And, see there, after the first treatment my daughter’s condition improved considerably. Over the years, in the course of several treatments, her illness healed completely. That was the key experience through which I became aware of EAV.
This method, which appears so relatively simple and achieves such outstanding results, appealed to me. Consequently, I began to go through a thorough education: first I learned homeopathy – up to the additional designation – then acupuncture and ear acupuncture, and then I felt strong enough to dedicate myself to EAV.
? . . . and in this way you also got to know the EAV Association?
Exactly! During my education, I experienced the life of this society and enjoyed the informal atmosphere and the cordial contact with each other – this has touched me very much.
? In the meantime you are the president of this society. How do you see your work in the past years and which goals do you put for yourselves in the coming years?
Now I have been president of this society for 6 years and I must determine: Over the years the pressure of orthodox medicine on EAV has constantly increased. The attacks increase not only in quantity, but also in intensity. I attribute this to the fact that orthodox medicine is in need of justification. Because many orthodox medical doctors do not understand why – in accordance with the last Allensbacher inquiry – 80% of the population welcome an alternative medicine and apparently at least in part are lost to them.
Acute health disturbances are the bulk of the illnesses. Actually, it is exactly this body of patients which are not the specific patients of EAV. In my practice the majority of the patients that I see are treated outside, who have all possible treatments behind them and turn to EAV at the last. That is the case in many EAV practices.
? That also seems to me to be an important point; they say that 80% of the population welcomes the alternative procedures. However if one asks in greater detail which procedures under that the people understand, as a general rule they say – homeopathy or phytotherapy – few know EAV. Maybe that is also a problem for EAV that it is little know by the population?
Of course the name recognition of homeopathy and acupuncture is much higher, this is clear. But you cannot believe how well patients are able to inform themselves. Especially if they have experienced relief for only a short time (e.g. because of existing therapy obstacles) then they begin to look further – not only with friends and acquaintances, but also for example on the Internet.
Another point is: The measurability of the effectiveness of the medications at the appropriate acupuncture points – on the one hand patients find this unusual, but on the other hand also very exciting and they become curious.
? Can you or would you like to say at this point another word to the critics as well as the criticisms of EAV?
Since there has been EAV there has been criticism about its results expressed. It is ultimately applicable for most of these critics that they don’t consider the human being a very complex, highly complicated nature, with soul and body whose functional mechanisms are still largely unsolved. Orthodox medicine withdraws itself to “evidence based medicine”; in other words, it does not understand the person as an individual, but merely as a statistical mass and thinks it will be able to get success with that. We however attach great importance to the individuality. Only EAV is a highly individual method. The 50 years which EAV exists in the meantime gives us justice.
? Which goals have you put for yourselves during the next years of your term of office?
We have the impression within our society that we are in the spirit of the times with our method – no, that we are ahead of our time, that we are the spearhead of medicine. We hope that the knowledge of the sciences, which increased substantially in the last years, will also further help us with clarifying our cause models. That would clearly diminish the confrontation with orthodox medicine and that would naturally give impetus to EAV. I hope that the pressure on EAV eases with this increase in knowledge in the area of basic research and thus that EAV will find application in the wider standard and can play out its beneficial possibilities.
Dear Dr. Krassnigg, we thank you for this conversation.
A Translated Interview for Members
From THE BRIDGE Newsletter of OIRF
Published February 15, 2007
From an article in Ärztezeitschrift für Naturheilverfahren
und Regulationsmedizin, Volume #47, June 2006
Machine Translation by SYSTRAN, Lernout & Hauspie, LogoMedia & Promt
Translation & redaction by: Carolyn L. Winsor, OIRF
© Copyright 2006, Dr. med. Richard Kraßnigg, Neunkirchen-Seelscheid, Germany
