EUNICE INGHAM - Mother of Reflexology

Eunice Ingham, who initially worked with Dr. Fitzgerald as a physical therapist, gave Dr. Joe S. Riley, one of a number of doctors and dentists who practiced Zone Therapy and helped develop it, credit for teaching her. Eunice Ingham is generally recognized for her untiring devotion to and promotion of Zone Therapy. She toured North American cities annually giving Zone Therapy seminars, published charts and her two books: "Stories The Feet Can Tell" (1938) and "Stories The Feet Have Told" (1951), and established the "National Institute of Reflexology". Most authors of books and teachers of foot reflexology have acquired their basic knowledge directly or indirectly from Eunice Ingham's teaching. Eunice Ingham's nephew, Dwight Byers, and his family have continued where Eunice Ingham left off with her death in 1974.

Early in the 1960s, Ed Johnstone, Ena Campbell, and Laura Kennedy (plus a few others) attended Eunice Ingham's seminar in Seattle, WA., and brought the practice of foot reflexology to Vancouver and British Columbia.

In 1961 the profession of physiotherapists objected to the word "Therapy" in the name "Zone Therapy". Hence, the name 'reflexology' was adopted. Other names adopted by other people for the practices of foot reflexology are: Pressure Point Massage, Compression Massage, Pointed Pressure Massage, and Vita-Flex.

In Europe and some other parts of the world the names Zone Therapy, Reflex Zone Therapy, Reflexotherapy, and other variations of these are used. Practitioners of Metamorphosis acknowledge that it has its original roots in the practice of reflexology. It, however, has a very different orientation to working with the feet.