Qi-Unity Report Interviews Rick Kitaeff

Kitaeff’s early efforts to study in Japan demonstrate how difficult it was to pursue education as a foreigner at that time. His contemporary work continues to advance the medicine into impressive achievements, particularly with stroke victims.

QUR: Please introduce yourself briefly as to what you do and where you currently work.

RK: I am a naturopathic physician and acupuncturist with 35 years of experience in the natural medicine field. I have owned and directed New Health Medical Center in Edmonds, Washington for the past 27 years. It is a multi-disciplinary natural medicine center with about 10 different practitioners working in the areas of acupuncture and Chinese medicine, naturopathic medicine, allopathic physical medicine, physical therapy, massage and hydrotherapy, colonic irrigation therapy, and counseling therapy. I was also appointed to the staff of Northwest Hospital about 10 years ago as the only acupuncturist or naturopathic physician on a hospital staff in this region. I am an affiliate clinical faculty member of Bastyr University, providing preceptorship training to acupuncture and naturopathic students.

QUR: You were one of the first foreign students who studied acupuncture in Japan. Could you elaborate on how you found your way to Meiji University and your experiences helping Dr. Motoyama conduct research?

RK: When I arrived in Japan in 1971, I had never heard of acupuncture or Oriental medicine, but had a pre-medical undergraduate training from McGill University and had rejected the opportunity that was offered to me to enter the medical school there. I became interested in acupuncture through assisting in some research conducted by Dr. Hiroshi Motoyama at the Institute for Religious Psychology in Tokyo. Dr. Motoyama was a Shinto priest and physiological psychologist, who was using laboratory tools to measure the psychological and physiological parameters of paranormal experiences in Indian yogis, Zen priests, Philippine psychic healers, Catholic healers and other spiritual masters. He considered the system of acupuncture points and meridians, like the Ayurvedic marma and nadis, to form a subtle anatomy that could mediate between mind and body. Interested in learning more about this system of medicine previously unknown to me, I sought admission to colleges of Oriental medicine in the Osaka area. The first three I applied to were not interested in having the bother of a foreign student, but fortunately Meiji College of Oriental Medicine did welcome me, and in fact after my graduation 3 years later, sought my help in setting up an international program of study for students from the U.S. and Europe. Following my graduation from Meiji, I took the National Licensing Examinations and became licensed as an acupuncturist in Japan years before such a license was available in North America. I apprenticed at the Osaka Medical College Hospital Pain Clinic, directed by Masayoshi Hyodo, M.D., and the Kyoto Pain Control Institute, directed by Kunzo Nagayama, M.D. Both emphasized acupuncture for pain, reflecting the international interest in this aspect of acupuncture after Nixon's visit to China in 1972, although Dr. Nagayama practiced a traditional style, in combination with Chinese herbal formulas.

QUR: What similarities did Dr. Motoyama discover among the yogis, zen priests and other healer subjects?

RK: Over several decades of research, Dr. Motoyama had developed a psychological and physiological profile of the yogis and other advanced spiritual practitioners. He found that their practice initially aroused lower chakras or nervous plexi, with the emergence of concomitant psychophysiological disturbances or paranormal abilities, and that with further spiritual practice, these lower centers were controlled and progressively higher centers awakened and controlled. In this process, acupuncture meridian activity could be measured through the AMI device, a sophisticated electrodermal screening instrument that took multiple measurements of electrical resistance and potential at the meridian terminal points. This device has been used in research at major world universities and by prefectural governments in Japan as a preliminary medical screening instrument. Dr. Motoyama's work has been presented in hundreds of books and articles in various languages and he has also founded a graduate school in California, the California Institute for Human Science.

QUR: Could you please describe some of the history and challenges you faced as a young practitioner in Seattle in the 1970s as a “distinguished felon?”

RK: When I came to Seattle in 1978, there was tremendous public interest in acupuncture because of the media exposure, while medical doctors were referring to it as "quackupuncture." While pursuing a post-graduate program in clinical psychophysiology at University of Washington, I carried on an extremely busy practice of acupuncture at the Acadia Health Center in Seattle, where I nevertheless attempted to keep a low profile. There were no other visible practitioners in the area at that time and there was no legal status at all for acupuncture. When the state Medical Board decided to get control over the practice, there were required public hearings on a law that would make it necessary for practitioners to be supervised by a medical or osteopathic physician. I had founded the Acupuncture Association of Washington as a political action group to stop this bill from becoming law. Its members were primarily students in the acupuncture class I held in my living room, that eventually became the core of the first class of the Northwest Insitute of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine, which I co-founded in 1981. Some of these students, such as Jim Blair, Cindy Micleu, and Alex Holland, eventually became nationally known leaders in the acupuncture field. There were also patients or public supporters in the association, but strangely, no professional acupuncturist other than myself. Our lobbying efforts unfortunately did not block the Acupuncturist Physician Assistant Law of 1979, and I was forced to find an allopathic physician to work with, in spite of the lack of interest or knowledge on the part of conventional doctors. During a transitional period of underground practice, I was beginning my career like some other distinguished Asian practitioners in America, in the capacity of a felon. Eventually, however, I was fortunate to meet Robert A. Anderson, M.D., one of the founders of the American Holistic Medical Association (together with Norman Shealy, M.D.). I practiced in close association with Dr. Anderson for almost 10 years, even after there was an independent licensing law in Washington state. I also became a member of the first graduating class of naturopathic physicians from Bastyr University in 1982. When Dr. Anderson was ready to retire, I was able to buy the building from him in which I had my practice and expanded it to form the comprehensive natural medicine center that now exists. The clinic integrates European medical spa, Ayurvedic and Chinese medical methods, focused on programs of pain and stress management, medical detoxification or internal cleansing, allergy and immune disorders, weight and metabolic disorders.

QUR: In addition to these other conditions, you have been working with stroke patients of late. Can you describe some of the successes you have observed in that work?

RK: Recently, through my association with Northwest Hospital and also various rehabilitation hospitals and adult homes, I have been doing an increasing amount of treatment outside my clinic for stroke patients and even one patient in a vegetative state. Often, the stroke patients will exhibit immediate improvement in mobility of their limbs after a treatment combining acupuncture in body, ear and scalp areas, with micro-current electrical stimulation, Acutonics sound therapy and aromatherapy, considering that in the hospital settings herbal or nutritional therapy is usually not possible.

QUR: Before we close the interview, could you touch on the early EEG work you did at UW?

RK: At the University of Washington from 1978 to 1980, I was involved in performing and publishing the first research study to demonstrate the effectiveness of acupuncture through an objective measure, namely EEG brain wave measurement. A particular evoked potential EEG wave-form has been found to correlate with the subjective experience of pain. In the study, conducted in the Department of Anesthesiology, we delivered experimental pain through electrical stimulation of a tooth and then performed electrical acupuncture at the Hoku point bilaterally, measuring the change in the amplitude of the evoked potential wave. There was also an attempt to determine endorphin involvement in acupuncture by injecting naloxone, an opiate antagonist, finding a reduction in the amplitude of the wave-form after the original reduction by acupuncture and then seeing whether acupuncture would restore the original amplitude, indicating endorphin involvement. The first part of the study, demonstrating the analgesic effect through this objective measure, was statistically significant.

More specifically, the large amplitude evoked potential EEG wave corresponds to the analgesic effect and this was the wave form produced when acupuncture was performed, thus showing the analgesic effect of acupuncture to a statistical certainty. When naloxone, the opiate antagonist was injected, the wave form diminished in size, showing the loss of the acupuncture analgesic effect and possible involvement of endorphin release as a mechanism for acupuncture. When acupuncture was again performed, the wave form expanded to show restoration of the analgesic effect. The study was published in the Pain journal, I believe the Jan. 1980 issue.

QUR: What advice do you have for young practitioners getting started in today’s AOM environment?

RK: For practitioners getting started, I recommend learning acupuncture techniques that accomplish immediate results in pain or other symptom control. I have often given lecture-demonstrations at health fairs, health clubs, senior centers and physician gatherings. I always ask for a volunteer with a pain problem, and within a few minutes I am reliably able to relieve even chronic severe neck strains, headaches or tendonitis with the patient sitting before me fully clothed. I simply needle the appropriate micro-system points of ear, scalp and Korean Hand Acupuncture system, as well as the wrist and ankle system points, and points of the Master Tung and Richard Tan systems. The immediate success of such treatment is dramatic and usually results in several new appointments. Once these patients are introduced to the resources of my clinic, I can often move on to treat chronic internal disorders as well, with herbal and nutritional therapy along with ongoing acupuncture and other physical methods, including internal cleansing.