Barrett Dorko
30-12-2005, 02:50 PM
It’s been a quiet week in Cuyahoga Falls…
I tell my students that a corrective movement is always effortless. This doesn’t mean that it isn’t powerful or even painless. It means that doing it doesn’t require that we overcome our instinct to do so. If they don’t quite understand that I say, “Didn’t you ever have that job? You know-the one where you drive up to the building and it takes all you have just to open the car door and walk inside? Doing such a thing can’t be healthy, and it certainly wouldn’t relieve pain.
I’ve been driving up to the same building to work for 27 years now, and walking in has never taken effort. That doesn’t mean that what I do there isn’t powerful in some way, and I certainly wouldn’t describe my clinical career as painless. Practicing as I do has never, never captured the imagination of the local medical or therapy communities. Long ago I stopped talking to them and they certainly don’t talk to me. I presume that there is a great deal of disapproval among some of them but, on balance, I know most of this silence is born of apathy and a vague discomfort as I interrogate reality. In every class I teach I watch as many of the therapists present nod their heads when I describe the job that requires an effortful wrenching from the car and it sure seems that I’ve just described their current reality. Many tell me privately how they’re trapped in jobs that don’t allow them to actually practice in any sensible or satisfying way. While I’m always concerned about the size of my practice they worry about how their methods seem to be driven by the ease of billing. “I’ve become a personal trainer that insurance will pay for,” they say.
I say, “Let’s take the money out of the equation for now. Imagine being given a few minutes with a single patient to employ what you know about the body and painful dysfunction. What would you actually do?”
In response I often get a litany of procedures that make it sound like the patient is some sort of inanimate object that can be molded into a desirable shape like so much clay. I respond, “Given what you’ve learned about the way we actually exist in this class does that make much sense?”
At this point there is a moment of silence, and I know that it is full of potential and, possibly, some pain. They answer: “No, but I help some people.” “We all do,” I say. But the issue here is effort, both yours and the patient’s. If there’s a lot of effort involved than instinct must be lacking, and I’m sure you’d agree now that instinctive behavior is the best way to approach the painful problems we most commonly see. Maybe your own pain is a result of this as well.”
In a few moments I’m going to fold closed the computer, put on my coat and head to the office. I’ll park, open the car door and begin my day with patients. In all of this there is no effort because there’s nothing to it.
What I mean by that is the subject of my next column-stay tuned.
I tell my students that a corrective movement is always effortless. This doesn’t mean that it isn’t powerful or even painless. It means that doing it doesn’t require that we overcome our instinct to do so. If they don’t quite understand that I say, “Didn’t you ever have that job? You know-the one where you drive up to the building and it takes all you have just to open the car door and walk inside? Doing such a thing can’t be healthy, and it certainly wouldn’t relieve pain.
I’ve been driving up to the same building to work for 27 years now, and walking in has never taken effort. That doesn’t mean that what I do there isn’t powerful in some way, and I certainly wouldn’t describe my clinical career as painless. Practicing as I do has never, never captured the imagination of the local medical or therapy communities. Long ago I stopped talking to them and they certainly don’t talk to me. I presume that there is a great deal of disapproval among some of them but, on balance, I know most of this silence is born of apathy and a vague discomfort as I interrogate reality. In every class I teach I watch as many of the therapists present nod their heads when I describe the job that requires an effortful wrenching from the car and it sure seems that I’ve just described their current reality. Many tell me privately how they’re trapped in jobs that don’t allow them to actually practice in any sensible or satisfying way. While I’m always concerned about the size of my practice they worry about how their methods seem to be driven by the ease of billing. “I’ve become a personal trainer that insurance will pay for,” they say.
I say, “Let’s take the money out of the equation for now. Imagine being given a few minutes with a single patient to employ what you know about the body and painful dysfunction. What would you actually do?”
In response I often get a litany of procedures that make it sound like the patient is some sort of inanimate object that can be molded into a desirable shape like so much clay. I respond, “Given what you’ve learned about the way we actually exist in this class does that make much sense?”
At this point there is a moment of silence, and I know that it is full of potential and, possibly, some pain. They answer: “No, but I help some people.” “We all do,” I say. But the issue here is effort, both yours and the patient’s. If there’s a lot of effort involved than instinct must be lacking, and I’m sure you’d agree now that instinctive behavior is the best way to approach the painful problems we most commonly see. Maybe your own pain is a result of this as well.”
In a few moments I’m going to fold closed the computer, put on my coat and head to the office. I’ll park, open the car door and begin my day with patients. In all of this there is no effort because there’s nothing to it.
What I mean by that is the subject of my next column-stay tuned.