Deconstruction of the Runaway "MFR" Thread

[Tim]

Barrett, I would be happy to receive the coveted Cuyahoga Falls cap, and I will be happy to wear it. I received a John Barnes Fascia Man cap at MFR III, but have not worn it for several years now. Maybe in 10 years I will advance to another coveted cap.

[Barrett Dorko]

Tim,

In all honesty, I don't think that any gentle method of handling will be found acceptable to the general medical or therapy communities. The meme of force is entirely too powerful and the ignorance regarding self-correction too large. There is also the financial expediency of training to consider as well. I gave up on being accepted "generally" long ago and work now to simply be understood, one individual practitioner at a time.

As you might have guessed, gentle work leading to ideomotion has been mutated to such a degree by Barnes, Upledger, the Reiki practitioners and several others that it's beyond saving to any significant degree. I'm well aware of how defeatest that sounds, but I teach it and explain it anyway. That's the way the meme drives me, and I don't pretend it is anything else.

[Tim]

There is a totally awesome article in the January 2006 issue of the Journal of the American Physical Therapy Association that I believe relates well to this thread. Have any of you read it?:
"Structure and Biomechanics of Peripheral Nerves: Nerve Responses to Physical Stresses and Implications for Physical Therapist Practice".

[Synergy]

Here's the article that Tim was referring to in the previous post. I found it to be quite informative.

[Tim]

I have a great admiration for Jules Rothstein who recently passed away. He was an awesoe editor of the JAPTA and a great and wise scientific mind and researcher. I would like to quote him from Clinical Management, Vol. 9, No.2:

The things that we are told represent the best ideas experts have at any given moment. The ideas are based on the common sense of the times. Today's reality is tomorrow's foolish notion. Therefore, when people with bowel disorders were eschewing roughage, people with ulcers were gulping milk, and rheumatoid arthritics were having their teeth removed.
The treatments I have described were based on common sense and then supported by clinical observations. This is what happens when faith guides clinical practice. Faith is wonderful. I believe in the power of faith, but to offer faith as proof for treatment efficacy is irresponsible. Sadly, I hear many therapists still saying that their treatments are good and effective because they 'work.'. And I wonder how they know. Sadder still is the notion that the purpose of research is to reaffirm what we already know. The purpose of research is to take the bias and selective memory away so that we can really know what works....
[referring to Sportin' Life in 'Porgy and Bess']...I see his spiritual kin in our profession. They, like I, want us to question everyone but them. They are not talking about scientific practice. They just want their belief systems to replace those that exist. They want us to change our faith -- not change the way we examine treatment efficacy.
...Research, when properly conducted, minimizes bias. If history is to teach us anything, it should teach us to be humble about clinical certainty. Observers bring biases and a host of confounding factors to their observations....
Science makes us more effective; the smooth-talking Sportin' Lifes just make us more faithful to the questionable. For them, whether they write, teach in classrooms or clinics, or give continuing education courses, the issue is faith -- not proof.

[nari]

Chris

Thanks for that opportunity to read this article. Finally, after many years, a strong recognition of the role of the PNS in everything we do, and not muscle systems.

Tim
Indeed, very wise words. Should be mandatory reading for all. I like in particular, the fact that a lot of money goes into research to 'reaffirm what we already know'. Where's the ton of research into what we don't know about? Sadly scarce. Thanks for that excerpt.


Nari

[Christopher Squires]

Thanks to Tim for the Rothstein excerpt. I get it now guys. I openly admit that I did not understand the nuance of what you've been trying to communicate. I have been studying philosophy for so long now, I had forgotten what science is. I appreciate this forum in helping me gain clarity. I have ordered Butler's book and will start catching up. I do believe that an awareness of current science in manual therapy will make me a better therapist. I do not share your belief that unscientific systems of thought need to be eradicated or even ridiculed, but I think a distinction needs to be made.

Enjoy being crusty. ;-P

-Chris

[nari]

Chris
A great reply - isn't it weird and wonderful how philosophy (which I enjoy no end) tends to fill gaps in knowledge only to find it has created more? Rather like science, in a way. It's a neverending pursuit.

Definitely a distinction needs to be made between the real (as we understand the meaning of 'real' in nonphilosophical terms) and the images of flights of fancy; the latter has always been with us, and always will be.

Enjoy Butler's book. It is full of goodies to chew on.


Nari

[Tim]

Re: Rothstein quote

In my collection of Dorko artlicles over the years, I found one from 1988 that relates to the comments just quoted by Rothstein:

Suppose you were to come to my home and I answered the door with a girdle wrapped around my head. What would you think?

Barrett, could you briefly provide some illumination that fits this thread?

[Diane]

Chris, thank you so much!! for that article!
This thread seems to be looking up. Thanks Tim and Chris and Phil for that. And all you others too. Tim and Chris, welcome to the 'other side' of the mirror.

[Barrett Dorko]

Tim,

In "The News From Cuyahoga Falls" you'll find "The Stimulation of Eccentricity" from a few weeks ago. It began on January 9th after I had returned from a trip to Idaho without my dress shoes. I think you'll find quite a bit of interest in the 16 replies it generated.

Jules Rothstein took his basic course in joint mobilization from Ola Grimsby and me in New York in 1977. He remained friendly at conferences subsequently until about 1990 when I found he simply would no longer acknowledge my presence. I found out that he had concluded that I was part of the problem in therapy referred to in the quote above and there was nothing I could do to convince him otherwise. Despite that, I always boomed his writing and thinking. In fact, one of the most active and remarkably telling threads archived in The Bullypit here is titled "When Thoughtfulness Dies" after a wonderful editorial he authored several years ago.

I always felt that we wrote similarly though I don't know that he'd agree.

[Dave Vollmers]

Just some observations

Bernard, Diane, Barrett, Jon, ect -

I haven't posted on this thread to much or at all because I have seen a pattern in your arguments that is very circular.

When the MFR great conversation thread was started the primary focus was to ask Barrett (nicely at first - got pretty rude towards the end) to stop his insitant negative comments regarding John F. Barnes and the MFR approach. It took a right turn from there and went into asking the MFR's to discuss and "prove" what John teaches. The pattern I've noticed is that you guys use your research to prove your approach and way of thinking but I have yet to see research that reproduces the theroies in science that was suggested in the definitions of MFR. More to the point:

Where is the research that disproves that fascia has a tensile strength around 2000 pounds per square inch?
Where is the research that disproves the pizeoelectric effect?
Where is the research that disproves the changes in viscosity of the ground substance in the fascial system?

Lets examine other research:
Where is the research that disproves that the greek word for emotion means feelings in motion?
When it comes to past lives - how do you explain how the Tibetans find a new Dali Lama? or Please look into 5th century constintine noble when the Catholic church took out all references to past lives.


Finally - Barrett likes to return to past lives, power animals, and spirit guides as is written in John's book "Healing ancient wounds". However he never quotes from John's first book "Search for excellence". Point of fact - "Healing ancient wounds" is a book filled with paient stories and therapist testimonials that are designed to help patients consider going deeper into their releases and examine the possiblity that emotion and past traumas are an important factor in thier current chronic pain situation. "Search for Excellence" is a book with science and techniques - more appropriate for a discussion of this type. As for power animals and spirit guides -many patients utilize this the same way as others seek to have thier dreams read - to understand what the subconscious is trying to tell them. When dream therapy is debunked and the subconsious has a lesser role than maybe the idea behind power animals and spirit guides will as well. Point of fact - when this comes up for a patient the general response is what is the lesson you need to learn? Not "cool my power animal is a bear" (the 70's are gone)

One other note - people have refered to a review of Oshama's work here and it was even stated that since Oshama didn't refute or respond to this person than he must admit the review had merit. However, it sounds like it was simply a review and not a reporduction of his research that had different results. Personally as someone who used to be in the research field (spinal research team under Dr. Haughton, M.D. of the Medical College of Wisconsin 1994 - 1997) our thought of reviewers was that unitl they could redo our research and come up with different results then they were just blow hards making a name for themselves.

Dave

P.S. Diane mentioned how philosophy fills the gaps in science (something like that). This is obsurd to me because philosophy is a thought process and only comes up with hypothoses - it doesn't do clinical trials or disection, it only thinks about the problems. To me its the difference between an engineer and a technition - and technitions always find a problem with the application of what an engineer thought up.

[nari]

So, Dave, the practice of MFR does indeed involve playing around with emotional releases, past lives and other things that you are calling physical therapy? Or occupational therapy?



I'm confused now.

Nari

[bernard]

Where is the research that disproves the pizeoelectric effect?
Where is the research that disproves the changes in viscosity of the ground substance in the fascial system?

Just try to bring one abstract, using Pubmed, that proves it!

Why aren't we able to find a unique abstract saying your truths?
Why are we unable to get some scientific references from Barnesians?

If you have the proves, why are you so shy to make them visible?

[bernard]

Oshama

ps: You're confused, Dave, Bin Laden is not the man we are speaking about!