The difference between chiropractic and every therapeutic approach to the treatment of disease is that chiropractic does not presume to make recommendations specific to an individual’s health needs except to “prescribe” a program for receiving adjustments. When chiropractors stray from this narrow approach for any reason no matter how it is done, a problem is created. Telling a patient to take vitamin C for his or her cold or do certain exercises to strengthen the back muscles is not such a horrible thing. It is, however, indicative of a philosophical weakness. A chiropractor who makes specific, prescriptive recommendations for an individual in any area of health is saying he knows with his educated, finite mind what is best, what is needed or how to run the human body. What makes chiropractic unique is that the chiropractor understands his place in the restoration of health in a patient. The chiropractor introduces a specific force. The innate intelligence of the body makes the adjustment and thus restores the expression of mental impulses and proper function. The innate intelligence does the healing. It establishes the body’s needs and supplies those needs as long as it is free of interference and within limitations of matter. Whenever the chiropractor presumes to encroach upon the job of the intelligence of the body, he is mixing. It is not so much mixing medicine and chiropractic that is dangerous but mixing the role of the chiropractor and role of the innate intelligence. The former is often done out of ignorance, the latter is done out of arrogance. The latter invariably leads to the former. The moment the chiropractor loses that unique humility that is responsible for the success of chiropractic he is in trouble. It is not the act but the thinking behind the act.
There appears to be new techniques developing in chiropractic that incorporate certain rehabilitative exercises along with the adjustments, presumably to help hold the adjustment or improve spinal structure. If chiropractic is to survive we cannot, no matter how great our scientific, educated knowledge, begin to prescribe for patients. Prescription is subjective, arbitrary and is basic to the practice of medicine. It is antithetical to the practice of chiropractic. What can the chiropractor do and still be consistent with his philosophy? Almost without exception the difference between what a chiropractor should do and should not do with regard to recommendations comes down to this: If the information imparted to the patient is something that could be said to a group of people, it is patient education in the area of health. If it is something specifically for that particular patient, it is prescriptive. For example, in the area of exercise, telling a patient that exercise is important to their overall health is patient education. If you are going to do that, then you must also explain that exercise is the normal natural amount of activity necessary to maintain the body in a state of health. You must teach them that the exercise needs of an individual differ from every other individual. They are based upon the person’s frame, health, activity, work, diet and a dozen other factors. They also differ from day to day for the same individual. You must explain why no one can determine the exact exercise needs for any individual, that only the body can do it, and if a person needs or wants expert advice in order to make an educated decision, he or she should go to an expert in the field of exercise or therapeutic rehabilitation. You must explain that you are no more an authority in that field than you are in the field of medicine. If you are going to educate people regarding exercise, then the above is a minimum. Obviously, explaining the above, which is consistent with the chiropractic philosophy, precludes then prescribing three different spinal exercises in order to enable the individual to strengthen his or her spine and to better hold the adjustment.
Here is the principle that is important. If we explain what exercise is, why it is an individual matter and why a person should not depend on someone else to determine their exercise needs, we create independent individuals who can learn to take control of their lives and meet their physical needs according to the dictates of the innate intelligence of their bodies. If we prescribe, on the other hand, we have created a dependent “innate cripple” who must come back to us every time for instruction, every time they need to make a decision about the running of their body. That’s what the practice of medicine has been doing for the last 2000 years! It may be ego gratifying and financially rewarding but it does the patient no good in the long run and is contrary to the philosophy of chiropractic. Remember the philosophy of chiropractic is not just something we arbitrarily choose to practice by but it is what is in the best interest of the individual patient and humanity in general. v4n4
