Many people believe that the terms “judging” and “discerning” mean the same thing, although discernment in most peoples’ minds is the gentler, kinder way of saying the same thing. Judging is clearly making a determination as to whether an idea or action is right or wrong. It also connotes a degree of condemnation. Discernment appears to have less of an attitude of condemnation. As chiropractors, we are confronted with issues and ideas that require us to decide whether they are right for us personally, right for our profession and right for the public. It is ironic that present day straight chiropractors have borne the charge of being judgmental and as such condemning of practices other than non-therapeutic straight chiropractic. There are a number of reasons for this. First, non-therapeutic (objective straight chiropractic) is a relatively new approach to practice only having begun in the mid-70’s. Most objective straight chiropractors (OSCs) were formerly traditional straight chiropractors (TSCs) and they had a long history (dating back to D.D. and B.J.) of animosity with the medical profession. Old habits/animosities sometimes die slowly. Second, most traditional chiropractors are still involved in the medical-bashing and criticizing of medical practice that were a part of the entire chiropractic profession. They continue to condemn drugs and surgery, vaccinations and many other medical procedures. Non-therapeutic, straight chiropractors have erroneously been identified with that group. Here is the key difference. Non-therapeutic straight chiropractors have a totally different objective than do traditional chiropractors. Traditional chiropractors were competing with the practice of medicine and medical doctors and so they believed it served their purpose to judge and condemn the medical profession. Obviously, part of this was just retaliation for medicine’s attacks upon chiropractic. The competition for who could treat/cure disease or its cause ended in the mid-seventies as many TSCs evolved into OSCs, the reason for this antagonism and condemnation also ended. OSCs do not condemn medical procedures or any outside-in approach. We realize that now or sometime in the future we will probably all be in a position to need outside-in therapy. But we realize that is not our objective. Secondly, some chiropractors are still fighting the un-civil war. Even sadder, most of these chiropractors are still competing with therapists to see who can be the best healer. Others see themselves as guardians of the public health and feel they must condemn everything from vaccines and fluoridation to C-sections.
As non-therapeutic, non-competitive, straight chiropractic becomes more and more popular, especially among young people who see the wisdom in practicing this way and the fallacy of trying to present chiropractic as an alternative to medicine, more chiropractors are embracing that model. For many of them it is difficult to give up the anti-medical mode. But if chiropractic is going to survive, we must stop the judgmental attitude and recognize that our different objective means stopping the competitive attitude and medical-bashing that goes along with it. That said, there is still the issue of discernment.
Discernment means being able to identify and explain the difference between the therapeutic/medical objective practices and the non-therapeutic chiropractic objective. It is not difficult to discern between therapeutic objectives and medical objectives without being judgmental. The problem seems to arise with those chiropractors who have a therapeutic objective but desire to present their philosophy and practice as being part of non-therapeutic. For those who still want to hold onto their therapeutic approaches and call it chiropractic, a rift occurs. It is much the same as the 70”s when straight chiropractic became the popular phrase and chiropractors wanted to avoid being labeled as “mixers.” So they said they merely added other procedures to their straight chiropractic practice and that anybody who pointed that out was being judgmental.
The bottom line is that we need to recognize that which is chiropractic, is consistent with the philosophy and meets the objective. We must be able to discern between non-therapeutic, straight chiropractic and everything else without condemning other practices. Further, and here is the challenge, those who choose to incorporate other practices or add other ideas must be willing to accept that they are practicing another form of chiropractic (which is really medicine) and admit that it is something other than non-therapeutic, straight chiropractic.
Awesome article! Thanks for the reminder.
Well put! Most new members at my practice can easily discern the difference between what I am providing to the community and what the medical community provides. I enjoy using this as one of the main points in my orientation! More discernment and less judging from our profession can go a long way in the community understanding what our objective is.
I agree with your article with one objection. I think that it is our duty to alert our practice members to the dangers of “vaccines, flouridation, and C-Sections” because all of those things are a form of stress and stress causes subluxation which interferes with the person’s ability to express optimal health. Especially in today’s circumstances, we cannot turn a blind eye to all the environmental toxicities that our practice members are exposed to everyday and are causing subluxation. I think that BJ and DD would both agree that patients should avoid “vaccines, fluoridated water, and C-sections” and would verbalize their thoughts to their practice members.
What is the ONLY cause of vertebral subluxation? It’s NOT stress.
The CAUSE of vertebral subluxation is: “An external invasive force overcoming an internal resistive force”. Stress, drugs, pollution, vaccines, falls on banana peels, hard hugs, fluoride in water, tight shorts, sunburns, divorce, death of a loved one, arm wrestling, race car driving, working out, biking, skiing, being CEO of a company, being a cop, brushing your teeth… etc, are all external invasive forces.
The chiropractic objective is to locate, analyze and correct vertebral subluxations for a full expression of the innate intelligence of the body. This full expression of the innate intelligence of the body increases the internal resistive force of the body in order to deal efficiently with the external invasive forces. PERIOD.
As objective straight chiropractors, does our mandate consist in decreasing external invasive force or increasing the internal resistive force? The answer is obvious is it not? So, why say that the cause of vertebral subluxation is stress? Because as I described above, it’s NOT! Stress is an external invasive force overcoming the internal resistive force. And since our professional objective is to correct vertebral subluxation and not remove the external invasive force, we ultimately participate in the body’s increasing of its internal resistive force.
Then some chiropractors say that we should prevent vertebral subluxations from occurring at the first place. And they attempt to do so by prescribing stretching exercises to limber the body, vitamins to supplement its nutrition, massage to relax it, orthotics to improve its gait and balance, workouts to strengthen the body, physical therapy to increase its joints mobility, provide advices on avoiding medical or environmental procedures….. and, this is adding to the practice of chiropractic the objective of medicine which if to deal with effect rather than correcting cause.
See how easy to lose focus and sight of the chiropractic objective?
If you truly want to prevent the vertebral subluxations of the future, correct the vertebral subluxations of today and the internal resistive force of the body will increase and will efficiently resist the onslaught of external invasive forces it is subjected to daily.
That should keep an objective straight chiropractor busy ALL day!
I understand your point, but allow me to play Devil’s Advocate…Can a completely subluxation free body (perfect internal resistive forces) live on a diet of McDonald’s only?
Is diet the objective of chiropractic?
Refefence to diet: Stephenson’s textbook Art. 174. Diet. p127.
Art 175. Page 128-129 “Common Sense, The Chiropractic Idea of Dieting”
“Therefore, nutritional hygiene is not dieting but common sense…The restoration to normal, of conditions made abnormal by UNWISE EDUCATED LIVING; restoration brought about by a wise, sane, and normal educated mind, coordinating with innate mind as it should, is nutritional hygiene. With this aspect of dieting, Chiropractic agrees…A SICK PERSON’S ABNORMAL EDUCATED MIND WILL NOT ALLOW HIM TO USE COMMON SENSE, THEREFORE SOMEBODY ELSE’S COMMON SENSE MUST BE USED.”
If a patient walks into our office practicing “unwise educational living” (in this example and strict McDonald’s diet, i.e. lifestyle/habit), then no amount of adjusting the spine is going to make them well.
pg. 128 “If the body is given the elements that Innate requires, and in the quantities that she requires, and makes known that need by normal hunger or thirst, she can manufacture any combination needed.”
Clearly this patient is not providing Innate with the elements she requires in the quantity she requires. Therefore she cannot produce health the way she desires. No amount of adjusting will change that. The only thing that will change this situation is “a wise, sane, and normal educated” (the Chiropractor) stepping in and educating the “unwise educated” (the practice member) as to how to change their nutritional lifestyle habits in order to provide Innate with the elements and quantities she needs to restore the person to health.
Also, once again we should be reminded that there is not such thing as “straight” chiropractic. The WHAT of our profession is chiropractic (it is WHAT it is and it stands on its own without variables). The variables are the WHO of our profession which are the chiropractors who choose HOW to practice with free will and knowledge and understanding.
If the chiropractor chooses to practice the objective of chiropractic, then he/she is straight…. if not, then he/she is mixer. It is as simple as that!
There are already professions doing that and it is their objective. They’re called nutritionists and dietitians. These professionals are the “somebody else’s common sense” that the practice members need… don’t you agree John?
I would agree if they taught true and useful nutritional knowledge, but they don’t they teach the food pyramid, which has been a huge player in the poor state of health of our nation. So, since the nutritionists and dieticians themselves have “unwise educateds” we are the only ones left to help humanity.
John, you mean that nobody in the nutritional field has an ADIO viewpoint on nutrition? I think it should be taught to practice members. The first point in the ADIO view is that no one knows what anyone’s nutritional needs are except the innate intelligence of that person’s body. That precludes you, me, a nutritionist, or anyone else telling someone what they should eat, how much, how often, how it should be prepared, what food groups, etc. When we start giving advice, to a practice member, in any area other than how often to have their spine checked, we are depriving them of the ability to listen to their body’s innate intelligence and use their own educated intelligence to try to meet their ii’s needs, desires. “Tell a person how to live (eat, sleep, exercise, etc), you’re fortunate if they remember for a day, teach them an ADIO lifestyle and they can take care of themselves for a lifetime.”- Joe Strauss (I just made that up).
Joseph,
It seems to me that it is a minority that gets the ADIO viewpoint. We just keep “glorifying” chiropractic and arguing over the right way to practice it. The amazing thing is that the 33 principles of chiropractic never once mentioned “glorification!” Only, “apply us” from Above-Down-Inside-Out.
The ADIO view point is a lifestyle, a way of being in the world that is simple, not violently forced, shared and loving. However, we made it into a clever “healing art” in order to avoid the lifestyle itself. One could be advising practice members on how to eat, sleep, walk, breathe, exercise and even heal, and still believe that they are practicing the “objective of chiropractic”. The world has no time to waste on OIBU anymore. The state of dis-ease in people is too great!
Don’t you agree?
Claude,
These people clearly cannot “hear” from their Innate. That is what got them in trouble in the first place, remember? They are “unwise educateds” walking around like zombies believing all the crap that Big Pharma, the FDA, the USDA, etc. feed them each day. I have a patient with perfect cholesterol but his blood labs that is MD took showed one inflammatory marker to be a little hight. The MD put him on a Statin. The Unwise Educated did not question, but blindly accepted the MDs prescription as golden. The MD also told him to stop taking Omega-3 fish oil (in all his grand nutritional knowledge). This patient now shows signs of forgetfulness, lack of energy, and muscle atrophy (all side effects of Statin use). But continues to take the Statin. This person gets adjusted. He does not hear his Innate. And matter has limitations (Principle 24). So if we are really focused on Saving Lives, wouldn’t it be hypocritical not to teach this patient about proper nutrition and supplementation to provide Innate with the “necessary elements and quantities” needed to express optimal health?
So by you telling them what they can and cannot eat, or think or take or do, how will that help them “”hear” from their Innate” (if that’s what got them in trouble in the first place? Btw, why do you capitalize “I”nnate)? The fact is John when you do these things you’re not helping them at all. Oh, you’ll get them over this little bump in the road or that one, but in the long run it does nothing to helping them on the path of changing why they think as they do and make the decisions they do. Chiropractic philosophy is based upon DEDUCTIVE thinking/reasoning. It’s not what we DO as chiropractors that sets us apart from others in the “healing arts”, but rather HOW/WHAT we think. It’s the inductive thinkers of the world that run around on their paternal pedistals telling people what they can and cannot eat, or think or take or do (until someone else comes along and knocks them off only to climb up there and take their place!). All the while knowing little to nothing about the specific needs of that individual body, at that moment. Worse yet, they don’t take into consideration that not only do people’s needs vary from person to person but differ within each person moment to moment, day to day, etc, etc. The ONLY expert on each person’s needs is the ii. If you see your job as “Saving Lives” and helping them “express optimal health”, teach them the PRINCIPLES by which they can make decisions for themselves, and help them break away from the tyanny of the inductive thinkers of the world, and think for themselves.