Mental Impulses

The article attempts to refute the “cherished beliefs” concerning the existence of the mental impulse which he sees as primarily a “straight chiropractic concept” and the “more widely accepted” concept of nerve interference. Seaman’s argument is best summed up in a question that he asks early in the essay, “How is it possible that something immaterial, difficult to define, and impossible to demonstrate empirically could be heralded as the defining factor for a health care profession that exists in the third dimension and that often clamors to be viewed as scientifically based?” He goes on to say that there is an inconsistency in this viewpoint. Frankly, the only reason there is an inconsistency is because medicine has created a box regarding health care within which people like Seaman have chosen to stay. That box as far as medicine is concerned is totally mechanistic. It has chosen to disregard any vitalistic component to the healing process or to acknowledge a concept apart from the matter that is involved in health. The creation of that box, by the way, is relatively recent.

I am not very knowledgeable in the science of physics. We only needed two semesters to get a license in the state of Pennsylvania in 1967. From my limited understanding, however, a man named Albert Einstein stepped out of the box called Newtonian Physics some years back and his thinking resulted in a formula that every student knows: E=MC . Einstein’s work involved the “immaterial.” It was “difficult to define, and impossible to demonstrate empirically” (Getting matter to move at the speed of light squared is no small task). Yet, what Einstein did has given us an entirely new field of study called quantum physics as well as nuclear energy which we use in the “third dimension.” Dr. Seaman asserts that since we do not know or understand the mental impulse it should not be “the defining element of who we are as a profession.” That is like suggesting that since we cannot get matter to move at the speed of light squared, Einstein should have left that out of his equation! The equation cannot exist without it and chiropractic cannot exist as we know it without the concept of the mental impulse. It can, however, exist as a treatment for joint dysfunction without this concept which seems to always be the thrust of Dr. Seaman’s writings.

The author castigates us for a lack of “investigation into the nature of the mental impulse.” While his charge is legitimate that we have done little research into the concept of nerve interference, the fact that the mental impulse, as he has acknowledged, exists in the “immaterial” realm makes it impossible to study empirically. In making this charge, however, he can then illogically move into his conclusion: since we have not investigated it empirically, it is therefore a religious concept. To substantiate this claim he uses what are clearly pseudo-religious comments from one of B.J.’s later texts. I believe that since B.J.’s time, the straight chiropractic profession has “addressed the religious aspects of the mental impulse concept “and taken them out of the religious realm. While they are no longer religious concepts (if they ever were), they are still metaphysical ones and probably are not discussed in the type of journals that Dr. Seaman reads hence, he is unfamiliar with the continuing evolution of thought on the mental impulse.

In refuting the religious aspects of the mental impulse, Seaman reviews the development of the mental impulse theory from as far back as the 5th Century BC. It is interesting that these theories had nothing to do with religion. They were theories of life. In fact, his quotes come from a paper entitled “The Nature of Life in the History of Medical and Philosophic Thinking” published in the American Journal of Nephrology. The fact is that the thinking which promotes concepts like the mental impulse was the predominant way of thinking little more than a century ago. Mechanism then became the controlling viewpoint of the scientific community since with the reductionist approach answering questions such as the “nature of life” was no longer important. The promise that “one day we will be able to explain life in terms of chemistry and physics alone” seemed to be sufficient for the scientist. If all you address is joint dysfunction (sprains and strains) and practice in the reductionist/mechanistic model, the nature of life is really of little importance. It is insufficient however for some of us chiropractors if we are going to work with life rather than disease. If we are going to improve its expression and enhance one’s life experience, then we want to know the nature of it.

Dr. Seaman maintains that it is not “appropriate to promote” the mental impulse “(U)ntil more is understood about this concept.” I disagree. If Dr. Seaman does not want us to promote it, he should come up with a better one. To date, the mechanists have not only not come up with a superior theory for the phenomena we call life and the intelligently created force that directs it, but they have not even come up with an inferior one. They only give us the promise that one day they will and they have been promising that for far longer than 104 years.

Dr. Seaman finishes his section on the mental impulse, saying that “chiropractic and vertebral subluxation can do fine without the burdensome mental impulse dogma.” He cites three articles to support that argument, all written by him. If we want to practice Dr. Seaman’s model of chiropractic, we need to give up the concept of the mental impulse which he equates with faith healing practices. That assertion detracts from the scholarly presentation of his argument. The model that we present has no relationship to religious approaches to healing and to even suggest that they are associated is academically dishonest.

This argument will go on forever and perhaps we are all wasting our breath and ink discussing it, for it really gets down to a way of looking at life and until we can agree on this very fundamental issue, we will continue to move our practices in different directions. v16n1