The objective of straight chiropractic is simple and beautiful, to correct vertebral subluxation to enable the innate intelligence of the body to be more fully expressed. The philosophy of chiropractic is complex, as complex as life, but it is logical and can be understood using common sense. The vertebral subluxation, however, is another matter. Medical antagonists of chiropractic have always implied that the subluxation has not been scientifically proven to exist let alone that it causes the body to work at less than its full potential. Many in our own profession acknowledge the subluxation only as a joint dysfunction with little or no neurological ramifications. Unfortunately, the real difficulty in defining the subluxation lies within the straight chiropractic community. Some straight chiropractors talk about “global subluxations” that involve entire sections of the spine and others will only adjust one segment. Some straight chiropractors locate and adjust meningeal subluxations and others say that is not straight chiropractic. Some maintain that people need only be adjusted every six months or so, others are adamant about weekly adjustments. Similarly, the area of methods of analysis opens up a related but different area of controversial discussion. The objective straight chiropractic community has spent so much time in the last 25 years developing, clarifying, and defending what we do that we have spent little time among ourselves discussing these issues. Further, much of this touches upon the area of technique and there is or should be room for difference of opinion among straight chiropractors relative to technique. But I believe there are philosophical issues here, ones that are long overdue in settling. Which techniques are consistent with the objective of straight chiropractic and which are not? Can those that are not, as presented by their developers, still be practiced by an objective straight chiropractor in a manner consistent with the philosophy? Perhaps it is time that a conference be convened to discuss these issues, not from a technique perspective, but from a philosophical one. Maybe we should challenge our educational or organizational leadership to begin this process. v15n3
