Language of Accomodation

We all use language of accommodation from time to time. A writer of a mystery novel may refer to the "icy fingers of fear." Fear does not have fingers. However it is helpful both in communicating and in understanding. But we must be careful that it does not confuse. Conversely, we must be careful not to get hung up on the language of accommodation and miss the point. Using the term "he" when writing is accommodative language. Some people get upset over it. It is not meant to be sexist or belittle the female gender. It makes for smoother writing and reading. However, if I use it to the point of making people think that the chiropractic profession is made up of only males, I have stepped over the line.

Recently at a Sherman Lyceum, an old-time B.J. chiropractor challenged me for using the phrase "the body heals itself." He pointed out that the body is just matter and that it is the innate intelligence of the body that actually does the healing. I agreed, dutifully taking the tongue lashing. After further thought, I realized that this same chiropractor repeatedly uses the term "Innate" as in "Innate heals," or "Innate runs the body," or "Innate told me." Apparently, we are all subject to misusing language of accommodation. The correct term is "the innate intelligence of the body." Both terms may be language of accommodation. When I use the term "the body," I assume every person knows that I mean the innate intelligence of the body. If the matter of the body healed itself, every dead person would come back to life rather than decompose. When he uses the term "innate" by itself, I know he is talking about the innate intelligence of the body. Unless, of course, he capitalizes it and alludes to the fact that it talks to him, then I begin to think he is personifying this principle of organization and making it into more than what it is. We must be careful with our language of accommodation but we must also realize that language of accommodation ascribes to something or someone a characteristic or quality it does not really possess in order to improve our understanding.

I often use language of accommodation in my writing. Another example would be using the word "choose" with respect to innate intelligence. To say that the innate intelligence of the body "chooses" what it needs from the food we eat seems to give it personality. Volition is a characteristic of personality (which for clarity’s sake innate intelligence does not have). I use that term to get across the idea of selective judgment and, hence, intelligence as opposed to merely a function of physics and chemistry (i.e., mechanism). We know that the innate intelligence is not a little man sitting up in the brain saying, "Do I want red beets, carrots or spinach?" Neither is metabolism a process that can be duplicated in a chemistry lab. "Chooses" ascribes to the innate intelligence of the body a characteristic it really does not have but it enables us to better understand the phenomena of vitalism.

The point of this discussion is to stress the importance of knowing the philosophy so that language of accommodation makes sense. I believe that the old-time B.J. chiropractor understood that when I said, "the body heals itself." He just wanted to harass me. I know that the matter does not heal itself apart from the action of the innate intelligence. When Reggie Gold says "innate" does this or "innate" does that, I know he is speaking of the manifestation of a principle of organization within the body. However, I do not know the same to be true when some old-time B.J. chiropractors talk about "Innate." Therein lies the difference. We need to use language of accommodation especially when discussing infinite and metaphysical concepts, but we must be clear that it is only language of accommodation. That necessitates study so that we may truly know the chiropractic philosophy.

The Conflict is Clarifying

As the practice of medicine and the practice of chiropractic become more similar, the profession is either going to lose its identity or be forced to more clearly define itself. Chiropractors are performing more and more medical procedures and medical doctors are incorporating more drugless procedures ordinarily associated with alternative approaches like therapeutic chiropractic. The public will not be able to tell the difference between a chiropractor and a medical doctor unless chiropractic more clearly defines what it does. Although the number is decreasing yearly, I believe most chiropractors still do not want to lose their identity and become "physicians." They are going to be forced to make a decision. The recent case in California of the chiropractor who gave a vitamin to treat a medical condition raises some serious questions.

The medical profession and the district attorney claimed the vitamin was a drug because it was being used to treat a medical condition. The chiropractic association said that was absurd, that there is no such thing as a medical condition, just conditions or diseases which are common domain so that the treatment of it is determined by state law. In other words, back pain was neither a chiropractic nor a medical condition. Either profession could treat it unless the law forbid it. Similarly, cancer was not a medical or chiropractic condition, either profession could treat it unless the law forbid it. This may seem extreme but that was the legal argument of the state association attorneys. If the law allows chiropractors to use vitamins for the treatment of a disease as long as state law does not strictly forbid the use of vitamins or the treatment of a particular disease, that would be chiropractic. Following this reason, if the law allows chiropractic the right to prescribe over-the-counter drugs, that becomes the practice of chiropractic. Where then are the lines drawn between the practice of medicine and the practice of chiropractic? It simply cannot continue this way especially in light of the government’s desire to protect the consumer even to the point of controlling their lives and limiting their freedom. (I am not free to ride a motorcycle without a helmet because the government is afraid I will hurt myself.)

The logical determination that will have to come from this is that if a vitamin is given to treat a disease, it is a drug. Not only is this the logical thinking, it is also the position of medicine which has the strongest political clout. However, if a vitamin is given to fill a nutritional need and not to treat a disease, it is not considered to be a drug regardless of whether a medical condition is present or not or whether that medical condition is associated with a vitamin deficiency or not. This would seem to be an option that both the billion-dollar vitamin industry and the medical profession can live with.Of course, the vitamin industry would rather make claims to cure diseases and the medical profession would rather not concede any aspect of health care. They would prefer to be the only ones who are involved with peoples’ health. Neither group will be totally happy but that is the nature of compromise. The only alternative to this option would render the practice of medicine non-existent since anyone could practice it, including distributors in a multi-level marketing program. If you are giving a vitamin to treat a disease or its cause, then you would be required to have training in the diagnosis and prognosis of that disease, and to know what alternative treatments are available and perhaps more appropriate. In other words, you will have to be trained as a medical doctor. Basically, that would be defining the use of vitamins by your objective. If it is to treat a disease, you must be a medical doctor. If it is to improve peoples’ nutrition anyone can prescribe them. There does not seem to be any other way to satisfactorily resolve this dilemma.

What does this have to do with chiropractic? Well, a great deal for the chiropractor that prescribes vitamins but it is also applicable to straight chiropractic practices. If the objective is to treat a disease or its cause whether you use vitamins or acupuncture or give an adjustment, it must be viewed as the practice of medicine and restricted to those qualified to do that. It may very well be that one day, in the not too distant future, all chiropractors will be forced to practice our model of chiropractic, to correct subluxations to enable the body to work better regardless of or apart from the presence or absence of a disease entity. There is no other resolution except to be trained as a medical doctor and that involves a great deal more training than chiropractors are currently receiving.

An Open Letter To Chiropractic Students and New Practitioners

I believe what you are going to read in the next few minutes is the most important information you will read during your entire chiropractic career. Your future depends on understanding the information I am about to give you. First, let me say I am not trying to get you to attend a seminar, to join an organization or to buy a book or set of tapes. The reason I am sharing this information with you is because I have watched chiropractic evolve over my 30 years in practice, I have taught for 15 years, I have traveled in the past 18 months to 10 different chiropractic colleges to speak to the students, and I have met literally hundreds of new practitioners. Having done these things, I am left with a real concern for new and future practitioners. No one in the history of the chiropractic profession has been asked to give up six to eight years of their life and to incur a six-figure debt with such doubtful prospects of making a decent living in practice. Listen to my words carefully. Unless some drastic changes take place, I believe nine out of ten of you will never make it in practice.I do not care what techniques you are learning, how smart you are, or how much you love people and chiropractic. If one of your ten chiropractic friends is more charismatic, more dynamic, or more outgoing than you (the type that could sell a refrigerator to an Eskimo), you are going to fail in practice. If you are thinking that those should not be the prerequisites to success, you are right. Unfortunately, in the present state of the profession, those seem to be the criteria for success.

Here is the problem. The present model of chiropractic cannot support the number of chiropractors presently in the field, let alone the thousands graduating every year. In 1967, there were only about 12,000 practicing chiropractors so do not expect to see too many chiropractors retiring in the near future. Many of them cannot afford to retire. That leaves even less room for you! This was not so apparent a problem during the "insurance boom" because chiropractors did not need to see large numbers of people. As per-visit fees came down only recently because individuals could not afford to pay what insurance companies pay, the number of patients needed to maintain the same income went up. Unfortunately, there are not enough patients for all the chiropractors. This is the profession’s dark little secret that nobody talks about.

How did we get to this point? For the past 25 years, a few chiropractic colleges have graduated students with the idea that chiropractic was the answer to the cause of all disease and that every person with any disease should go to a chiropractor and only a chiropractor. Not only is that a false assumption but at the same time we have been projecting that idea to students, we have been convincing the public that chiropractic is only for a few musculoskeletal conditions that are seen only in a small percentage of the population. Chiropractic has reached critical mass. The public thinks chiropractic is for bad backs and stiff necks and there are significantly more chiropractors than the number of people with bad backs and stiff necks necessitates. I am not going to bore you with the numbers. Numbers can be embellished to justify almost anything. Trust me on this. As proof, I offer these facts. 1) Those schools that have traditionally viewed chiropractic as a musculoskeletal therapy still have relatively small enrollments. (One is even trying to become a "medical" school to join with another profession that is also overcrowded). 2) States are making stricter requirements and more tests for licensure and greater percentages of graduates are being failed in State Boards Exams. 3) Only one new school has opened in the last ten years and two schools have closed during that same period. A group of chiropractors have been trying to start a school in the most populated section of the country for the last five years and have met with virtually no success and no support from the field. Why? Because many people in the profession realize we do not need more chiropractors. 4) The percentages of student loan defaults and delinquencies among chiropractors is embarrassingly high. Of course, so is the number of graduates who fail in the first five years of practice.

Who does not have the answers? Practice management consultants most certainly do not have the answers. They are in a panic and they change their programs as often as they change their Armani suits. The portion of the profession that views chiropractic as the cause of all disease does not have the answer. Even B.J. said we only needed one chiropractor for every 5,000 people (The Glory of Going On, p. 32). Do the numbers for yourself if you like but I can tell you we are already there. It is worth noting that B.J. was much more optimistic about the need for chiropractors than most. The fact is, the public has missed the big idea of chiropractic and I am not sure that we can turn them around in the next ten or twenty years. As a student or new practitioner, you do not have that much time to spare. If you are going to draw the numbers you need to survive, you will need many more people thinking chiropractically right now! Forget the hype about people turning to alternative care and being more health conscious. It means nothing to you. Even if they are more health conscious, people simply do not associate chiropractic with health. They associate chiropractic with bad backs. What should concern you is the number of chiropractors out there who are hurting, who are making less and less each year, who are either getting out of practice or into every multi-level marketing scheme imaginable. If you want to practice chiropractic and sell Amway, you may do okay. But you can probably do just as well working at a convenience store and selling Amway if you start six years sooner and save the cost of your education.

What is the answer? For the profession as a whole, there is no answer unless and until the public has an entirely different perspective of what chiropractic is. It could take years to undo the damage that the present generation has done in advertising, explaining, and marketing chiropractic as a treatment for musculoskeletal problems.For each individual chiropractor there is an answer. Go out into the community and promote chiropractic as unique and different and educate your community. Teach them that chiropractic is not a treatment for bad backs and stiff necks but rather a means of improving the expression of life within them and their family. This is the answer. You must educate them so that they understand that chiropractic is not an alternative or substitute for medicine. If you do not understand this unique objective of chiropractic and how it is for every man, woman, and child regardless of age or condition of health, if you do not understand how to communicate that fact to the public, then you need to find someone who can help you. Unfortunately, for many of you this is not taught in chiropractic college. Let me be blunt and honest. Unless you understand and practice objective straight chiropractic, you have about one chance in ten of succeeding in practice. That would be a waste of your time, money, talent, and life. I do not care where you go to school or why you chose chiropractic as a profession; no one deserves to have their efforts, money and time wasted. If you would like direction or help, please contact the Foundation for the Advancement of Chiropractic Education. You may want to begin by checking out our web-site at www.f-a-c-e.com and sending us an e-mail to let us know you read this letter and you would like some support. Or call our toll-free number (1-800-397-9722). We will be glad to send you free information.

We are interested in you and in you helping us make a difference in this world and its understanding of life, health and chiropractic. If we can help you, then you will be better equipped to serve people. Hopefully the world’s perception of chiropractic can be changed, making life better for all of us, not to mention a successful career for you in serving mankind.

Getting Sick People Well

We all know that most people come into a chiropractic office with musculoskeletal problems rather than organic diseases. I wonder why, when people with medical conditions do come, we do not see the multitude of miracle cures that B.J. and old-time chiropractors write about.

Chiropractic has positioned itself as a treatment for musculoskeletal conditions so organic diseases are not within the public’s perception of chiropractic. Even those people with organic diseases who do visit a chiropractor usually do so because they have a back problem and have never considered chiropractic for their diabetes, allergies or ulcers. Objective straight chiropractors do not want to present chiropractic as a treatment for disease or its cause so they often avoid discussing disease altogether. Similarly, because we do not talk about disease, many people who only think in the disease-treatment paradigm never consider chiropractic care. It is vital then that we as objective straight chiropractors find a way to get across to sick people that they are better off with and need chiropractic care. We have not and we are not marketing chiropractic that way, at least not with any degree of success.

Another reason why we are not seeing more people with medical conditions is that medicine is becoming more effective in treating the conditions or at least their symptoms. Surgical procedures are becoming more effective and safer. People are instant relief/instant gratification-oriented and there is nothing that gives quicker relief from a gall bladder problem than removal of the gall bladder! People are not oriented toward keeping organs that make them hurt. They don’t consider the far-reaching effects of not having a gall bladder and are not led to believe there are any. New drugs are being developed that effectively treat conditions. Remember there is a difference between treating the condition and its symptoms and correcting the causes and restoring health. If you treat the symptom or remove a medical cause, the individual may go through life thinking they are healthy or believe they need to do nothing more than treat it medically. Of course, medicine has never and probably will never do anything to restore health. The treatment of disease has really nothing to do with health. Health is not in the medical objective.

The second issue relates directly to the above. I believe chiropractors are not seeing the miraculous cures that old-timers did for a few reasons. The major one is the fact that medicine has been so successful in controlling disease and alleviating its symptoms. In the early part of this century medicine was often very ineffective. Consequently, the person suffering from a disease sought the care of a chiropractor earlier in the course of the condition. Today, with modern therapeutic measures, the symptoms of disease can be covered up more effectively for longer periods of time. By the time the patient realizes that medicine or the therapeutic measure is not working and they seek the care of a chiropractor, it is often too late. Limitations of matter have become factors during the intervening months or even years of therapeutic care. For example, a person with a gastro-intestinal problem may treat it for years with over-the-counter drugs and then prescription medication. By the time they realize that those things are never going to cure them, the body has passed limitations of matter. Chiropractors are seeing patients initially for musculoskeletal conditions, but for other medical problems, chiropractic care is still a last resort and it comes later than it has historically and often too late to enable the body to heal itself.

It seems to me that using terms like "chiropractic gets sick people well" and "chiropractic corrects the cause of disease" is part of the problem. If we instead impress people with the need for lifetime chiropractic care with no regard for their perceived present state of health, we do not have to worry about seeing miraculous cures. If we see people who are healthy from a medical standpoint and help them to stay well, we need not concern ourselves with cures. Further, if we convince people of the truth, that their bodies will always be better without interference in the nerve system, then they will be more likely to come before limitations of matter are an issue. We must begin to market what we do more effectively so that we can see everyone regardless of their perceived or true state of health. We just have not yet found the key to doing that.

Reality Check

Those who have read my writings know that I am by nature an optimistic person. I try to be fair in showing the good and, in my opinion, the superior aspects of my manner of practice. I do not make it a practice to attack medical doctors or mixers. I may point out the philosophical problems and inconsistencies of other types of practices but I try not to get personal. I am extremely positive when it comes to the ADIO philosophy, but I am not overly optimistic about its growth and success. Some within our profession, particularly those in the traditional straight chiropractic community, think that we are making great strides toward growing as an approach to health. Much of this divorcement from reality is a result of not understanding the philosophy. This thinking leads to some problems, which is the only reason I bring it up. It would be similar to thinking that just because the communists are no longer building nuclear bombs that they are now more amiable or tolerant of freedom and democratic principles. They are not. They are just taking a different tactic in their attempt at global conquest. If you understand their philosophy, you realize that it necessitates world domination.

Similarly, there is a good deal of talk today about how the world is coming around to our way of thinking and how thousands of people daily are changing from traditional medical health care to an alternative practitioner. A recent study showed that more people go to alternative-care practitioners than to medical doctors. In my opinion, all the study really showed was that people had more visits to alternative health-care practitioners than to medical doctors. When you take into account that the average person goes to a medical doctor three times a year while an alternative health-care practitioner may want to see the patient three times the first week, the figures are not so impressive. Further, many patients are probably seeing the medical doctor and the alternative health-care practitioner at the same time so they have not really "switched over." For these reasons, I am not sure that the statistics represent any change in the last 100 years. Alternative healers of all kinds have been around for centuries. D.D. Palmer was one of many even before he discovered chiropractic. Even if the increase is significant, I am not sure that it means anything. There are more people in the country that go to the doctor today than 100 years ago.

Further, the increase in the number of people going to alternative health-care practitioners does not necessarily demonstrate a shift in people’s thinking. It may mean that because medicine has failed them in the alleviation of a particular condition or disease, they are willing to try something else for the treatment of that disease. If the Phillies are playing especially poorly during a game, I may switch channels to watch a movie or some alternative form of entertainment. That does not mean I am no longer a Phillies fan or that I will never watch them again. Peoples’ use of chiropractic or alternative health care does not mean that there has been an awakening to the ADIO viewpoint of life. We have to realize that many people who are going to a chiropractor (perhaps most) are doing so because they have found it to be a superior treatment for some medical condition, most commonly back pain. When the pain is gone, so are they. Why would they stay under care if they do not understand the definition of true health, or the concepts of health maintenance, innate intelligence, or how chiropractic care can help them reach their full potentials in every area of life. In other words, they have not embraced the ADIO philosophy, they have just conformed chiropractic to an outside-in philosophy. They have made chiropractic a therapy. What is so exciting about that? All they know is that if they develop back pain in the future, they might try a chiropractor first. I find it hard to see how going to a chiropractor for bad backs demonstrates a significant shift in people’s thinking. They will continue to go to medical doctors until they think that some alternative can better help them and then they will try that. It may on occasion be chiropractic. But there are plenty of alternative health care systems with which we must compete. Even if people are turning to drugless alternatives, it is still outside-in.

It seems to me that we are really not making any progress in our profession. Oh, some chiropractors are in small ways with their practice members or perhaps in their community but being an alternative health care will no more get our message across to the public than will becoming mainstreamed into medicine. We need to be far removed from everybody to get our model accepted. We need to make sure that the public knows we are not part of medicine nor are we an alternative to the medical objective. It does not matter whether the medical objective is being accomplished by medicine, alternative health care, or chiropractic. The results are the same. The public misses out on the truth of the ADIO philosophy. We need to realize we are not making great progress simply because a few studies show people turning to alternative treatment care. We need to more clearly present our non-alternative, non-therapeutic model to the public, and then we can see some changes that reflect something better for mankind.