Note: This is an old entry that I’m moving here do to some house cleaning.)
The wise man, then, when he must govern, knows how to do nothing. Letting things alone, he rests in his original nature. He who will govern will respect the governed no more than he respects himself. If he loves his own person enough to let it rest in its original truth, he will govern others without hurting them. Let him keep the deep drives in his own guts from going into action. Let him keep still, not looking, not hearing. Let him sit like a corpse, with the Dragon power alive all around him. In complete silence, his voice will be like thunder. His movements will be invisible, like those of a Spirit, but the powers of heaven will go with them. Unconcerned, doing nothing. He will see all things grow ripe around him. Where will he find time to govern?
Chuang Tzu
I’ve seen a lot written about the Swine Flu in the chiropractic circles recently. The common thread that runs through them is that all the hype is simply fear mongering designed to increase the power and income of the pharmaceutical industry, government and media. And while I mostly agree with those opinions at the same time I can’t help but smile and think that the pot is definitely calling the kettle black.
You see the chiropractic profession has been guilty of exactly the same public manipulation for quite awhile now. Spurred on by many practice management consultants that teach fear based and psychologically manipulative techniques to their clients. I can’t help but cringe when I recall practicing a “method” acting technique as taught by a well known consultant. He had us repeatedly practice giving our report of findings but using the word cancer instead of subluxation. The idea was to be so intense as to cause the patient to cry. Unfortunately that’s just the tip of the iceberg, there are many other techniques used to manipulate the patient into doing things they wouldn’t normally want to do. Recently I’ve been seeing coaching groups use Robert Caldini’s observations on social conditioning to manipulate patients into 1 year/prepay contracts. I have seen Greg Stanley recommend responsible use of these techniques, but regrettably he’s the only one I’ve come across. In fact about a year ago I talked to a practice management coach who caught my eye because he advertised that he was different and didn’t use sales techniques. Well he used all 6 Caldini techniques that I’m aware of on me in that one phone call. Needless to say that was the last time we talked.
I want to be very clear on this point: pschologically manipulating patients to agree to your recommendations is UNETHICAL. It doesn’t matter if you really, really, really feel that its for the patients own good. Give them your exam results and let them decide. You have to trust the patient to do whats best for them. If you think that you know whats best for people then you have that in common with most of history’s tyrants. You may believe that you can’t practice successfully without these manipulations. But in the long run you’ll be better off without them. In David Hawkins’, M.D., PH.D book “Power Vs. Force” he uses Applied Kinesology muscle testing techniques to map human consiousness, he found that fear based consiousness was detrimental to a person’s development and that it actually affected the collective unconciousness negatively. So if your using these techniques you’re not only hurting your patient and yourself but degrading ever so slightly the whole of human development. So much for D.D. Palmer’s ideal of “Uniting man the physical with man the spiritual”
