The
Future of Chiropractic is Now
Growing beyond our differences to better our profession
By William F. O’Brien, Ph. D.
As a strategist for a number of companies in high technology and in healthcare,
I am responsible for predicting changes in marketplace conditions and for preparing
management teams to position themselves and align their organizations accordingly.
In that context, I am often asked by chiropractors for my “outside”
opinion regarding the future of their profession. The question typically comes
after I have listened to the usual discourse from doctors bemoaning the problems
that plague chiropractic. I answer with the following story.
Jason was prepared. He was applying for a job with a world renowned company,
soon to be acquired by Microsoft, “the greatest of all software companies.”
He had already done his preliminary interviews. Now he was spending a day with
me at corporate headquarters. He was proficient in his computer skills. He was
brilliant, an expert in his specialty: design, graphics and programming for
‘knowledge management platforms.’ He was ready for the interview
and his answer to my first question was a home run:
How would you design the remote control system for a DVD?
He responded with confidence: vary the technologies, color schemes and options
for input functionality according to the age range and other demographics of
each target population.
He was not ready for the questions that followed:
Why is the learning experience so emotional?
The questions became more remote from his frame of reference:
Why do some professionals get defensive when receiving feedback from peers and
subordinates?
In fact, some of the questions seemed downright weird to Jason:
Draw a picture that represents your last client’s frame of reference.
How would you characterize the contextual value of words?
Draw a three dimensional image of this company’s mission.
It was only after the interview that Jason realized he had not been asked to
demonstrate his technical competencies. He reflected on that for a while, wondering
what the point of the interview had been. Then it hit him like a flash of lightning:
I wasn’t interested in what he’d learned. I was interested in his
thoughts on applying it. My interview revolved around his ability to reason,
to think. And not just to think logically—to establish a logical progression
of ideas—but to think creatively! To solve vital, “live” problems
that the executives he’d be working for were wrestling with! I wanted
him to produce new images of information which were not yet available to us.
Jason realized that he was attractive as a job applicant only to the degree
to which he could generate new ideas. Eventually the executives told him that
his answers were no better than theirs.
Jason was unprepared for living in the future, but the future is now!
In my opinion, the future of chiropractic is up for grabs. We can blame the
usual suspects (MDs, pharmaceuticals, insurance, the media, etc). However, I
believe that those answers allow chiropractors to avoid introspection rather
than demand it. Let’s face it. The problem in chiropractic is internal
as well. Chiropractic is crippled by a disperate set of independent constituencies
who believe that the profession would be just fine if everyone else would simply
conform to their own view of how the profession ought to be governed. Some of
these constituencies have significantly opposing views. More importantly, they
do not relate well with each other. The chiropractic culture is conditioned
by a poor approach to socializing differences of opinion.
Let’s get back to basics. Chiropractic, no matter what your flavor, espouses
the importance of natural interventions. Chiropractors are nature’s catalysts
who can create the conditions that allow nature to do what it does best, act
naturally. The results include pain relief, healing, health and optimal functioning.
No matter what tribe you identify with, there is general agreement regarding
this principle and a consensus that it can be supported by science.
Indeed, it is imperative that we employ science to study the effects of natural
healing. What an elegant irony. Simply stated, science is exactly that; the
study of nature. Science is the study of the nature of nature. Scientists are
nature’s biographers. And what do scientists consistently discover? They
discover that the nature of nature is social. Nature relates dynamically and
asymmetrically to produce continuous change. In nature, all phenomena relate
interdependently in order to avoid stasis. It exists; indeed it thrives, in
a constant state of imbalance. Nothing relates independently or it dies!
Is our scientific observation simply a metaphor or is it, indeed, the answer
to what plagues the profession; hiding in plain site? Imagine, ego free processing
among chiropractic’s leaders, relating interdependently. Imagine leaders
relating, representing and reasoning with all perspectives in mind. Imagine
people with opposing views engaged in a dynamic process as high functioning
as nature itself; get, give, merge, grow and go! Imagine creating solutions
that didn’t exist moments before under previously unnatural and limiting
conditions. Imagine the impact upon the profession’s future?
So how do we do this? Let’s begin by examining the cognitive processes
that make up this dialogue to honestly assess what’s really happening.
At the lowest level, we find basic S–R conditioning systems in which there
is no processing between the stimulus (S) and the response (R). In reality,
in both human and mechanical processing, there is a phenomenon of anticipatory
S–R responses that link the S and R. We label these S–R systems
“conditioned responding systems” because the organism can be conditioned
to make these “knee-jerk-like” responses:
Chiropractic good, medicine bad; Cash good, insurance bad. My association good,
your association bad. My approach to chiropractic is principled, your approach
lacks integrity. My technique is sophisticated, yours is primitive.
Under S—R conditions, the answers are already known; we simply wait for
the questions to be asked. Consciously or unconsciously, these folks are well
scripted.
At the next highest level, we find S–O–R processing systems in which
the organism (O) intervenes between the stimuli (S) and responses (R). It’s
a bit like a computer that is capable of generating various pre-programmed responses
based upon the question being asked. In fact, the organism is no more, nor less
than a repository of S–R conditioned responses. Enabled by a range of
responses, the organism (1) discriminates the stimuli, (2) searches the preordained
list for the appropriate responses, and (3) emits the appropriate response.
Their script is more sophisticated:
The following associations are all good, the others are all bad. These types
of practices vary in procedure but are all good; these others are all bad. All
corrective cases, no matter what the technique, are good, however all pain oriented
practices are bad. The way to fix our profession is to get in line behind movement
X and to make sure that movement Y never takes hold.
At the next highest level, we find S–P–R processing systems in which
processors (P) intervene between the stimuli (S) and responses (R). This is
the role of human brainpower. In S–P–R processing, we relate, represent,
and reason with all frames of reference to generate entirely new and more productive
responses. We label these S–P–R processing systems “generative
processing systems” because they generate responses that the stimuli were
not intended to elicit. S–P–R begins with the belief that the answer
does not yet exist. These answers are prescriptive not pre-scripted.
Under S–R and S–O–R conditions the answers are always the
same. They vary only by your particular orientation. If you commit the answers
to memory and have a penchant for passion, you can become an expert. If your
rhetoric is riddled with criticism toward those who have differing perspectives
in chiropractic, you can become an arrogant expert and create a large following.
However, under S-P-R conditions the answers aren’t known. Not yet anyway.
It doesn’t require brilliant oration. It requires humility. It requires
the commitment to avoid defending your dogma. It asks that you accurately reflect
a comprehensive understanding of different orientations before you judge them.
Like nature itself, it is inclusive. It requires wisdom.
These are the “live” problems that must be solved in chiropractic.
Future leaders in chiropractic, in my opinion, are attractive only to the extent
that they can generate new ideas to solve old problems. Chiropractic’s
leaders can not avoid the responsibility to be thinking in the future. The future
is now!
The next day I received a phone call from Jason. “I woke up in the middle
of the night,” he said, “thinking about something that never occurred
to me before.” He continued, “Learning and changing are very emotional
experiences. I think it’s because some people feel their ego is on the
line. It’s even worse if their self assessment is over inflated and they
already consider themselves to be experts. For those people, training is about
moving them from where they are, all the way up to where they think they are.”
“Congratulations,” I said, “you’re hired.”
Provide your feedback on this
article.
© Copyright 2004 Today's Chiropractic