We are each other's medicine.
 

Life-Changing Chiropractic
Network chiropractic gets back to basics by emphasizing
the inherent wisdom and healing intelligence of the body.

By Eva Maria Herriot
Reprinted from the Yoga Journal

For Judy, network chiropractic was the start of a new life. Her son Dan had learning disabilities and was so hyperactive that the school clinic wanted to put him on Ritalin. On the advice of a friend, she took him instead to see New York-based chiropractor Don Epstein.

"From the first treatment, the changes in Dan were phenomenal," Judy recalls. "He had had a very traumatic birth, and during the treatment Don Epstein was able to clear out those old memory patterns in his physiology. He changed completely. He's gone from being at the bottom of his class to being in the upper part."

When she saw the changes in Dan, Judy decided to start seeing Epstein herself, and eventually the whole family followed. Judy's husband had been taking tranquilizers for years and had recently added drugs for high blood pressure and hyperacidity. After a few months of network chiropractic adjustments, his blood pressure dropped to normal, and he spontaneously stopped taking all his medications

About her own experiences, Judy says, "My whole life changed. I was physically and emotionally down in the dumps. My life is going in a completely different direction now. Network chiropractic is probably better than any kind of therapy."

To people used to thinking of chiropractors as bad-back doctors, this story may seem a little far-fetched. Although the history of chiropractic does include "miracle cures" of illnesses seemingly unrelated to the back - such as arthritis, asthma, rheumatism, and heart trouble - these results have been the exception rather than the general rule.

Epstein, however, has expanded and refined a dozen chiropractic techniques into a system of treatment that is remarkably comprehensive in its effects. He calls it network chiropractic because it views the body as a functional network in which everything is closely linked to everything else. People undergoing network chiropractic treatment not only report relief from the traditional back complaints, but also experience cure or improvement of a wide range of ailments, from paralysis and cystic fibrosis to ulcers, allergies, alcoholism, and learning disabilities. More than that, however, network chiropractic has attracted a large following of holistically oriented individuals who get networking treatments because of the mental and emotional benefits they reap.

"It helps me when I'm stuck," says Jeannie, who has been seeing a network chiropractor in the Midwest for several months. "Often I'll come in for a treatment with an issue in my head, something I'm pretty attached to. When I leave, it's not that big a deal."

Says Sharon, one of Epstein's patients: "It definitely changes your life. Your whole outlook changes. To me it's the preventive medicine of the future - way beyond drug therapy in its effectiveness.

"Network chiropractic is a reeducation process - teaching us not to hold on to mental or emotional patterns," explains Larry Conlan, a chiropractor in the Midwest. "Then we are more able to recognize patterns when they do arise and dissolve them. The network practitioner helps each person reach a non dominant pattern in which the body is able to shift gears as needed by the situation."

Individuals seeing a network chiropractor for the first time are often surprised that initially the adjustment, or "clear-out", consists of a light touch or tapping on various parts of the body, and not the sudden thrusts and bone-cracking usually associated with chiropractic. These gentle contacts work on the meningeal system, the thin sheath, or tissue, that covers the spinal cord and holds imprints caused by mental, emotional, or chemical stress. To help release these stresses, the practitioner touches the areas of the spine where the meninges attach to the bone. These are entry points that access the sheath and free it up.

Meningeal work accounts for the emotional and mental benefits that people report when they start network chiropractic. Explains Larry Conlan, "The tissue around the spinal cord, the meninges, holds most of our traumatic memories. This residue creates 'noise' in the system, holding us in a limited perspective on reality. When tension on the sheath is released, old memory patterns become less restrictive, and there's more identification with the wholeness of life."

Body work techniques have long attempted to remove restrictive patterns in the body as a way to foster personal growth. Epstein himself agrees that the network chiropractor is stepping into the mind-body domain. "The concepts of network chiropractic are consistent with Reich's work, rebirthing, and bodywork in general," he says. "The angle of approach is through the spinal meninges, however. We are going right to the central circuit and consequently getting much deeper results."

Epstein's results have won the interest of chiropractors all over the country. About 200 today are practicing network chiropractic, instructed in the technique by Epstein himself in private seminars. Chiropractors who have integrated it into their practice are, to put it mildly, enthusiastic about the results.

"I think this is what we've all been waiting for," says Eric Chesloff, a Pennsylvania-based chiropractor. "The way people become reconnected with themselves through network chiropractic has been the fundamental aim of chiropractic since the beginning. Network chiropractic is the most effective method of achieving this that's ever been available."

Arno Burnier, D.C., also of Pennsylvania, agrees. "The aim of chiropractic since its beginning has been to free the life force, to align the spiritual body with the material. However, traditional chiropractic has not had a method that made this possible. We've gotten some results, but nothing of this magnitude. As a result, chiropractic has played a more therapeutic role. Network chiropractic brings about a great transformation from within. You can tell something powerful is going on."

As the largest drugless health care system in the world, chiropractic has deep roots in holistic and spiritually oriented health care. Developed by the magnetic healer D.D. Palmer in 1895, chiropractic has always relied on the inherent wisdom, or innate intelligence, of the body. This intelligence or life force, according to Palmer, controls, coordinates, and sustains the innumerable physiological functions in perfect harmony, thereby upholding the health of the individual.

The natural self-repair mechanisms of the body are disrupted, however, when the body accumulates what chiropractors call "subluxations" - misalignments of the vertebrae or meninges that impede the flow of the life-force. Network chiropractic classified subluxations into two basic categories: vertebral subluxations are misalignments of the vertebrae caused by a physical overload on the system; meningeal subluxations manifest as tension or stretching of the meningeal system. Any kind of mental, emotional, or chemical stress that exceeds the body's natural ability to adapt can cause meningeal subluxations.

Since the spinal cord is the central communication system of the body, subluxations tend to impede the flow of the innate intelligence. As they accumulate, the body becomes less flexible, and the individual is less able to adapt to and recover from life's challenges.

By removing vertebral subluxations and freeing up the flow of the innate intelligence, according to Palmer, one can reempower the body's natural self-repair mechanism, effecting a cure without treating specific symptoms. Practitioners of this approach do not focus on symptoms because they want to avoid imposing on the body their own superficial view of health. Only the body's innate intelligence, which knows how and in which sequence to correct imbalances, is deemed capable of effecting true healing.

This philosophy is basic to all chiropractic techniques. From Palmer, however, the field has divided into a two-branched tree with countless subsystems. The founder stood firm in his trust in the power of the body to heal itself, by itself. Hence, traditional chiropractic did not diagnose or treat disease per se.

This stance, known as "straight" chiropractic , has long been challenged by the competing view of "mixers." Constituting by far the majority of chiropractors today, mixers have more or less dropped the philosophy of the innate intelligence, feeling that the metaphysical undertones of the concept only erode chiropractic's credibility. Most chiropractic colleges have adopted this viewpoint and mainly give the concept of the innate intelligence lip-service in a historical context rather than introducing it as a guiding healing principle. As a consequence, they have largely abandoned unconditional trust in the healing power of the innate intelligence. The focus has shifted toward a more symptom-oriented treatment of misaligned spinal structures in which a mixture of treatment modalities such as acupressure, tissue manipulation, and heat, are used in addition to chiropractic techniques to aid the healing process.

Network chiropractic represents a step back to the basics. "Practitioners who focus on symptoms miss the point," says Epstein. "Diseases don't make people sick. They are the result of first being sick. Therefore, focusing on the disease or symptom won't make people well. You have to take a look at what fundamentally went wrong in that body to allow that condition to exist. I'm talking about going back to the center. Wellness can't be added to the body in the form of an injection or a pill. It comes from within. You have to remove obstructions to the body's own inherent wisdom, the only power that makes you well."

People undergoing network chiropractic treatment are encouraged not to think in terms of fighting a specific condition or disease. Epstein contends that fighting disease only serves to reinforce the pattern that has led to the manifestation of the disease. Instead, one needs to focus on releasing the innate intelligence, which is ultimately the only healer.

"The more attention you give to 'your condition,' the more it becomes yours,"explains Epstein. "The more attention you give to the inner life power, the more it is available to work for you."

Completely ignoring symptoms, of course, is also not the answer "Symptoms are the alarm system of the body. They indicate that the actual demands on you have exceeded your safety level. A symptom is an ally, making sure you k now your priorities in life, telling you when you've gotten out of alignment. Rather than ignoring, hiding, or suppressing the symptom, you need to increase the functioning of your body and mind. This is what chiropractic does. By releasing interference in the system, you free the resident intelligence of the body so that it can generate its life force to every cell of the body.'

Epstein has synthesized both treatment and diagnostic techniques into one comprehensive system. Whereas chiropractors have commonly relied on Western medical diagnostic procedures, such as X rays, to probe the state of the spinal cord, a network-trained chiropractor will use bodily parameters such as foot flare, leg length, breathing pattern, muscle tone, and microwave radiation. These diagnostic parameter give the practitioner a remarkably precise picture of how the body has compensated for subluxations and of the degree of nerve interference in the system.

"The individuality and precision of the diagnostic techniques are unique," says Linda, a chiropractic student who has participated in several network training seminars. "You are not treated for the symptoms you had a week or a month or six months earlier. Everything changes all the time in the physiology, and the treatment needs to be adjusted accordingly. Don Epstein has developed a method to measure what goes on at a specific point in time, which makes a big difference in the treatment."

"Don is so in tune with his patients that he can tell what's been bothering me by what goes on in my body," says Donna. "He usually knows if I've had a fight with my husband. He's very intuitive - he learns to read your body right away." When she first started seeing Epstein, Donna had systemic lupus erythmatosis, a disease that is usually considered untreatable. She has now been in remission for several years.

The highly sensitive diagnostic capabilities enable the network chiropractor to determine which chiropractic techniques to employ at which time. According to Epstein, subluxations appear in the body in distinctly different patterns, or phases, depending on the type of stressful stimulus that originally caused them. The reason various chiropractic techniques have achieved inconsistent results is that each focuses on a specific pattern, or phase, and therefore benefits only those people in whom that pattern of subluxations predominates.

A network chiropractor, on the contrary, will read the body's signal throughout the course of an adjustment session, assessing which pattern is dominant at any given time and employing treatment techniques accordingly - rather like peeling off the layers of an onion. A network chiropractor is using a number of different chiropractic techniques in a regular fashion, reaping greater results because of the integrated effect.

The most dramatic part of Epstein's work is the so-called advanced work, the "beyond wellness" phases of treatment. During "Clear-out," phases one through six, the individual releases memory patterns contained in subluxations that have accumulated in the body. In "beyond wellness," phases seven to nine, the individual often experiences expansiveness and even light flowing through the body.

"Your body and soul come together and all you feel is tremendous energy coming from all over the body," relates Judy. "You can feel it vibrating in the room."

"It's like floating on a cloud, you just breathe into everything," says Donna. "Everything relaxes, your body, your breathing, your mind and soul."

"Advanced phases of clear-out are an experience of surrender to the greater you inside," says Donald Glassey, a chiropractor practicing in Pennsylvania, "It's unparalleled to anything in my experience."

According to Epstein, higher-phase clear-outs include an experience of the primary wave of creation, the primary life force that structures the atoms of the Earth, the leaves of a plant, the stars in a spiral nebula. This reidentification with one's basic nature is the most healing experience of all. As the nervous system is allowed to function at a higher and more integrated level, all aspects of the body, from the cellular level to the organ tissue to the posture of the spine, improve dramatically.

Yoga, meditation, and exercise are all ways to heighten a person's ability to access this primordial life force. The greater the flexibility of the nervous system, the more accessible this primary reality. In his network chiropractic, Epstein seems to have stumbled upon another transformational gateway - the human spine. Says Epstein: "The power of the chiropractic adjustment is in you. As Michelangelo said about the beauty of his statue of David, "He was there all the time, he just had to be freed."

By Eva Maria Herriot
Reprinted from the Yoga Journal