CHIROPRACTIC

The Healing Touch

The word chiropractic comes from two Greek words: chiro (meaning hands) and practic (meaning practice). As chiropractors, our intention is spelled out in these words: to practice healing with our hands. We believe that our hands (meaning everyone's hands) are unique in their ability to promote healing. How is this so?

Since 1982, I have been asking myself: Beyond the obvious physical changes (like putting a bone in better alignment or releasing some tight muscle) how does touch promote health? What (if anything) is transferred to you my patient, beyond the normal sense we call touch? Also, how does one's relationship to pain (and pleasure) influence healing? I will explore with you a variety of different ways to answer these important questions, but first we must have a firm foundation in a few key concepts.

In order to understand more fully how touch promotes healing, it is helpful to look at common tools, which we use for similar purposes. The first is the EEG. This tool uses special patches (which measure the flow of electricity) and is placed on the scalp. These patches receive electricity from the thoughts we are thinking and we can display these signals on a screen. This tool is used by researchers to study the workings of our brains in order to help us heal.

Our skin can also receive (in the opposite direction) electrical signals and transmit them to the underlying organs. There are many tools, which do this: the electrical devices used in most chiropractic and physical therapy clinics are examples. Some cause muscle relaxation and contraction to aid in moving fluids in and out of an injured area and some stimulate and release acupuncture meridian blockages - the type I use in my clinic.

We must also look at the architecture of the body itself, in order to advance the notion that touch is uniquely suited to the work of healing. The hair-like protein called collagen is the most prevalent protein in our bodies. Individual strands of collagen are thinner than the strands of a spider's web and are woven together to form (at least part of) all of the structures of our body. An example of a structure that is composed of collagen is a ligament, which is made of very densely compacted collagen fibers. Another example is the thin branching collagen, which supports our nervous system.

Collagen is also woven into sheets, which are called fascias. It is these sheets, which wrap our organs to hold them in place and to provide tubes (when folded) for blood vessels and nerves to course between our muscles and bones. Also, collagen in its thinnest form goes through the walls of each of our cells and provides the internal architecture of the cells themselves. In fact, when cells divide, it is a close cousin of collagen, which pulls the newly copied DNA into the new "daughter" cell.

The story of collagen is even more amazing the closer we look at it. The architecture of these strands is such that the individual atoms are linked together, in a lattice-like configuration, which we call a liquid-crystalline structure. One of the most interesting things about a liquid-crystalline structure is that it produces an electric current when a bending-force is applied to it! This form of energy is called piezoelectricity. The concept is not far removed from the idea of Chi, which in Chinese is often translated as Life Force. We also find these currents most strongly in the acupuncture meridians, which are places where sheets of fascia come together.

One of the reasons we are attracted to gems is because they are crystalline structures, which interact with light to form the rainbow of colors. Various colors of light (reportedly) affect the body differently -- perhaps due to the stimulation of these body crystals. I believe that this is why sunlight (which contains the full spectrum of colors) is necessary for good health and why I integrate it into healing sessions whenever possible.

So lets review some of this. We have liquid-crystalline structures, which penetrate every cell of our body and are continuous, like the strands of a spider's web or the Internet. These strands transmit electrical energy and are likely reactive to light. When we move, these structures bend and produce electric signals and transmit these signals throughout the web - movement is life, after all.

Lastly, electric currents accompany our thoughts and these currents travel from the depths of our minds to the surface of our bodies, and presumably into every one of our trillion cells and perhaps to our DNA. So what does all of this have to do with the unique potential of touch, which I have promulgated?

I believe that touch carries with it the energy of intention. In the instant when my intentions harmonize with yours, healing takes place! Is pain necessary? No. Do these healing sessions feel good? Yes.