The Goals in Chiropractic

I can’t make claims about the goal of Chiropractic universally, because different Chiropractors have different objective criteria that they’re trying to meet. On the other hand, I can make claims about what some of the major themes that you’ll see among philosophically-grounded Chiropractors’ goals. Many talk about liberating the nervous system from bony and soft-tissue restrictions so that the body can heal itself. One of the big-picture goals that I’ve heard a number of Chiropractors, teachers, and students talk about is the increase of the conscious expression of Life.

For the sake of simplicity and clarity, let us take these two goals and apply an understanding of the goals of the Alexander Technique and a highly simplified understanding of the goals of a yoga practice to them, and note the similarities.

Alexander Technique and Yoga, as their goals relate to Chiropractic

Alexander Technique, briefly, seeks to train the student to consciously inhibit habitual movement (and cognitive) patterns in order to allow greater conscious use of the Self. Its underpinnings are epiphenomenological (meaning based on the internal states and processes of the students’ body and mind) and underscores the individual’s ability to consciously reconstruct their habits (clenching the jaw before rising from a chair, for instance), thus creating intelligent habits of movement (keeping the muscles of the face relaxed while standing up) to replace the old, dysfunctional ones.

Yoga is a slightly trickier to quickly and easily define. In the West, yoga is generally understood to be a physical practice of exercise that emphasizes breathing and stretching. This is not an entirely inaccurate characterization, but it misses the philosophical underpinnings of the practice and the much larger spiritual framework from which it sprang. To grossly simplify, yoga is any practice (physical, devotional, what have you) that leads the yogi through the layers of the Self toward an inner understanding that liberates the spirit from the weight of the body and the machinations of the mind.

Chiropractic removes interference from the nervous system that can produce all manner of disease symptoms, anxiety, tension, and pain. In so doing, a greater feeling of stillness and peace are more often experienced. We are able to think more clearly when we’re not distracted by extraneous sensation.

All three practices have at their core, in some sense, an aim to create a greater feeling of stillness in the body in order to cultivate a greater feeling of stillness in the mind, so that the Self that is the observer, the formless and featureless Atman (in Yogic terms), or Innate Intelligence (in Chiropractic) can experience only itself, without the distraction of the material world’s distractions. This stillness has inherent within it a greater capacity for movement in any direction (such as yoga is particularly well-known for giving its practitioners).

From this perspective, Chiropractic can serve to function, in many ways, like assisted yoga. The goals are very similar, only the methods differ. By receiving regular, skilled Chiropractic care, a yogi or meditator or student of the Alexander Technique can expect to deepen and accelerate their practice, allowing them to make more strides in less time and with less effort.

For those not practicing yoga, Alexander, meditation, or any other technique that serves to still the Body/Mind complex, Chiropractic can be a wonderful way to achieve many of the results that these techniques achieve with less time investment.

Recommended Resources:

• How to Practice, by His Holiness the Dalai Lama (XIV)
• Body Learning, by Michael Gelb