By Tedd Koren, D.C.

Chiropractic is the art, science and philosophy of making connections. Making connections is the key to clinical success, the heart of our philosophy and the goal of our practice. Making connections is what life and chiropractic are all about.

The better we are at making connections, the more successful and healthier we are as doctors, healers, and individuals. The better we are at making connections, the richer and more fulfilling our lives become.

What are connections? When we connect with something or someone we attune to them, we harmonize with them, we vibrate on the same wavelength, we feel for them, we touch them. But it’s a two way street, to connect means that we open up as well.

The importance of connections is revealed by seeing what its opposites, isolation and loneliness do to us. Many human and animal studies show that those who feel isolated and lonely, detached and disconnected, who lack intimate relationships experience five times the death rate from all causes than people who feel connected.

As Aristotle observed so long ago "Man is a social animal." It is our nature to form close ties to others and it is to our benefit that we do so.

But as important as is connecting to others, we must be also be able to connect with ourselves. We cannot be "out there" unless we are also "in here." As Hillel, the Jewish philosopher said, "If I am only for myself who am I and if I am only for others, what am I?"

As we heal ourselves, we improve our ability to connect with others. And as our connections to others deepens, our depths are increasingly revealed. In this way Hillel’s questions evoke life’s evolving spiral towards healing, wholeness and life. Or towards disease, fragmentation and death.

That is the way for the overwhelming majority of humanity. As Plato observed, "The only person who can live apart from others is a Sage or an idiot." And since most of us are neither, we’ve got to live and interact with all these people out there and with all their institutions, organizations, clubs, groups, businesses and bureaucracies.

As Mark Twain once said, "Life is one damn thing after another." So let’s fill out another form, take another test, sign another paper, work on another project, commit ourselves to our relationships and remember to call our mother every once in a while.

Whew. I’m exhausted, let’s get an adjustment.

Yes, lets. Because the chiropractic adjustment is an important process in the evolving pattern of creating connections as it helps reconnect us to ourselves.

From our depths our inner harmony, purity and strength percolate up to our physical reality. This place deep within us, "behind" our DNA or genetic blueprint is a mysterious place where intangible thoughts and wisdom translate into physical reality. It is that place which Deepak Chopra, M.D. refers to as the ? zone.

Subluxations create "static" to our nervous system, interfering with our mental impulses must flow from our innate to all our parts without interruption, without interference connecting us.

It helps connect us to our inner perfection, inner wisdom or innate intelligence; to that still, small voice within that we often don’t listen to.

It can be painful for body parts that have become scarred over or otherwise disconnected from our wholeness to reconnect and awaken. It can be painful for emotions that have been scarred over or otherwise disconnected from our wholeness to reconnect and awaken.

This phenomenon of healing is called retracing in chiropractic. It is referred to as Hering’s Law in homeopathy and somato-emotional release in Cranio-sacral therapy. Other healing arts use other terms to denote our reawakening, re-expressing, reconnecting or coming to life again to parts with us that have been frozen out of life. Interestingly, retracing is not generally acknowledged in allopathic medicine because medicine tends to be suppressive, controlling, manipulating healing art while chiropractic and the other arts mentioned above are expressive, releasing, freeing arts.

The newest discoveries are showing connections where none were thought to exist. Recently two dentists and a neurosurgeon at John’s Hopkins The newest study of psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) has been revealing the interconnections in our bodies. For example

Our bodies are not a collection of individual organs, glands and systems under one roof. All our parts must work together, vibrating in harmony for the whole to function, for health.

Health is not gotten from any one single part of our bodies. Our white blood cells do not give us health, their function is a reflection of the health of the whole. Health, healing, immunity functions at its height when all our systems work together, as Norman Cousins writes in the Forward to Steven Locke, M.D.’s The Healer Within (1986, Signet Books: New York p.) "There is no healing system. "

The best doctors connect with their patients. No matter how busy they are, no matter how much actual time they may spend they are able to make that patient feel that that they have their doctor’s undivided attention. No phones or other interruptions of course, but more than that, the doctor sees them as an individual and the patient feels it. "My doctor understands my problem," is one of the most healing, comforting things a patient can feel. The most successful practices convey that to every patient.

From a purely chiropractic perspective every patient has a unique subluxation pattern. 100 people with right, anterior rotated, inferior atlas subluxations have 100 unique subluxations even though the listing may be the same. That’s because no two atlases are formed the same, no joints are angled the same, no two skulls are shaped the same and certainly no two nervous systems are alike. People are all too unique, too damned different to generalize our care.

The less personalized your care, the less effective your care will be. The more tailored and unique your care, the more successful your clinical practice will be. The most successful doctors tailor their care to the individual.

It is only by respecting the uniqueness of the individual that we can connect with them. By seeing the patient as an individual and not just another spine. Your patients will feel it, their innate will know it, and so will yours. Every patient is an opportunity for the doctor to learn and grow. If you are bored or burnt out you have forgotten this law of life.

Tedd Koren, D.C., a 1977 graduate of Sherman . Dr. Koren can be reached on-line at TKOREN1@aol.com

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Since 3-14-2003