What is new at the Dorn Method and ‘ingenious’ compared to the established Chiro-Therapy Methods?
Treatment Methods
The treatment through the spine for disturbances of the structural system or for functional diseases of inner organs has a more than 4000 years old tradition.
The oldest reports in Medical history about treatments of the spine are from Mesopotamia from a time around 2000 B.C..
Also from India, Asia, and Egypt we have plenty of reports that date before our time calculations. From around 460 B.C. Hippocrates learned many techniques of treating the spine, which are brought through the roman medicine and the medicine of medieval times right into our modern world.
Many tools and machines were invented – mostly based on Hippocrates – for the traction and correction of misaligned vertebrae. This apparatuses looked more like torture methods rather than a caring medical treatment. The still used Glisson-Traction device is such an invention from the time around 1650.
Spine Treatments on a larger scale were only done in the 19th century. In the USA there was the start of schools in Osteopathy and Chiropractic. From 1870 on Dr. Anrew Taylor Still developed the wholistic oriented Osteopathy, that treated pain at the spine as well as the therapy on inner organs. Parallel to this Chiropractic developed as a more spiritual oriented therapy under the lay healer David Daniel Palmer. Misaligned vertebrae were corrected by the use of the hands. One variation was treating all disruptions at the first vertebra. In England there are ‘bone-setter’ as lay healers until today.
In Germany this development only started in the 50’s, when influences from the American schools were apparent there and local Orthopedics were trained by “Lay Practitioners”. Since the 80’s manual therapy is widely used also in Healing Practitioners and Physical Therapist’s circles. Many Orthopedics specialized in Chiropractic.
The Role of Manual Medicine on Spine-disorders
Since the costs of the health systems has to be watched closely there are feasibility studies made in the industrial nations. Studied was the effectiveness of different forms of therapy for Back Pain in comparison. The analysis shows that, the treatment success, regardless the methods, scientifically seen are more or less the same. Independent from the diagnosis all methods had about the same result. Also within the diagnosis the effectivity was roughly the same.
The only form of therapy, that always showed a slight advantage in combination with other protocols , was the chiro-therapy or manual therapy, und this regardless what chiro-therapy method was used.
Within Chiro-therapy there are, worldwide, partly large differences in the method. However, all variations show a similar effectiveness with comparable success rates, differences are mostly apparent in the side effects.
So if this success cannot be addressed towards one specific chiropractic form, there has to be a common factor of all this manual therapies regardless the technique: Chiro-therapy or a related form can only be done by someone who engages on a deep level of physical contact with the patient, who checks the case accurately, and who treats the patient with love with any therapy he assumes a most appropriate. In the end the success of chiro-therapy is founded on that. One can also say: what heals is the energy of love. The disadvantage of this method is that it can lead to serious complications, especially in the cervical spine area – either with a bad technique or with therapists who treat too fast, too hard and without love. In my more than 20 yrs of medical work, all people who needed surgery at the cervical spine, received chiro-therapeutic treatments before.
Causes for ailments at the spine
The spine is a combination of a straight and flexible bendable column. Outer influences are not cause of ailments at the spine they are just occasion. Shock- and Stress experiences lead to energy flow disturbances in the body which then manifest on the organic level. The ‘posture’ is here a crucial factor. Posture is an outer picture and it mirrors at the same time the inner attitude and state of the mind, soul. Posture always has a double meaning: mental, spiritual and physical. Degenerative changes develop only when through a wrong ‘posture’ (attitude) the strain increases so much that it exceeds the ability to cope.
A permanent successful treatment of the spine is only possible after the patient realizes his blockages, because only the knowing of the inner ‘posture’ can influence the outer ‘posture’ on the long term. Physical Therapy exercises alone, to change the posture, are not effective as long as the inner ‘Misalignment’ is still dominant. Fury, anger, aggression, worry, fear and depression are changing the outer ‘posture’ and influencing the spine. This inner ‘posture’ manifests itself in the outer ‘posture’ if uncorrected. The muscular structure is changing and leads to degenerative changes at the bone structure.
Diagnosis of the ailment
Before each therapy a diagnosis has to be worked out. Only if the therapist understands the underlying conflict and is able to explain it to the patient a permanent improvement is possible. Consciousness is the key for being in health.
Decoding of the unconscious levels with the help of the therapist
If the patient has sufficient time to express his problems first impressions will appear showing the underlying conflict. After directed questioning this can be confirmed or dismissed. What is the patient missing? What is the cause of the ‘hurting’?
Sickness is a state that points to the fact that the person is no longer in balance or harmony in his consciousness. Therefore a symptom develops in the body and shows us: Something is missing.
To integrate the ‘missing’ leads to healing. It is important to always consider the inner causes of the sickness in order not to suppress them because our soul (mind) will then look for another ‘valve’.
What is the Pain ‘message’ for the patient?
We decode the message of the body, by using the symbolic of language and psychosomatic. Almost always, through questioning the life circumstances, we find a condition that alerts the patient and where he find himself.
Function and Symbolic of the Spine
The Spine is in the middle of our body and the ‘posture’ (attitude) is an expression of the spiritual (mental) – and physical (body) wholeness of the personality. We talk about people being without stability (insecure), they bend down, crawl or show a stiff ‘posture’ (attitude) or they are straight and ‘honest’.
Interpretation succeeds often when we recognize the function of the individual parts. With the upper head joints we look at the ‘sky’ above. Often the blockage is rooted that the person don’t want that. Through a rotating movement of the atlas on top of the axis one can see the horizon, and also nodd the head as to say ‘NO’.
With the lower cervical spine be look at the earth (ground) in front of us and we can also look over our shoulder and onto our ‘shadow’ sides behind us. To aspire is stretching and humility is to bow. Through bending of the lower cervical spine we leave this level and that means saying ‘YES’ to what is. When stretching humility and saying ‘YES’ is not possible. So one can conclude that existing disturbances in this area point to underlying causes and disruptions there.
Some people are ‘stiff’ in the neck (stubborn), do things ‘head over heels’ or want to go with their head through the wall.
Is the patient in a posture if a victim then either fear or someone else is sitting in his neck, he feels the fist in his neck, gets then punches in his neck or he ‘shoulders too much’.
The Thoracic spine protects the heart and lung as most important organs. There in the upper back (heart chakra) it is about love, heart issues, self love and the feeling of being loved.
Many ailments in this area are the result of people not being able or don’t want to forgive. Ideally we are ‘straight’ (honest) in this area; we stand for something with a broad shoulder (strong back). When we are in a victim state the world around us sees us in a victim role, we appear bended, bowing down, with the back against the wall, or hump-backed.
The Symbolic of the Lumbar spine is in the standpoint for oneself. Back problems always are connected with a lack of ‘support’. Either we have someone ‘backing’ us up or not. In this case we have to do it yourself. In the development of the infant this ‘backing’ of the mother plays an important role. When learning to walk, the hand of the mother is physical support to gain stability, so one doesn’t fall, and at the same time spiritual (mental) support: being held serves as support for the development of self confidence and for security. In the further development the straight spine mirrors the degree of self-determination and the strive for individualism. However, the whole life, one unconsciously wishes support and this contradicts with the striving for self-determination and for standing ‘firm and straight’. On 60 percent of all herniated disc cases one find some sort of prior ‘insult’ at the workplace or a loss of work with the following lack of support. Out of many examinations we know that the only reliable prediction of spine health is the contentment at work and with insults at the workplace or ‘mobbing’ the inner posture is changing and strongly affects the static of the spine. In other words: The mind forms the matter.
In corporate life one is expected to show ability to take stress. Yet only through recognition this ability is provided and guaranteed: when someone is standing ‘behind’ us. Recognition of work and praise expresses support. This shows that our spine is under increased mechanical stress in times of mental (inner) pressure, and that the state of the soul (mind) can never be separated from the physical circumstances – like when we carry a cross, crawl, see ourselves in a victims role or we feel that someone broke our ‘back’.
What is the ‘benefit’ of sickness for a patient?
Sickness fulfills the demand for getting support, attention, care and security – all are desires that a healthy person usually don’t ask for. Such secondary sickness-gains worsen the treatment success. Therefore this circumstance has to be discussed before.
Treatment
Back Problems are improved in about 80 percent through the ‘wrong’ therapy or despite the ‘right’ therapy – if we like it or not. 20 percent produce problems and cannot be improved by a single form of therapy. Only through a combination treatment taking into account the whole personality of body, mind and spirit there is a chance of healing.
Healing is always a loving acceptance of destiny in combination with a loving treatment.
Pains in the structural system can only be healed through integration of the whole person, to look at him, understanding and feeling what is missing; and a following loving treatment adds what is missing and leads out of a seemingly desperation onto his own path.
The Dorn Method is a rewarding possibility to guide a patient out of his dilemma. It combines a loving physical start with a solution integrating a mind and spirit background. It conforms with fundamental aspects from anatomy, physiology, neurology and biomechanics of the spine.
The Dorn Method, especially because it doesn’t have its roots in the medical chiro-therapy, goes a totally new and timely, contemporary path.
In chiro-therapy the patient is positioned (twisted) in a way that only the joint to be adjusted is movable. Watching this one cannot prevent the impression that the patient is somehow helpless left to the mercy of the therapist. Some techniques reminds the viewer to a sports-wrestling event where the patient is held in a neck-lock. Out of this situation the patient is manipulated with a short abrupt impulse. The scientific term expresses this: Manipulation, and that exactly is it. At the cervical spine this led to serious disruptions of the structure, at least according to some larger studies, partly with injury of the Arteria vertebralis resulting in fatal accidents.
With the Dorn Method something completely different happens. The patient stands or sits upright and moves freely and voluntarily with rhythmic actions. The therapist stands lovingly next to him and gently presses the patient at the spot where he is out of balance. The treating thumb is hereby exerting a gentle pressure only. The impulse begins, so to say, in the head of the therapist, who tells the bone at the area where he presses: How would you like to be in that position? No manipulation, it is a gentle and dynamic pressure. Hereby the miracle can take place. The body likes it in his center (middle) and when we recognized the mental and spiritual background for the ‘out of the center state’ and expressed it to the patient, it stays like that.
The time of manipulations at our patients, who came to look for help, is over – regardless at what level and with what method. Treatment is the inter-action between someone looking for help and someone who has the ability to recognize what the patient is missing. In the past patients where not asked: What problem do you have but: what is missing? Our responsibility is to give the patient what is missing. Mostly this is Love, Energy and Respect. One cannot give this through manipulation, but through acceptance of the patient in his state of being.
A loving advice at the end: Only treat the one that wants to be treated. Beware of manipulations with this wonderful method. Give to the patient what he is missing, but never, something you think he might well need.
What is another advantage in my opinion: The Method is in its original form free of complications and dangers. With this gentle method no damage of the sensitive structures can be done, because the forces used with the correct technique are by far below the daily stresses. To miss a step on a stairway is far higher impact. As well are the forces exerted through a forceful breaking of a car from 30kph to a standstill, much higher than the manual adjustments in the correct applied Dorn Method. Although I have seen some ‘improvements’ of the Method that let to a rise of my hair (from therapists with a ‘I know it better attitude’).
From the above mentioned explanations result that for the treatment of the spine following The Dorn Method, love and empathy are essential ingredients.
May these thoughts contribute towards the fast distribution of this wonderful method the way it deserves.
By:
Thomas Zudrell
MD(AM), DMS