Answers to your questions 

Bo and I are very fortunate to be able to travel and teach in many locations every year, and in doing so, we get to meet and speak to hundreds and hundreds of fantastic health practitioners. Each person has their own unique experiences and perspectives.
In these interactions we get the opportunity to answer many questions, some of which I thought might be useful to share here, along with the questions provided.

Ok, here we go…

Question:
I’ve been listening to your podcasts and am starting to feel that much of what I thought I was achieving, is in fact not what I’m achieving at all. It’s actually leaving me feeling a bit lost…
Can you help me get my head around what I’m actually doing for my patients?

Answer:
Thank you for listening to our podcasts, we hope that they have been food for thought.
It can be very easy to start thinking that everything we were taught, and all the claims made about manual therapy are false. That’s not the case.
Many of the explanations however, about what we are achieving have been based on old and outdated ideas, some of which can even be negatively misleading.
What we are trying to help practitioners understand is that manual therapy provides a different sensory stimulus to the body, which the body (nervous system) then receives and processes. When we provide a stimulus that is preferred over a painful situation, this can be a great way to reduce our perception of that pain. Likewise, many of the chemical and neurological processes in the body which can support healing, alter muscle tone or change the resting state of connective tissue, are influenced by the various stimuli we provide.
What we aren’t doing is physically or manually pulling anything apart, lengthening something or deforming something. The body is far too robust to allow that to happen.
This different explanation for manual therapy is actually not that new. Our hope is that looking at manual therapy in this way is empowering and helps practitioners see more and different ways to produce positive outcomes for their patients.

Question:
I’ve been a health practitioner for several years now, and I feel like I should be looking to grow my own business, build a team and expand what I’m currently doing by myself.
Is this generally the path most people take?

Answer:
Nope.
Every health practitioner has their own path.
Some are amazing clinicians, and their gift to give is the one that happens in the consultation room. They help each person they see, get great results and live better lives.
Not everyone is born to be a business owner, let alone a leader of a team. Nor will that be the thing that provides the most satisfaction for them long-term.
Others have a natural inclination for business, for growing and supporting others, and for managing many different things at once. If that is you, then yes, starting a business and building a team may be for you.
There is no correct or incorrect career path for all practitioners to follow, but there is certainly one that is best for you as an individual.
The world needs leaders, but it also needs great clinicians who will help one person at a time, every single day.

Question:
What is my go-to technique when treating XYZ problem?

Answer:
Sorry, I can’t answer that question, because I don’t know anything about the patient you are referring to.
If you ask me about an Achilles tendinopathy, or an arthritic hip, or an irritated lumbar facet joint, or a painful TMJ, my answer is always going to be – tell me as much as you can about the patient.
One of the fundamental problems we have with the manual therapy profession is that we often start with what we can do, then we go looking for the thing to do it to. Instead, we need to start with the person presenting to us, then consider what they need. Only then can we determine if what we can do, will even be appropriate.
Further to this, most of what we see in clinical practice is a pain presentation with an associated dysfunction. Manual therapy can be great to temporarily reduce the pain, but it is mostly passive in the way we apply it. Some of it can be progressed into functional applications which is great, but let’s not forget that we can’t solve a functional problem with a passive solution.
So, our short-term management is likely to involve some manual therapy, which reduces pain and also reduces inhibition to movement, but the medium and longer term solutions must require some form of new functional change for the patient.

Question:
I’ve been working in this profession for several years now, and at times I’m finding I’m getting a bit stale mentally. It can be lonely in the clinic room sometimes, and I don’t always have the same spark for the work that I did in the early days. Any suggestions?

Answer:
That is a very real, and a very common thing that you are describing.
I don’t think I’ve ever met a career health practitioner who hasn’t experienced that at one time or another.
My advice is to remember that nothing in life is ever perfect and amazing all the time. Nor is anything as exciting and as engaging when you are years into it, as it was when you were just discovering how to get started.
What I do know to be true is that the things that got us so excited and engaged in the beginning, were the unknowns and the new things. We were constantly being presented with things we weren’t familiar with, we had to overcome challenges, and we had to learn very quickly.
The more experienced we get, the less often we are surprised or pushed outside what we are comfortable with.
So… the solution is to engineer that into our working lives on purpose!
This can be done by learning new things for example. There is always someone who knows more than you. Find them and learn from them.
This can be done by finding new colleagues.
Expand your network, participate in industry events, join an advocacy group, put yourself in rooms that force you to step up.
This can also be done by tackling new or different problems.
Consider the type of patient presentations that you would normally refer on, and think about what knowledge, skills or abilities that you could develop, that could allow you to be the one that helps them.
We all get stuck in a rut at times. It is those of us who keep going, forcing ourselves to adapt, improve and develop, to make it through and get back to enjoying every day, doing what we do.