The health-care system is collapsing under its own weight and obsolescence.  Health professionals are concerned about loss of control, diminishing income and their future potential.

All this consternation about managed care and the collapsing health-care system is to me no more than a reshuffling of the deck chairs on the Titanic.  You have a choice, you can go down with the Titanic or you can expand your abilities and talents with techniques that produce consistent results in a safe and cost efficient manner.

It is now common knowledge that a study presented by the New England Journal of Medicine, the most prestigious medical journal in the world, showed that in 1993, consumers spent approximately $14 billion on alternative medicine and therapy techniques – more than what was spent on traditional medicine, surgery and therapy combined.  Furthermore, $10 billion of that amount was paid in cash.  And these figures are growing exponentially each year.  This long-range study demonstrates that the use of alternative approaches to health care is not a small trend.

This represents an enormous shift in awareness in the masses, who are demanding and willing to pay for techniques that produce the results that they desperately need; and this has been our experience.  Patient’s are referred to our Myofascial Release Treatment Centers in Paoli, PA and Sedona, AZ from all over the world.  The average patient we see has not had acceptable results, despite spending between $50,000 to $100,000 on traditional medicines, surgery or therapy and having every test know to mankind and every treatment except for myofascial release.

We see these people on an out-patient basis for approximately two to three weeks (five days per week) as part of our Intensive Myofascial Release Treatment Program.  The vast majority of people we see have their lives turned around so they regain the quality of their life and can return to work.

Insurance companies are willing to pay for myofascial release (the CPT code is 97250) or if they have run out of insurance, the patient is willing to pay cash to return to a pain free, active lifestyle.

There seems to be two different realities:  one where therapists still using obsolete traditional techniques are running around like Chicken Little crying “the sky is falling, the sky is falling!”  and another where facilities and therapists focusing on the myofascial release approach are flourishing, with minimal burdensome paperwork, very satisfied patients and lucrative incomes.  So, you have a choice of realities.  In fact, we receive numerous letters from insurance companies, hospitals, health-care facilities, private practices and physicians looking for highly trained myofascial release therapists.

Is the Titanic going down?  Yes!  Is the sky falling?  Only if you persist in clinging to the past.  Consider another perspective.  This is a wake up call!  This turmoil is a tremendous opportunity.

The limitation of treatment visits is the best thing that could have ever happened.  This has forced everyone to stop and really examine what works and what doesn’t work.  You know how it is:  a person will receive hot packs, modalities and exercise for months or years even if it doesn’t appear to be working.  They continue because their insurance covers the treatments.  With the limitations now on visits, they will receive their allotted number of traditional treatments and then they will seek out a therapist skilled in myofascial release, put their hands in their pockets, pull out some cash and say, “Please, help me.”

I know that many of you work in busy hospitals, extended care facilities and rehabilitation centers and often spend more time on paperwork than on actual hands-on therapy.  This assembly line approach is not healthcare!  I know that you have to take care of yourself and your family, but I have a suggestion:  Do what you have to do now and look for facilities that focus on myofascial release that will give you the quality time to provide effective healthcare or open your own private practice.  You can keep your present job and start private practice part-time.  It does not take a large expenditure of money.  You only need some space, a treatment table and knowledge of myofascial release.

I recommend this at every myofascial release seminar and I receive calls and letters weekly from those who have taken my advice.  They basically say that they have switched to a heath-care facility that focuses on myofascial release and provides the proper environment and time necessary for quality care, or that within six to eight months they were generating sufficient income from their new private practice to switch to it full-time.  They also report that they have very happy clients and a sense of personal fulfillment and professional achievement.

This paradigm shift will be enormous in the next couple of years, providing an incredible opportunity for facilities and individuals willing to expand their knowledge and allow their skill level to grow.

Let us all work together to enhance the quality of patient care.  We can do it!

PT . OT . SPEECH TODAY Vol. 5, No. 51

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

John F. Barnes, PT, graduated from the University of Pennsylvania as a Physical Therapist in 1960; he holds physical therapy licenses in Pennsylvania, Arizona, New Jersey, Delaware, Colorado, and Hawaii.  John is on the Counsel of Advisors of the American Back Society; is an Editorial Advisor of the Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies; and is a member of the American Physical Therapy Association.

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As therapists it is our responsibility to discipline ourselves to be centered and to educate our patients in the value of silence so that they can access their healing wisdom.  Only when the therapist and patient are deeply centered in mutual silence do the depths of their wisdom merge with universal wisdom for authentic healing to occur.

For years I have recognized that great therapists have an intangible quality that differentiates them from the average therapist.  I have become aware that our educational training focused on the conceptual aspect of our consciousness ignoring our deeper consciousness where our wisdom lies.  In my seminars I have been labeling our intellectual side as Channel 5.

Our educational system taught us what to think, not how to think!  Unfortunately, this was not true education, but instead was mass hypnosis forcing us to memorize “facts” while ignoring or ridiculing our intuition, instincts and wisdom, which I label Channel 3.

Traditional therapy and medicine imposes its will trying to force logic on an illogical body.  The channel 5 mentality vainly focuses on “fixing” symptoms.

As one moves deeper into Myofascial Release we realize that our past traditional training crippled us by forcing us to memorize a paradigm of reality that is terribly flawed, erroneously based on principles that ignore an entire physiological system; the fascial system and the mind.

One of the greatest barriers we as therapists have to hurtle is unshackling our mind from the intellectual prison enforced upon us.  Rational thought, logic and intelligence is important, but we must have the courage to expand into the very important type of intelligence based on feelings (Channel 3).

Interestingly, a few weeks ago in an article titled, “The Secret Skills of Leaders” in the magazine US News & World Report, these points were made describing what traits great leaders possessed.  German sociologist Max Weber called it “the firm taming of the soul:  Today psychologists call it “emotional intelligence”. (EQ)

Psychologist Samuel Goldman says that emotional intelligence is the overlooked yet essential ingredient of leadership.  In “Primal Leadership”, his book due out this spring, Goldman argues, “that instinctual intelligence is the primary factor that distinguishes great leaders from average ones”.

A balance of both IQ (Channel 5) and EQ (Channel 3) is essential for great leaders and therapists alike.  Myofascial Release performed at the highest level allows the patient to expand beyond Channel 5 into Channel 3 where authentic healing can occur.

The traditional model of reality thrust upon us gave us the false impression that we are small, inconsequential, helpless, and so we identified with the limited “false ego”.  In fact, neuroscientists have discovered that the database available to our subconscious (Channel 3) EQ is in excess of 10 million to one of that of our intellect (Channel 5).  So we mistakenly identified with this miniscule aspect of consciousness and we now need to correct this error by identifying with the vastness of our loving essence and the incredible, authentic power of our feeling intelligence (Channel 3).

Our goal is to continually develop the prodigious power of our feeling intelligence EQ, as therapists to help our patients tap into the healing power of Channel 3 where our intuition, instinct and wisdom expresses itself in the most loving way.  I feel that the conversation about talking during treatment may have left some patients confused.  Myofascial Release therapists listen to their patients, but more than hearing their words we are also reading their body language, repeated phrases (patterns) and the emotional tone of their words or phrases.  This tells us much more than the words, for this is the patient’s EQ or emotional intelligence speaking from their bodily wisdom.

After the first few treatments, too much talk, anything over 10% of a treatment session, can be the patient’s way of denying or camouflaging their deeper inner fears.  It takes courage for the patient to feel these deeply held emotions.  It is our role as the therapist to gently guide them into their inner silence so that the hidden information and deeply held emotional patterns stuck in the subconscious can emerge for true healing to occur.

If the patient insists on talking incessantly that is their choice; however, they came to their therapist for their experience, guidance and wisdom.  And if the patient insists on controlling the session and ignoring the advice, they may be denying themselves of the most meaningful healing experience of their life.

Hasn’t it been said, “Silence is golden?”

Sincerely,
John F. Barnes, PT

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

John F. Barnes, PT, graduated from the University of Pennsylvania as a Physical Therapist in 1960; he holds physical therapy licenses in Pennsylvania, Arizona, New Jersey, Delaware, Colorado, and Hawaii.  John is on the Counsel of Advisors of the American Back Society; is an Editorial Advisor of the Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies; and is a member of the American Physical Therapy Association.

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