Our current chiropractic vocabulary is full of baggage that obscures the truth of chiropractic. This has resulted in not only an identity crisis within our profession but I would suggest, less than optimum clinical outcomes, increased iatrogenic incidences and subsequent confusion within the communities we serve.
One thing is for sure the more we use the language of another profession instead of ours the more we will create a destiny that is not ours.
This will lead to destruction of our profession.
Regulators and various sectors of the chiropractic community are really keen on chiropractic adopting and using the word ‘Diagnosis’ as a key component of our clinical approach. This word is the domain of the medical profession and represents the intent of medicine admirably.
It doesn’t represent chiropractic intent, however.
When we go to the Oxford Dictionary we find the definition of ‘Diagnosis’ as “The identification of the nature of an illness or other problem by examination of the symptoms”. This tells me that by looking at the symptoms one can hypothesize as to the nature or type or cause of the ‘illness’ or ‘problem’. This approach gives the ‘condition’ a name that leads to a treatment for the effects – done, check, end of story.
This approach is an antiquated mechanistic model devoid of any consideration for order, structure or indeed life.
Let’s now consider the chiropractic wording that is a key component of our ethical approach. Chiropractic uses the word ‘Analysis’. The Oxford Dictionary definition describes analysis as “Detailed examination of the elements or structure of something”.
How perfect.
DD Palmer founded this profession on tone. Chiropractic’s primary focus is on the relationship between structure and function. At all levels from the macro through the universe to the quantum microphysics we observe that structure affects function. Structure is the cause of function.
This very series on wordage is a discussion on the structure of our words affecting the function of our profession. There is no difference whether we are speaking of the brain, spine, nerve system axis or a cell, molecule or particle, the structure of anything affects the subsequent function of that which is associated.
Are you diagnosing the effects and hypothesizing the treatment or analyzing the structure and attending to the cause?
There’s a huge difference.
