Response Potential

Direct and indirect approaches in manual therapy.

Our potential to respond may be robust or diminished. What we do most of the time pushes the the needle to resilience or pulls it toward deficiency.

It’s not surprising that once we’re run down it’s easier for our emotions or attention to be hijacked.

Taking the body into the compensatory pattern, just beyond where its currently held in adaptation, where its comfortable in its discomfort.

The body will re-seek equilibrium. This may be felt in increased activity in the area of treatment, sometimes the area of increased activity is elsewhere in the body

Utilizing resistance in the therapeutic process.

Limited movement may be considered resistance to a particular motion pattern. If a persons low back pain is keeping them from standing erect. Whatever the cause of the pain, it is generating resistance to standing upright.

Treatment via going into the pattern of dysfunction pressurizes the resistance. This strategy changes the way load is interpreted proprioceptively, elevating the ceiling of function.

The whole body may manifest a defensive cascade, propagated by any one or few of the body’s systems; neural, vascular, visceral, and postured through the locomotor system.

Engaging the tensional patterns directly arouses a protective mechanism. So, when working in this way, it is more the protective response that is being worked with, rather than causal factor.

While following the pattern indirectly is often the road that reveals more causative factors. The signal among the noise.

Direct and indirect each has their place, understanding the mechanisms behind their effectivity helps the therapist choose the appropriate approach.