Authenticity, passion, and Zero Balancing are my most effective strategies for patient retention and new patient referral; not pre-meditated scripts, bulk mailings, spinal screenings or chasing after patients or convincing them they need my care. And discovering the profound gifts of the leading-edge structural and energetic manual therapy, Zero Balancing (ZB), and adding it to my chiropractic and nutrition practice, has unified my personal growth with the sustainability of my professional practice.
What is Zero Balancing?
According to the Zero Balancing website, this therapy was "developed by Fritz Frederick Smith, MD in the early 1970s. Zero Balancing is a powerful body-mind therapy that uses skilled touch to address the relationships between energy and structures within the body. Following a protocol that typically lasts 30 – 45 minutes, the practitioner utilizes finger pressure and gentle traction on the bones and joints to create fulcrums, or points of balance, around which the body can relax and reorganize."
Dr. Smith credits his success to his father, a renowned chiropractor, who practiced well into the 9th decade of his life. Smith feels his father gave him a head start in life with the early imprint of conscious, compassionate touch.
The field of energy medicine is expanding rapidly and the newer sciences are beginning to offer a vocabulary that will facilitate a quantum shift in how we perceive our human bodies (among other things).
Chiropractors have been ahead of their time clinically, but a unified, integrated vocabulary has been lacking.
Innate Intelligence
We talk about innate intelligence in chiropractic philosophy classes and seminars, but when we go to the table, what does it mean? I remember being taught in technique lab that, as we take up tissue slack along a line of drive, we connect with the innate intelligence of the body before we deliver a thrust. That was about it. It had something to do with tissue slack and bringing a joint to tension, but I never heard any explanation about why that was connecting to innate intelligence or how I would know if I missed the connection.
I think I was being asked to just know that it was there and trust that if I made an adjustment it would be released, activated or stimulated in some therapeutic way. And it probably is, in most cases, but here's the thing: somewhere along the line, the academic, theoretical and practical instruction about the mechanics of touching innate intelligence was lost.
It wasn't until I started studying Zero Balancing that the missing piece was restored and I began to have a more meaningful conversation through tactile connection with the intelligence in another body. Zero Balancing explores the vocabulary, theory and perceptive skills necessary to connect with the bioenergetic field through touch, and primarily through foundational joints in the skeletal system.
Zero Balancing primarily addresses "foundation" joints involved in the transmission of energetic forces through the body: the spine, pelvis, hips and feet, although advanced work includes other joints, the skull, viscera, etc.
Foundation joints are evaluated for tissue held tension, range of motion, joint play, quality of motion and perhaps most importantly, quality of ligament end-feel; it is often through attuned attention to ligament engagement that allows access to the intelligent bioelectric field of the body.
When an imbalance is identified, a fulcrum is applied to the area. A fulcrum is a field of tension or point of contact, which when held stationary, becomes a lever upon which the body/mind re-orients and re-organizes itself via the piezoelectric nature of collagen (discussed below).
When both the energy field and the structural anatomy are contacted simultaneously and consciously, an amazing synthesis occurs, the patient drops into a very relaxed, meditative state. Characteristic feedback signals that occur in the patient: rapid eye movement, eye fluttering, changes in breath pattern, reflex motor activity in hands/feet/face, borborygmus and more. These working signs continually inform the practitioner about the effectiveness of the work and the response in the patient. Working signs determine the rate, rhythm and length of the therapeutic session.
In effect, these signs monitor the connection with the patient's body-centered intelligence. Re-evaluation of a joint after fulcrum placement often reveals immediate improvement in function and end-feel. Clinical outcomes include decreased pain, ease of movement, improved range of motion, greater postural awareness, decreased reactivity to physical, mental and emotional stress, augmented adaptive ability, greater self-awareness and often a global sense of wholeness and contentment.
And the beauty is that both the neuromusculoskeletal and the cognitive benefits occur simultaneously, rather like side-effects of each other. It is one of the most truly wholistic ways of addressing a patient that I have come across. The effects of Zero Balancing are likely mediated through the bioelectric field in concert with the mechanical continuum of connective tissue that unifies every part of the body from the outer envelope of skin, through the deepest cell membranes, and into the DNA (Oschman, 2000).
Advances in bioelectrodynamics support the concept of a global body-centered consciousness associated with the anatomy of the aligned, collagen liquid crystalline continuum in the connective tissues which functions as a superconductor. This liquid crystalline collagen network, although interconnected with the systems, exists outside the nervous system and facilitates communication at a much faster speed than nerve conduction (Ho, Knight, 1998).
[pb]Dr. Robert O. Becker has studied this bioelectrodynamic field for decades and shows it to be involved in morphogenesis, regeneration and healing (Becker 1990). Dr. Valerie Hunt worked in laboratories at UCLA and other universities, and although she started as a scientific skeptic, her life's work concluded with the opinion that the human energy field not only exists but changes in the field precede physiological responses to physical, mental and emotional stimuli. She has also shown that changes in the energy field are related to, and actually precede pathology in the tissues (Hunt, 2000).
Studies in cognitive sciences demonstrate that thoughts and emotions have electrical and thermal properties and, as such, are propagated through wave phenomena within the interconnected superconductive matrix of body tissue. Chiropractors can learn to more consciously access the flow of information transmitted through connective tissue, including bone, via greater attention to, and perception of tissue-held tension. Osteopathic leaders (Barral, Chaffour, Upledger) are teaching these skills to a whole new generation of PTs, MTs and DOs –their classes are packed with practitioners eager to restore vitalism to body-centered therapy. And chiropractors are throwing the baby out with the bath water.
Zero Balancing is a natural an exciting adjunct to chiropractic. The Zero Balancing protocol is an organized, yet organic approach to addressing imbalances in key joints of the skeleton. It can be practiced as a stand-alone manual therapy (sessions last 15 to 40 minutes) and partial protocols are easily integrated into chiropractic treatment to address problem-focused complaints in shorter patient encounters.
Staff therapists can be trained to offer Zero Balance sessions as the doctor continues a higher volume schedule. Although I have hired a trained RN to take on some Zero Balance case load, my fascination with the body-centered consciousness keeps my hands in the work. It is not only an effective therapy for patients, it's like practicing a martial art with the body—practicing the form uncovers endless new learning for practitioners.
Training and Practice Benefits
Certification in Zero Balancing follows approximately 175 hours of continuing education (100 class hours, 75 practical), one-on-one mentoring and successful performance evaluation. This individualized learning program transforms students of Zero Balancing into practitioners who embody the fundamental skills of this art.
Zero Balancing is a valuable asset to me in building a sustainable practice with very minimal advertising or marketing because it is not only clinically effective, but feels really good.
Because of the intentional, mind/body, internally experiential, consciousness-expanding and stress-reducing nature of the work, patients talk about their sessions with friends and family more so than they might talk about their adjustments. I consistently get feedback like, "After one session the tension just left my shoulders and I felt unusually calm all week. My husband even commented on how happy I seemed. He wants me to keep coming and I think this would help my son with migraines and anxiety." And "When you worked on my feet, I felt like I came home to myself, like my feet are connecting with the earth better and my plantar fasciitis disappeared." Stories like this lead to continuous referrals.
Other chiropractor and Zero Balancers agree. Dr. Sean Lynch (Grand Junction, CO) said, "ZB has helped with patient retention, in that, even if I don't name it, patients ask for it, sit up disappointed if I skip using the ZB touch. Many have referred friends and family for Zero Balancing, which has provided an incredible experience to introduce them to chiropractic and all that the adjustment has to offer." Dr. Seth Rosenblum (Jay, NY) has been using ZB for 10 years. "I have found ZB to be a wonderful adjunct to chiropractic. It's amazing how powerful even a 10 minute ZB session can be! It has most definitely been a practice builder for me as I have many patients coming specifically for ZB and returning on a regular basis." Dr. Cheryl Shea (Kirkwood, MO) uses ZB daily in her practice. "Zero Balancing is a powerful but gentle technique. It is effective in achieving both structural and neurological changes in patients." Dr. Jeff Rockwell, Post-Graduate Faculty at Parker University says, "80% of my adjustments are ZB fulcrums and they are the quintessence of adjusting, as they invite the patient to make the correction from the inside-out."
Zero Balancing is valuable for patients with intractable low back pain, chronic neck and shoulder tension, radiculopathy, TMJ disorders, migraine and tension headaches, depression and anxiety, unresolved post-surgical pain, knee pain, carpal tunnel syndrome and almost everything that presents in a chiropractic practice. It is an excellent choice for elderly, frail or frightful patients who may not tolerated HVLA adjustments.
The chiropractic profession is in dire danger of losing its vitalistic core and becoming back pain mechanics. We can choose to be expert mechanics and we will continue to serve our patients. We can also choose to be expert artisans fine tuning the relationship between the tension on the virtual strings of our patients' tissues and the tone of their music. As we keep an eye on the newer sciences and advancements in the field of energy medicine we will reclaim the virtuosity of our beloved profession and our patients will arrive on their own. They are waiting for us.
Resources
- Becker, R.O. Cross Currents. The Promise of Electromedicine, the Perils of Electropollution, Jeremy P. Tarcher, Inc., Los Angeles, 1990.
- Ho, M.W. and Knight, D.M, Liquid crystalline meridians. The American Journal of Chinese Medicine 26, 251-263, 1998.
- Hunt, Valerie, Infinite Mind: Science of the Human Vibrations of Consciousness, Malibu Publishing Co., 2000.
- Oschman, J. Energy Medicine: The Scientific Basis, Churchill Livingstone, 2000.
