Less can be More

Dr. Smith is moving more and more toward gentle adjusting in the treatment of clients as he has always liked to use the least force necessary when restoring motion to a joint and he has found that in many cases a gentle adjustment is all that is required. A gentle adjustment could be characterized as one that uses no thrust or a very gentle thrust.

In the neck, this may be a gentle mobilization of the joints by moving the head and neck around. For the lower back, it may be positioning the body with wedges under certain parts of the pelvis and letting gravity shift the joints into position. Clients find this very comfortable and many fall asleep even though they may be resting just 5 minutes. Another method that may be used is applying some pressure on a joint in a direction it doesn't move well while the client gently pulls on the end of the table.

Most of these gentle methods come from a system call Sacral Occipital Technique, (SOT), which addresses both the joints and the dura. The dura is like a bag of strong thin tissue that holds the brain and spinal cord. It connects to the bones of the skull and the sacrum, which is at the bottom of the spine. Because of this connection, SOT integrates cranial work and spinal adjusting to address the whole system.