The 'Total Person' Concept of Health
(Reprinted with permission of David Walther, D.C., DIBAK; Systems DC.)
In natural health we are concerned with three basic factors that are responsible for health problems. These factors compose an equilateral triangle in your health picture. If one side of the triangle becomes deficient, poor health results.
The doctor using applied kinesiology techniques to evaluate body function has a special interest in this triad. Only by carefully observing all sides of the equilateral triangle can the total person be treated.
1. Structure. Chiropractic has always been the major healing profession dealing with the triangle's structural base. Structure deals not only with obvious factors - like slipping and twisting an ankle, which causes a certain measure of health loss - but, more important, it deals with structural instability and consequent joint involvement, such as osteoarthritis, joint strain, and irritation on the nerve roots as they exit the spinal column. Since nerves control much of the body's function, their dysfunction can cause a myriad of health problems. Organs might not function correctly, and there could be muscle weakness, causing poor structural stability which increases the nerve irritation - completing the vicious circle.
2. Chemical. This side of the triangle has been dominated by the medical profession in its attempt to control body dysfunction via drugs. During this century there has been an increased interest in the chemical side of the triangle by nutritionists and health food providers. Poor health can result from an involvement of the triangle's chemical side in many ways. An obvious one is the fact that poisoning is dramatic, causing an immediate health problem; consequently, it is not easily found. You may be poisoned insidiously by a small amount of gas leaking from your furnace, from pesticides on the food you eat, or by drugs you take.
Nutritional deficiencies are included in the chemical side of the triangle. Malnutrition is an increasing problem in the United States due to the refining of foods, dietary indiscretion, and the depletion of the soil in which foods are grown. Again, the problem is insidious in nature, often not resulting in a classic malnutrition disease but rather causing a general health loss. Sometimes the chemical imbalance can be from taking too much of a certain type of nutritional supplement. Nutritional products should be prescribed and used in keeping with your body's needs. In evaluating this, your doctor will have you chew nutritional complexes and test you, using applied kinesiology techniques. This, along with other physical examination procedures and tests, will help determine if additional nutrition is necessary. There are also tests to determine the effects of chemicals and drugs on your body.
3. Mental. There is no question that a person's mental attitude affects his/her health. Observe how a headache often goes away when you get involved in something you enjoy! However, there is more involved here than an individual's general "moods." Research has shown that many frank psychiatric conditions are the direct result of physiologic involvements. Continual depression can be the result of low blood sugar. Hyperkinesis in children may be the result of disorganization of the nervous system. Postural changes affect emotions, as shown by the research of F.M. Alexander. The effect of your emotions on your nervous system can be evaluated with applied kinesiology techniques.
The three sides of the equilateral triangle interplay with each other. When there is constant structural strain, it may adversely influence an individual's emotions. Emotions affect the digestive system, which interferes with normal digestion of the food a person eats; because of this, the chemical side of the triangle becomes involved and a nutritional deficiency may develop. Muscle weakness may result that increases the structural strain - again completing the vicious circle.
Two unfortunate things have developed in modern health care:
1. Overspecialization of doctors has given us marvelous care for specific disease entities; however, because the total person is not looked at closely enough, very poor care results for such conditions as "just being sick" and "not being at the peak of health."
2. Different specialties trying to control the other two sides of the triad, as when using muscle relaxants and pain-killing drugs in an attempt to control structural strain causing pain. Structural strain should be corrected and, if possible, the cause treated. With correct evaluation, the cause can usually be found.
The applied kinesiologist uses his/her system to evaluate the three sides of the triad of health. He/she can determine when the body is affected by chemicals or a person is malnourished, and also use this system to determine why structural strain is present. The system will show whether emotions are affecting the digestive system, or if there is nerve irritation at the spinal nerve root level that control the digestive system. Since the advent of applied kinesiology in the 1960s, more understanding of why health is lost has been developed than ever before.
The applied kinesiology examination helps evaluate and treat all sides of the triangle. The triad of health can be tested, using your own body to determine the effect.
Emotional and anxiety reactions can be improved by working with the other two sides of the triangle, and by actually improving certain emotional nerve "circuits".
These developments provide an advanced ability to treat the total person. As a result your total health will improve, not just the symptoms that caused you to seek the doctor's aid.