Divisive Figure Sick Of Being Misrepresented
A popular, yet divisive figurehead within the Physiotherapy social media landscape is reportedly sick of having his views misunderstood and misrepresented. “I’m perplexed” he lamented. “I don’t understand why people continue to misrepresent my perspective. I just can’t see how they fail to grasp the nuanced ideas embedded within my three word slogans. I mean- it’s quite straight forward really… When I say “manual therapy sucks”, it’s obvious that I’m not talking about the act of delivering therapy manually. Do I really have to labour the point that there is a difference between the two?”
Intrigued, our reporter asked the physio to explain the difference between manual therapy and the manual delivery of therapy.
“Well, it’s like this” the physio explained. “Delivering therapy manually is not the same as manual therapy. Now, manual therapy definitely sucks, right. There’s no debating that. But that doesn’t mean one can’t deliver therapy manually… but the manual delivery of therapy can, and I will add, should occur independently from manual therapy.
The difference between the two becomes clear when you consider the fact that manual therapy is not defined as the act of using one’s hands on a patient for a therapeutic benefit. That’s not manual therapy… that’s just delivering therapy manually. Manual therapy is defined by the cultural context within which techniques for manually delivering therapy are explained, taught, learned, sold for profit and purported to “work”.
My criticism of manual therapy has never been about the delivering of therapy manually, but rather the ridiculous amounts of bullshit, bluster, arrogance, ego, complexity and claims of superiority that surrounds the application of manually delivered therapy.
You see, when all this bollocks is stripped away there is no argument that using hands-on techniques without reductionist structuralism, elitism, or ridiculous explanations can help some people feel more confident, reassured and relaxed.
But again, I must stress, in such scenarios, we wouldn’t say that a Practitioner is providing manual therapy. We would say they’re delivering therapy manually in the absence of manual therapy, where manual therapy is defined as the unhelpful and self congratulatory cultural baggage that turns the laudable process of manually delivering therapy into the sucky process of providing manual therapy. Is that not quite straight forward?”
Given all this, our reporter wondered whether the proliferation of hands on versus hands off debates among Physiotherapists might be put to rest by a shift in focus towards the unhelpful culture that appears to render manual therapy “sucky”, rather than a focus on the act itself of manually delivering therapy during a clinical interaction.
“Oh I defs agree. That’s why whenever I get a chance I wear my “manual therapy sucks” t-shirt loud and proud” said the Physio.
