Recovering Structuralist Clinician, Arthur Upslip has suffered a regrettable relapse during a routine consultation with a back pain patient. Mr Upslip, 34, was just weeks away from completing a 12 step program addressing a career long tendency toward the biomedicalisation of relatively benign presentations of musculoskeletal pain.

“I’ve been doing so well for so long. Patients were coming into the clinic with unhelpful beliefs about the cause of their back pain, and I’ve been on my game… Helping them to understand that it’s not all about structure… pain is more complex than that. But then this guy comes to the clinic with a good old fashioned presentation of a left-rotated, right side-flexed L4 on L5, and before I knew it, I was back to my old ways, banging on about the need for a specific adjustment and segmental motor control facilitation. It was all so easy. It was all so effortless. The patient loved it. He was right into it and felt great after the appointment. And he was dead keen to come back to get started on the exercise interventions.

I feel so embarrassed. I’ll be a laughing stock to all the guys and gals on the BPS social media groups”, said an inconsolable Mr Upslip.