March/April 2005
Chiropractic:A
wave of wellness
By Wendy Underhill
For 20 years, a wave of wellness has been surging across the land, and
it’s called Network Spinal Analysis. If the wave hasn’t reached
your beach, read on for a condensed version of “All You’ll
Ever Need to Know about Network Spinal Analysis.”
Formerly known as Network Chiropractic, NSA is a body-mind healing technique
that gives the body an opportunity to learn for itself a particular kind
of motion—a gentle wave or undulation—and a natural wave-like
breathing pattern that’s called Somato-Respiration Integration.
These kinds of waves reduce stored stress and prompt general well-being.
The developer of NSA,
Donald Epstein, D.C., of Longmont, describes NSA as “a very gentle
touch along the spine, especially in the vicinity where the spinal cord
attaches at the neck and the lower spine.” The touch helps the body
“self-organize” to develop new strategies that eventually
lead to wellness in all areas, including physical, emotional and spiritual
fronts. In practical terms, the user becomes more aware of his or her
body, energy and breathing and may experience rhythmic, spontaneous movement
on the table. Off the table, most people experience a decrease in physical
ailments and stress; some long-time NSA users report relief from past
physical and emotional traumas.
Here are a few highlights:
- You keep your clothes
on (except your shoes) during a session.
- It takes the same
amount of time as most medical appointments, about 30 to 45 minutes.
- It costs about
$40 per session, after an initial consultation that’s quite a
bit pricier, and punch-card discounts are often offered. (Insurance
can pay for this service on occasion, but don’t count on it.)
- The therapy is
not painful, although the bodily sensations can be surprising.
- Emotional releases
and crying during a session are common.
- Practitioners evaluate
the client’s progress based on his or her self-reported experience
of well-being; if you don’t feel better, it’s not working.
And if you’re
big on privacy, you should know that NSA is a group experience. Treatment
rooms commonly have a number of massage-type tables for several clients
to use all at once, with the doctor moving among them. Obviously this
is good for the doctor in terms of efficiency; it also boosts efficacy
of treatment for individuals. When one person experiences a change in
his or her body, the tides subtly change for the other people, too.
Don’t expect
the practitioner to do anything dramatic. You won’t have your spine
“cracked,” your muscles massaged or your body contorted by
the practitioner. You won’t be invaded by anything—needles,
drugs, electrical impulses. Instead, with a steady hand and a surprisingly
concentrated look, the practitioner will guide you, or rather your body
and most especially your spine, to make subtle self-discoveries which
apparently lead to changes at a subconscious level.
The touch itself is
very light, and at times the practitioner’s hands don’t make
physical contact with the client at all, using an energetic approach instead.
The work is based on the idea that most of us spend our adult lives in
a defensive posture, literally and figuratively, as a result of accumulated
trauma. Much of this defensiveness and tension is housed in our spines,
affecting our alignment and posture. NSA allows the spine to move away
from its usual stance and try new, and probably healthier, patterns.
It’s worth noting that in many NSA practices, symptoms of disease
are not treated, and often not discussed. The theory is that NSA is an
approach to wellness, not to disease. (There are practitioners who use
the method primarily as a tool for healing, but NSA as a developing modality
has moved well beyond healing. Its name may soon change again to WISE,
for Wellness Integration and Strategies for Evolution, to better represent
the broader, all-encompassing focus.) In addition to eating well, exercising
regularly and following a meditative practice, NSA is said to take you
the next step toward complete wellness. “It’s as if most people
are playing Pacman on a 64K computer and Network can boost them to a Pentium,”
says Epstein.
Okay; so what’s
a session like? To find out, I decided to try being “entrained”
(the lingo for getting worked on). I left my shoes in the stairwell and
stepped into a beautiful, relaxed office, not unlike any modern-day chiropractic,
naturopathic or holistic medical venue. I was soon ushered into the treatment
room, which had lots of windows, a soothing water feature, some sculpture
of eastern origin, crystals, well-tended tropical plants, and a soundtrack
of rhythmic, vaguely ethnic (but gentle) music. I was able to watch others
being entrained first; some bodies were quietly lying face down, some
were gently undulating; some were absolutely writhing, in what appeared
to be a pleasant way. I joined my face-down compatriots on the tables.
When it was my turn,
the doctor wiggled my feet. I think he was probably observing alignment
or responsiveness or some other trait, but I read this footshake as a
greeting, sort of a “Hello, it’s your turn now.” Then
he did what I’d seen him do with the others—he put a couple
of fingers at the nape of my neck, touching, then not touching, then doing
a finger dance on and above that gateway. Ditto at my tail bone. While
I was a bit apprehensive about some stranger poking my tail bone, it wasn’t
a problem because the experience was all very clinical. There weren’t
a lot of words wasted in this session. The doctor didn’t instruct,
though he was willing to encourage me to do such things as concentrate
my attention as if it were a laser piercing through the gateway.
I’d seen the other clients raise up a buttock or a neckline toward
his fingers, and then I found myself doing this, too. It wasn’t
unpleasant; nor was it pleasurable, as a massage might be. It was mostly
just odd to find my body taken over by a little bitty rogue wave—I
was moving without volition on my part or any apparent force on his.
It was as plain as
day that something out of the ordinary was happening. And it turns out
this was the beginning of a dolphin undulation along my spne—his
fingers had enticed my neck, followed by my shoulder blades, followed
by my lower back and then my bum, to rise up in succession. Now, I don’t
want to make this sound too dramatic—there was no writhing or leaping,
just a gentle movement down my spine, as it began to “reorganize”
itself. This somatopsychic wave, the opposite of psychosomatic, was the
result of the body giving clues to the brain, rather than the other way
around. So instead of the brain making the body act somehow, it’s
the other way around: the wave temporarily amplifies any tension in the
spine and moves it out.
According to Epstein,
the wave is not a “woo-woo” thing at all. Research indicates
that “the wave temporarily suspends unconscious automatic behavior
patterns,” he says, “allowing the body a sense of safety,”and
that leads to an opportunity for the body to read its own subtle cues
that lead to new strategies that are more productive of overall well-being.
Good words, but would
NSA treatment really make me a healthier being? Well, yes—if I experience
the “transformative” power of it frequently enough. What’s
being transformed is the body’s lifelong protective stance that
protects us from saber-toothed tigers, marauding villagers, and oncoming
traffic, but also stresses us when there are no dangers awaiting. NSA
helps our bodies learn to let go a bit of the protective armor that, at
a reflexive level, we “think” we need, and our hearts can
begin to take over.
If you’re ready
to let go, expect to make many visits; basic care typically lasts six
to eight weeks, with perhaps three sessions per week. At the end of the
basic care, clients generally report better body awareness, stronger spinal
movement, a dissipation of discomfort and more ease in releasing tension.
After the basic care sessions, most NSA practitioners encourage clients
to continue with treatment. It can be expensive and time-consuming: I
met one woman who has been seeing an NSA practitioner regularly for over
two years, and that’s not uncommon. Epstein says that after three
years of entrainment there is “no ceiling of wellness”—in
other words, it just keeps getting better and better.
Resources, local and beyond
To learn more about Network Spinal Analysis, check the following resources:
- Association for Network Care's website, www.associationfornetworkcare.com
- The 12 Stages of Healing, by Donald Epstein (Amber-Allen Publishing,
1994)
- The Boomerang Principle, by Donald Epstein (Epstein, 1995)
- Healing Myths, Healing Magic, by Donald Epstein (Amber-Allen Publishing,
2000)
More Journeys
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