Don’t focus on the colour of the walls in your house if you don’t have good foundations or you’ll be forever sorting out cracks rather than enjoying the delicate mocha.
All these messages are built from the science and understanding of what actually works to get people a long-term recovery in our clinic.
You’re not a complicated machine that has broken, rather we are all complicated creatures with simple needs. A good therapist will explain a simple concept of why the problem has happened and how, then what can be done about it so that all the things that are important to you are consistently in your life.
For this to happen we need to understand you and I call this knowing ‘what we are really helping with?’ millions of people have backpain but only you has your backpain and that’s all I’m interested in when you’re in the room.
I really want to understand how it affects you, what it stops you from doing and what you fear this might mean. Pain science is a rapidly evolving field and some of the things we believe aren’t actually accurate so knowing what you really think about the problem helps me best help you.
I consider people to be jigsaw puzzles and love my role as a people puzzler so I’m very interested in understanding as much as possible about all the things that have happened to you over your life as these are the ‘pieces of the jigsaw.’ Like completing most complicated jigsaws the setup is simple, put the picture up in front of you that’s ‘what are we really helping with?’ and make sure all the pieces of the jigsaw are face up and on the table then it’s just a case of fitting them together and a bit of patience till the picture is complete!
How they fit together comes in the form of ‘fixing the boat, not just bailing water.’ Too many people get trapped with the focus on bailing water out of a sinking ship and can’t move away from it or the issue comes back. I always want to help someone see what the leak in their boat (body) is because if we fix this then the time consuming bailing out isn’t needed. Like a lot of issues it’s often below the waterline and I liken it to an iceberg, the bit that’s the issue isn’t easy to see initially unless you’re trained to look for it.
Now we have a nice simple concept that we both believe will fix the issue for good and not just an elaborate coping strategy. We can set about putting as much of our focus as possible on solving the underlying reason for the problem (fixing the boat), whilst doing enough bailing out to stop the ship from sinking because a ship without a leak at the bottom of the ocean is still knackered!
The Key Takeaway:
Its all about you, no one else has exactly the same issue as you so we need to know what we are really helping you with and everything that has happened to you over the years so we can create a nice simple concept of why you have your problem and what fixing it for good would be as I want to be the last therapist you ever see so you enjoy a life unlimited by your body!
