I had the opportunity last year of attending one of the many workshops offered under the banner of Network Chiropractic.

As the seminar lecture began, the assistant instructors started to congregate at the back of the room. Apparently, these were the veterans of Network gathering to adjust each other. As we tried to focus on the speaker at the front of the room, these devotees of Network went through what looked like epileptic seizures, writhing in their movements, eyes half-closed and rolling up, throwing their heads back in a jerking motion. This was ostensibly the reaction (and considered a favorable reaction) to a light touch Network chiropractic adjustment administered by their fellow practitioners.

Sometime during the middle of the day-long workshop, a young woman of about 23 asked me if I had ever been "checked" before and if I would like to be "checked." I didn't tell her I had been getting checked since before she was born but decided to comply, wanting to experience a "Network" adjustment firsthand. After a series of light touches and leg length checks, this recent graduate adjusted my neck in a routine manner and indicated that I was "clear." (As if for the first time in my life!) My experience was no more memorable than any of the other adjustments I have had in the past 25 years. (They were all quite favorable I might add.)

It has taken several months of ruminating and conversing with others to unravel my feelings of confusion, violation, and distrust that the Network seminar stirred in me.

It is true that there were close feelings of fellowship, friendship, and support among associates of this group. And that is undoubtedly a healthy thing that we need more of in chiropractic. If fact, these feelings of support and community have probably attracted many students and DCs to Network.

However, what I found at the seminar was a group of primarily young, idealistic chiropractors, many just out of school, who were embracing a method and making its leader a guru, with an air of superiority and exclusivity, while eschewing all others in our great diversity of methods.

One of the apparent highlights of the day is an expansive monologue when founder Donny Epstein tells his classic story of the little baby Charlie who is sick, abused, neglected by his parents and made more ill by medical treatment. The implication of this scenario is that medicine is the gravest of evils and that Network alone can totally reverse the life of this pathetic, unhealthy, and deranged character. As the story goes Charlie does become transformed by Network as do succeeding generations. Proponents of Network hold its method out as the solution not only to ill health but to the ills of society.

Idealism can be a wonderful thing and I support it whole-heartedly, but it can also be a dangerous thing. I know because I was a member of a very idealistic spiritual group for 13 years, one which has a large chiropractic membership and backing. And one of the most dangerous things about this group and all cults is that while apparently supporting other positive wholistic groups and health organizations and methods, it gives the clear message to its devotees that it alone is the true school, and it alone is the most superior form of healing and restoration for all that is ill and disturbed.

I have no qualms with the technique that Epstein teaches. The fact is there are other chiropractic and osteopathic techniques that are just as sensitive, just as powerful, and just as effective and far reaching as the one he has obviously assembled from bits and pieces of Logan basic, applied kinesiology, Thompson terminal point, diversified, and meningeal/fascial release techniques. In fact, the upledger work is more sophisticated and probably more effective in the realm of meningeal-based subluxation.

Why is Network so disturbing? Because it holds itself out with a dangerous superiority and while it may have a bead on freeing the innate intelligence of life, it does not have a corner on healing any more than any other chiropractic technique or the methods of craniosacral therapy, homeopathy, acupuncture, or ayurvedic medicine, all of which have been around many years longer than Network chiropractic. Network has no corner on spiritual consciousness either although that would be a very necessary and essential aspect of any important field of healing.

Besides the friendly but arrogant attitudes I experienced at the seminar and the elevation of Donny Epstein by his followers to an almost God-like status (another factor on the cult checklist), I believe that the public is in danger when men and women trained to be chiropractors move expressly beyond their scope of practice into the realm of emotional catharsis and psychotherapy. If these chiropractors are eliciting highly charged emotional memories and feelings which I believe they admit, are they professionally trained to work with them therapeutically or do they just leave the patient to his or her own devices? There may be chiropractors who feel comfortable in this realm but I think it raises some serious questions for any practitioner engaging in this kind of work.

Lastly, I have experienced some unscrupulous practices by over zealous Network chiropractors and their patients in which they have undermined the relationship of fellow colleagues with their own patients. Because Network chiropractors consider their method superior to other forms of chiropractic, they have, at least in some instances, commandeered patients into their offices with full knowledge that these people were already under care. Thus, I believe that Network is potentially a destructive element within our own ranks and that it has added weight and substance to images of unprofessionalism, anti-intellectualism, fanaticism, and naivete that we have for years tried to dispel.

Cathy Ostroff, D.C.
Florham Park, New Jersey