Some of us are good at compartmentalization.

We seal off the hurts, the emotional wounds and uncomfortable moments. And if we're good at it, we can more easily ignore the problem by suppressing it.

It's a common way we lie to ourselves.

The resulting dis-ease is a form of emotional cancer. And like dis-ease that turns into disease, the emotional tumor festers.

Compartmentalization is an avoidance strategy, going around rather than through. Lasting healing and the peace we seek require that we go through.

Old timers call this retracing.

It involves "returning to the scene of the crime," and attending to the original wound to complete the processing of it.

So, while thrusting into a patient's spine may improve biomechanics, it does little to resolve the lingering emotional trauma of the bullying, rejection, divorce or car accident.

Could this begin to explain those occasions when chiropractic doesn't appear to "work?"

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Bill Esteb has been a chiropractic patient and advocate since 1981. He is the creative director of Patient Media and the co-founder of Perfect Patients. He’s been a regular speaker at chiropractic gatherings since 1985. His 12 books explore the doctor/patient relationship from a patient's point of view. His chiropractic blog, coaching program, patient focus groups and consulting calls have helped hundreds of chiropractors around the world. Since 1999 Monday Morning Motivation has been emailed to over 10,000 subscribers each week.