When I was at school studying osteopathy, I was subjected to the idea that the method was the best thing out there. Nobody said it explicitly that way, but the way they phrased things and conveyed their messages meant this if you read between the lines.
It's the same story with people in the Functional Patterns group, except that, in their case, they don’t shy away from explicitly saying they’re the best. (The fallacy in all this is that even those not producing any valuable changes while using the method also hold this opinion… but that's a story for another time.)
Now, the problem I find with all this is that I don't think there is such a thing as a “method” being “good” or “the best,”… or at least not to the point that people want to. Don’t get me wrong, yes, a specific method in itself can have useful and relevant techniques, and it can also have a very interesting philosophy. I’ve learned some useful techniques in the past, and I have some techniques and concepts of my own that I believe are quite valuable.
But at the end of the day, is it a specific technique that produces changes, or is it the practitioner’s capacity to look at a scenario, analyze it, draw the right conclusions, and then use the correct technique when appropriate?
I still remember many years ago when a professor at school started to notice that I wasn't drinking the osteo Kool-Aid as much as the others, she asked me the worst question she could have asked: "Samuel, what do you think osteopathy can bring to your life?"
I couldn’t give her an answer.
Not because osteopathy was completely worthless, but more so because "osteopathy" in itself is nothing if it’s not in the hands of a skillful therapist. It's nothing if the person "using" osteopathy can't think to begin with. I used osteopathy as an example here, but the same can be said with any other method out there that exists.
It’s a bit like thinking that professional chefs cook really well because they have very expensive knives. Yes, the knives can make their job easier, but I’m pretty sure you could give them the cheapest knife, and they’d still be able to pull off something amazing.
The opposite isn’t true, though; You can’t put a professional knife in the hands of an amateur and expect him to cook something amazing.
Going back to the subject at hand…
Early in my career, I came to realize that in the same way many people think they’re credible simply because they have a degree, many people have a tendency to pass the responsibility to their method of choice. At some point, they almost even “personify” this method, as if the method is something that will accomplish a task for them.
The question the professor asked me is a good example of this. The way she asked it almost implied that simply because you would practice osteopathy, there would be some magical stuff happening. Today, I now better understand why people do this:
Because it's comforting.
It's comforting to "hide" behind a method because it removes part of your responsibility of having to think and draw conclusions of your own. It’s as if since the method in question has made some proofs when placed in the right hands or because it worked in some select cases, then you can "remove" yourself from the equation, perform the techniques, and BINGO—things will magically fall into place.
What blurs the cards even more is that some people approaching things this way might even get results with themselves or others they work with. If you work with 1,000 people, at some point, there are some probabilities that SOMETHING will happen with 3 or 4 of those people.
But then, can you claim that what you're doing really works?
4 people out of 1,000 is 0.4%.
Heck, make it 200 of those people. It’s still just 20%, which is a very low number when it comes to the success rate in a clinical setting. If these are your stats, then you’re relying more on random probabilities than what your method supposedly offers or your skills.
So, with all this said, if a specific method is good to the point that you can sit on your couch and chill while “the method” works for you and does its magic, then yes, it is appropriate to talk about how fabulous this method is.
But if it can’t…
Then we should probably be talking more about the stuff WE have to DO to get things to work.
That said, it’s for this reason that when I teach, I focus on these things rather than on the techniques that come from “a method.” Don’t get me wrong, I am picky when it comes to the quality of execution, and the choice of techniques does play an important part in the process of getting changes.
But to me, it matters less than one's thought process.
And that’s because you can give a set of 10 techniques to someone who understands things, and they could probably help 100 different people with those same 10 techniques…
But even if you gave 1500 of the fanciest techniques to a moron, nothing good will come out of the process.
Therefore, I don’t let my students hide behind their elaborate concepts and ideas.
I force them to think and get real work done.