09/14/2026
I think about this a lot in my work. The real goal of any ethical medical provider should be to eventually fire themselves.
There are two broad categories of pain therapies. Passive therapies are things done to you, like massage, acupuncture, chiropractic adjustments, or ultrasound. Active therapies are things you're taught to do for yourself, like stretching, resistance training, yoga, or qigong.
Both kinds have a place. If someone is in so much pain they can't do the things they need or enjoy, passive care can help get them to a point where active therapy becomes possible. That's a reasonable use of it.
Where it turns into a problem is when a provider tells you that you need the same treatment every week or every month indefinitely, with no plan for you to build your own capacity. At that point the relationship starts to look more like a subscription than a path toward getting better.
My practice focuses on helping people reach remission from chronic and complex conditions. Sometimes that remission is lasting and people never need to come back. Sometimes life throws something at them, a virus, an injury, a stretch of bad sleep, and they need support again for a while. Either way, my job is to teach people how to manage their own health so they need me less over time.
We started an online program about eight months ago, and the first group of people to move through it are reaching a point where they don't really need us anymore. We're glad about that. We just hope they remember the experience and pass it along to people they care about.
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