Professional Blog

Complex Adaptive Systems in Health – Part 2 When More Isn’t Better: Supporting Change in Systems That Are Stuck     Intro & Recap (Bridging from Part 1) In Part 1 of this series, we explored the concept of Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS)—systems made up of many interacting parts whose…

How Complex Systems Shape Health Part 1: Foundations, Selection, and Systems That Heal or Harm In healthcare, we often default to linear modes of thinking: a symptom leads to a diagnosis, which leads to an intervention, which produces an outcome. While this reductionist approach may be efficient for some acute…

Growth Happens in the Trenches How Complexity Theory Helps Us Understand Life’s Most Transformative Moments     Growth rarely looks graceful in the moment. More often, it feels like confusion, uncertainty, and a sense that everything is fraying. Frustration builds. Overwhelm sets in. Anxiety creeps closer. We begin questioning everything—our…

Introduction: What If the Greatest Threat Isn’t External? Rehab clinicians are no strangers to challenge. We face insurance constraints, productivity metrics, and a healthcare system that often feels more transactional than transformational. It’s easy — and understandable — to feel like we’re constantly playing defense. But beneath the surface, something…

Introduction Our culture is filled with advice on “good” posture, from “sit up straight” to “don’t slouch.” But what if posture isn’t simply a matter of right or wrong, good or bad? The reality is that the best posture aligns with each person’s unique anatomical and physiological needs—and it’s a…

Exploring Chronic Pain Through Evolution: Change Across Four Dimensions (3 of 3 Pain Series) As we wrap up our series on understanding pain, we shift our focus to how changes within a lifetime and across generations contribute to the development of chronic pain. Building on concepts from our previous posts…

The Path to Chronic Pain: Unraveling the Complex Causes How does pain, usually a helpful sensation, turn into the unworkable problem we call chronic pain, affecting over a quarter of the world’s population? Chronic pain is a lingering and persistent sensory experience, but it’s far more complex than that. It…

The Path to Chronic Pain: Unraveling the Complex Causes How does pain, usually a helpful sensation, turn into the unworkable problem we call chronic pain, affecting over a quarter of the world’s population? Chronic pain is a lingering and persistent sensory experience, but it’s far more complex than that. It…

Adapting to Change: Empowering Your Health Journey with Process-Based Skills On the road to better health, it’s easy to feel like you have to keep searching for the next treatment or quick fix, always trying to do something to make things better. However, at the Institute of Contextual Health (IOCH),…

Complexity science is a relatively new field gaining momentum since the early 1980s, driven by pioneering work from the Santa Fe Institute. It was born out of the need to understand systems that are too intricate to be explained by traditional science alone. These systems, whether found in nature, society,…

In Part 1, we explored how the principles of evolutionary science—variation, selection, and retention—can drive personal transformation through small, meaningful changes. Now, let’s expand on that foundation by examining how these principles can be applied to more complex scenarios, where the stakes are higher, and the changes required are more…

Imagine, for months, you have been waking up every day with a persistent, dull ache in your left hip. As a sales representative, you’re on your feet for hours, constantly moving and helping customers. The pain becomes a background hum, a constant companion you’ve learned to ignore. But over time,…

Life is full of surprises. Sometimes things go exactly as planned, but other times, we’re thrown off course. Have you ever wondered why one approach works for some people but not for others? The answer lies in how different systems—like our bodies—behave over time. The Problem with Medical Labels In…

Rehabilitation has undergone a major transformation in the last few decades, and it can be challenging to see the bigger picture and provide evidence-based care. Often, research doesn’t match the specific needs of the patient, leading to pressure to rely on popular techniques in one’s profession instead. Despite the fact…

SPINAL DEGENERATION SOUNDS SCARY BUT IT’S JUST A TECHNICAL WORD FOR NORMAL AGING! The spine begins to undergo completely normal, age-related changes at around age 13, and by our 40’s, our spine has already gone through a LOT of changes that we may not even be aware of. Normal age-related…

In Part I of this series, I discussed the limitations that exist with our current beliefs and theories we hold when it comes to dealing with pain. For most of us, this involves having theories rooted in a mechanistic worldview believing that our bodies are like a machine and can be fixed…

When it comes to the science of pain, I would say that I remain agnostic about many of the interventions employed in rehab. Social media often displays a dichotomous view where people are either for or against certain interventions, however, when I post content, I only challenge the thought processes…

How can one tell the difference between fairytale/snake oil science and good human science? This question is as relevant today as when Nikolaas (Niko) Tinbergen first proposed the need for critical questions determining the plausibility of biologic behavior. We are living in a world rampant with pseudoscientific explanations and interventions…

There are thousands of ways to reach up into a cabinet to grab a cup. Each action is made up of a complex interaction of intention, attention, multisystem rules and behaviors, context, execution, feedback and response across multiple joints throughout the body that ultimately yields an outcome. Human movement allows…

Rehabilitation, and much of healthcare, has reached a point of reckoning. We are stuck in a world where we operate in “protocol-driven clown suits”, putting on an entertaining simplified show for the world to watch. These suits ultimately relegate us to the future of becoming replaceable technicians (hello AI &…

“Learn it in one, derive it in two, put it in networks, change what you do” – Steven Hayes summarizing 30 years of his work related to Relational Frame Theory.   ***Please note new content was added at end of post as of 4/15/2020 Inherently, Relational Frame Theory (RFT) is…

Part 1 is available [here],part 2 [here], and part 3 [here]. By now a good chunk of you are wondering, where does this fit in the movement and pain science realm? I will attempt to explain the importance of the above groundwork by drawing a comparison of a mechanistic viewpoint…

COHERENCE (Part 3 of 4): DRAWING LINES IN THE SAND Part 1 is available [here] and part 2 [here]. …Disclaimer: The depth and scale of Stephen Peppers work is in many ways an understanding of philosophy that is beyond my pay-grade and will likely take some time for me to fully…

Part 1 is available [here]. Something deep in me (and many of you) has driven a pursuit of knowledge, yet with every new thing I learn, there is this underlying feeling, urge, that recognizes the available pieces do not fit together in a meaningful way and that simply pursuing more…

This is a long overdue follow-up series on a post on “Confident Ambiguity” from 2016. —- Most of you reading this post will have some background in the biopsychosocial model, pain science, and movement science. Based on this premise, my assumption is what I am about to say rings true…

We were honored to have Ben Geierman (@medicinal_movement_rx) attend our Functional Understanding November course and also spend a day observing the application of the course materials in our clinic at Community Clinic. Ben has taken a number of courses over the years and has really good insight into the global…

There is an epidemic of movement professionals emphasizing outcomes without understanding “why” they are seeing the things they are seeing in human movement. Whether a rehabilitation profession, a strength and conditioning coach, or personal trainer, just because something changes, doesn’t mean that it had anything to do with the specifics…

Rehabilitation has undergone a major transformation in the last few decades, and it can be challenging to see the bigger picture and provide evidence-based care. Often, research doesn’t match the specific needs of the patient, leading to pressure to rely on popular techniques in one’s profession instead. Despite the fact…

Rehabilitation has undergone a major transformation in the last few decades, and it can be challenging to see the bigger picture and provide evidence-based care. Often, research doesn’t match the specific needs of the patient, leading to pressure to rely on popular techniques in one’s profession instead. Despite the fact…

Rehabilitation has undergone a major transformation in the last few decades, and it can be challenging to see the bigger picture and provide evidence-based care. Often, research doesn’t match the specific needs of the patient, leading to pressure to rely on popular techniques in one’s profession instead. Despite the fact…

Rehabilitation has undergone a major transformation in the last few decades, and it can be challenging to see the bigger picture and provide evidence-based care. Often, research doesn’t match the specific needs of the patient, leading to pressure to rely on popular techniques in one’s profession instead. Despite the fact…

Rehabilitation has undergone a major transformation in the last few decades, and it can be challenging to see the bigger picture and provide evidence-based care. Often, research doesn’t match the specific needs of the patient, leading to pressure to rely on popular techniques in one’s profession instead. Despite the fact…

Rehabilitation has undergone a major transformation in the last few decades, and it can be challenging to see the bigger picture and provide evidence-based care. Often, research doesn’t match the specific needs of the patient, leading to pressure to rely on popular techniques in one’s profession instead. Despite the fact…

Rehabilitation has undergone a major transformation in the last few decades, and it can be challenging to see the bigger picture and provide evidence-based care. Often, research doesn’t match the specific needs of the patient, leading to pressure to rely on popular techniques in one’s profession instead. Despite the fact…

Rehabilitation, and much of healthcare, has reached a point of reckoning. We are stuck in a world where we operate in “protocol-driven clown suits”, putting on an entertaining simplified show for the world to watch. These suits ultimately relegate us to the future of becoming replaceable technicians (hello AI &…