Spinal Manipulation Made Simple: A Manual of Soft Tissue Techniques

I read this book carefully and then read it again. I continue to refer to it often when treating patients. It is a very clearly written text. The concepts are rooted in osteopathic medicine, which make for solid, time-tested techniques. The major difference lies in the force of technique. Dr. Maitland's approach is to challenge joint fixations and then apply just enough force to encourage what he calls an 'orthotropic' effect in the surrounding tissue. The expected result is a released joint that is then able to articulate anatomically, as designed. If you have the 1st edition, however, you need to be aware that there are numerous editorial errors. This is a significant problem and should be a concern to anyone intending to apply the techniques. Most of the errors are right versus left, anterior versus posterior, superior versus inferior and lateral versus medial. If you have a solid foundation in functional anatomy, kinesiology, and biomechanics, you will be better equipped to find the errors and make edits. If you are a novice without much background in this, you will most likely have much more difficulty. Either way, please be aware that the errors exist. I confirmed the errors with the author, who informed me that there is a 2nd edition in which all errors were corrected. He also told me that the 2nd edition differs from the 1st in that the cover is a matte-finish as opposed to the glossy cover of the 1st edition. To reiterate, the book is excellent, the concepts and techniques are excellent, but if you can find it, the 2nd edition will cause many less headaches.

Overall this was an excellent book that made addressing spinal dysfunction with direct techniques very accessible. Much easier to perform than muscle energy techniques (which I've been using for 15 years), I've been using the techniques and love them so far.However, I do want to caution readers on the chapter about the sacrum. I think the author got mixed up when he was explaining how to do the more detailed sacral torsion/shear corrections and at some points has you actually pushing the sacrum more into the dysfunction, instead of out of it! I think it's just an oversite, but by the time you get to that chapter, you're already familiar enough with what he's explaining (especially if you already have a background in spinal manipulation) that you can figure out the right way of doing it, regardless. I could be mistaken, but I've gone over it three or four times and some of it just isn't right.Secondly, the author states that iliosacral torsions are extremely rare. I have never heard this is any other osteopathic or chiropractic text. In fact they all say the opposite, that torsions are unbelievably common. What IS rare, are pelvic inflares/outflares. Phillip Greenman, a famous Osteopath, said he himself had only seen about 40 true flares in his very long career.But again, this is a good book and I certainly recommend it.

In response to thor's review: I found the techniques described being no more dangerous than giving a back massage.I found this thoughtfully written book to pose no danger in applying the techniques, which are not at all forceful. No popping and such, rather, this book describes techniques that address the soft tissue that holds the spine out of alignment.After a few months of regularly applying these simple and safe techniques, I helped my wife become free of the ever present back pain she had for years. For me, untrained in physiology, it took careful study to understand what the author is saying, and then continued careful application and rereading to learn how to recognize and feel the subtle visual and tactile cues he describes, but the effort paid off for me, and it has worked wonderfully for my wife. I'd give it five stars if it came with a glossary and more diagrams (which, without, required my doing some researching on the internet and in the dictionary so I could understand his technical language).Once I understood the techniques, it was indeed very simple. It just took me some very worthwhile effort to get to that point.

This book is easy, reader friendly and accessible for somatic practitioners to understand clearly what one is feeling both at the boney and tissue levels. Jeff has given us his years of practicing this in distilling the information of spinal biomechanics into linguistically and technically clear steps for easing joint fixations and facet restrictions anywhere along the spine via soft tissue techniques and a whole body approach. Excellent drawings and photographs accompany the text for even further clarity. The anatomy is all there plus easy ways to understand what to do even when you don't understand why. The book is a tour of every facet of the spine from sacrum to occiput in the possible things one might feel and wonder what the heck to do about it rather than vague mashing around. Included is the constant reference to working with the whole body/person. Anyone "working" on bodies would benefit from having this manual and keeping it close at hand.

This book opens new road to meAbout manipulation of spine andNew understandings about spinal coupled motion.But patience is needed to full readings.

I'm honestly still shocked every time I use this technique by how well my clients have been responding to it; it's wonderful to watch their spines regain healthy curvature. This book is so very thorough, but still perfectly comprehensible. Mind, you can't just pick a chapter out of the middle of the book and expect to understand (like I initially did). You have to start at the beginning and take notes until the end; it opened my eyes to so many dysfunctions I hadn't previously been noticing, much less addressing. I'm extremely grateful this author took the time to share his gift for healing; it's not only changed the way I massage others, but also the way I handle my own back pains.

helps me understand my back better

As a registered practitioner I would say that this is a very interesting book describing techniques that work effectively (I use many of them in my back pain clinic). However, my edition of the book contains many editing errors which could be highly confusing to the reader/student (eg lefts and rights the wrong way round etc). I wrote to the author commenting on this and he agreed and kindly sent me a (long) list of corrections which I would be happy to pass on.

This book was bought for a person has completed a high grade massage course, who needed to further their technique.

Excellent

Very good condition