To sum up..

A cartoon in wide circulation, adapted by me

This cartoon sums up the whole problem of operator models, in my opinion. They are based on shortcuts in thinking (belief systems) that leave science-based reasoning completely in the dark. Not that such models aren't efficient - they usually are! People get treated, usually quite effectively (provided they have no actual medical problem), whether they or their practitioners understand what they are doing or not. The physical skill set is not the issue. The issue is, what do they think they are doing, and why? Maybe this issue isn't important to most people. Maybe in the end, none of it matters. I don't believe that however - I think it matters a lot. Which is why I'm fascinated and continue to write and argue over these things. They matter to me. I think they matter to anyone who thinks and reasons and tries to integrate themselves, which is what this whole blog is - one ordinary female humanantigravitysuit, her attempt to figure out her own existence, human organisms in general, especially the various human primate social grooming groups/troops. So many operator models rest so precariously on so little. So many are based on nothing but a conceptualization impossible to prove or disprove, like religions/cults.

Like cult thinking, the only way to free yourself from operator models is... well, to free yourself from them. Not that they will go anywhere. Unfortunately you can't call 1-800-GOT-JUNK to take them away - you have to wait for them to wither and die on their own, but they will, if you stop feeding them, stop propagating them, stop watering them.

Unfortunately, for every individual who does this pruning effort, this selective weeding effort on his or her own mind, there are a thousand who don't. And another thousand who tried, but gave up and maybe became real estate agents instead.

Lately I've written a bunch of posts about trigger points. Here are the links.
1. Why I don't buy the idea that "trigger points" are in muscle  (July 2011)
2. Letter to a biomechanically-minded therapist (July 2011)
3. Trigger point model deconstruction, models in general (Jan 2012)
4. Yet another "trigger point" discussion (Jan 2012)
5. Projector? Or movie screen? (Jan 2012)

I'd like to add the essay on abductive thinking written by Barrett Dorko a long time ago, which describes the process in more detail, and more eloquently too.

Please read, and more importantly, digest, this review paper on central sensitization from 2010, by Latremoliere and Woolf. Central Sensitization: A Generator of Pain Hypersensitivity by Central Neural Plasticity