EPISODE 489: The Chiropractic Odyssey with Leonard Faye DC

Hey, chiropractors. We're ready for another Modern Chiropractic Mastery Show with Dr. Kevin Christie, where we discuss the latest in marketing strategies, contact marketing, direct response marketing, and business development with some of the leading experts in the industry.

[00:00:00] Welcome to another episode of Modern Chiropractic Mastery. This is your host, Dr. Kevin Christie, and today I'm excited to bring on a chiropractic legend, frankly, someone that's, uh, been instrumental over many decades to the profession, and that's Dr. Leonard Faye. Uh, I had the pleasure of first meeting him ..

as a student, uh, when I used to go to NPI, uh, courses as a student, and he would be there occasionally. And it was always great to, to learn from him, and so excited to have him on the podcast to talk about The Chiropractic Odyssey, and, uh, he wrote a book of that name. But we dive into some of the principles of that and certain things of, uh, wisdom that you should definitely take into consideration.

Uh, before we do that, I do wanna make mention, in September, uh, we're having a patient experience master class in Boca Raton in my office. We did this course, um, on... I did a half of this course in London with Dr. Chris Chippendale. I'm doing the full day, a different [00:01:00] material, uh, the second half of the day than I did in London.

It'll be, uh, not what Chris talked about. I don't have that knowledge of what he talks about. He, he did a great job. But it will be very helpful nonetheless. And you can go to Bitly, bit.ly/MCMBoca. You can also go into our Facebook group, Modern Chiropractic Mastery, and find it in there as well. Um, that's going to be in Boca Raton.

We're gonna be doing that, uh, all day on a Saturday, and that'll be from, um, nine AM to four PM. And we're gonna be having that on September 12th, 2026. So September 12th, 2026, Boca Raton, Florida. Easy to get to if you're not in Florida, even easier if you already are in Florida. So without further ado, here is my interview with Dr.

Leonard Faye

All right. Excited to have Dr. Leonard Faye on the, uh, podcast today. I should have done this, uh, way sooner, but excited to dive into, uh, s- all things [00:02:00] chiropractic and getting some insights on there. Doc, how are you doing today? Yeah, I'm doing really well. And you're, uh... Are you out in California right now?

I am, and, uh, I'm retired at 88. I lasted 64 years in practice. That's, uh, that's amazing. What, what year did you first start practicing? Yeah, in 1960. So a little bit different in 1960 than present day, I would imagine. Yeah, that's for sure. Um, now I wanna, I wanna get started out and, and ask, uh, you know, why, why did you write your book, The, The Chiropractic Odyssey?

Well, um, I felt that, uh, new graduates were missing the boat because they, uh, they were dropping manipulation, uh, being very [00:03:00] skilled at it, and going to rehab directly. Mm-hmm. And, um, the book has a biopsychosocial model, so it means that we're treating the biomechanics as well as the inflammation, as well as the soft tissue components of the trouble, and, um, then the stress factors.

And so the book explains this biopsychosocial model that, uh, I helped develop in Europe and, um- That's, uh, that's why I wrote the book Yeah. A- actually, I was, uh... You mention Europe in, in your book. I was in London, uh, [00:04:00] in June, and I was doing a, um, a, a, a class, a workshop with Chris, Dr. Chris Chippendale, and we were doing it on the patient experience.

But someone had asked, like, uh, you know, "What's the one book you gotta read?" And a couple people, including Chris, had, had mentioned your book. So it's, uh, it's, it's made an impact over there in the UK, that's for sure. That's for sure. Yeah, so, um- And, uh, hopefully after this interview a lot of, uh, doctors in the US will buy it and consider the biopsychosocial model.

Yeah, and I, and I, and I definitely wanna help make that happen. And I think one of the things I do wanna touch on, 'cause you mentioned a lot of chiropractors are kinda straying away a little bit from manipulation and adjustment, and they are going full rehab. And, uh, you know, I, I concur that I, I think it's, um, a, a probable problem.

Um, I [00:05:00] th- I have no issue with rehab, and I obviously think it's a great p- part of care. Yeah, there's a place for it. Yep. And after, uh, you get joints moving in all the planes- Mm-hmm ... then, uh, you need rehab in order to work Davis law- Mm-hmm ... so that the tissues change. And, uh, joints that haven't moved for six or eight months or y- years in an elderly- Mm-hmm

uh, it takes a year of, uh, manipulation and stretching, exercise to, to, uh, trigger up Davis law- Mm-hmm ... which is a corollary of, um, Wolf's law. So, [00:06:00] um- Can you, can you tease out a little bit, uh, Davis law and Wolf's law just for our audience? Yes. Uh, Davis law works for the tissues. Joints that don't move, their ligaments shorten, weaken, and thin.

And once the mobility is back into them, and they're recruited because of the mechanoreceptors stimulated, their afferentation is back. They, um- They start to change the tissues. Mm-hmm. And, uh, motion is a stimulus for tissue change, and, uh, that's not fully [00:07:00] understood by, by chiropractors. Uh, it's what I used to teach at MPI.

Mm-hmm.

When, uh, doctors got realistic with their treatment plans and made them long enough to accommodate Davis' Law, then, uh, the tissues actually changed and, uh, patients got permanently well, not just a, a temporary fix. Uh, why do you, why do you think the, the kinda modern DC is, is re- is recommending unrealistic treatment plans?

Yeah. It's, uh, it, it happens at the college. Um, people like me, [00:08:00] doctors, uh, that treated people for a year were, uh, said to be con men. Mm-hmm. And, uh, nobody needed a year's treatment, but that's not true. It, the degenerative changes show on an X-ray in the spine, and, uh, we know from experience of, uh, researchers that the ligaments have, uh, shortened, their range of motion is not normal, and, um, they're weakened And, uh, the muscles that attach, uh, d- don't go through the full range of motion Mm-hmm

S- [00:09:00] so they shorten and, uh, weaken, and, uh, it becomes a chronic mess that can't be reversed in two or three visits. And, uh, unfortunately, colleges are teaching that, uh, if you have neck pain, you've gotta have neck adjustments, and if you have thoracic pain, you have thoracic adjustments, and if you have low back pain, you have lumbar and sacroiliac adjustments.

But, uh, they completely ignore the fact that the, uh, spine functions within a closed kinematic chain right from the big toe- Mm-hmm ... to the occiput, including [00:10:00] the costotransverse joints and the clavicle- Mm ... and, uh, man- many of the shoulder girdle joints. Mm-hmm. So, um- They're just behind the eight ball because they don't really understand what's going on.

Yeah, so you're saying, uh, obviously, like if someone's got a regional issue, thoracic spine, only manipulating, only adjusting the thoracic spine is, is, is you're obviously missing a big, a big component of that. Um, uh, and so the other thing I, I, I hear you talk a lot about and I wanted to get your thoughts on it was the, the SAID principle.

Can you speak to that a little bit? Yes. The SAID principle is specific adaptation to an imposed demand, which is really Davis Law. And, um, [00:11:00] when you put a demand on a joint by manipulating it in all the directions that it's restricted in, all the planes, then, uh, th- that becomes a stimulus for Davis Law to go to work and, uh, because it's restricted in its range of motion, it needs to be manipulated many times the older the lesion is.

And, um, the lesion is really, uh, shortened tissues. And, uh, when this occurs, then joints degenerate. So the [00:12:00] pathological process is one of degeneration, and, uh, I'm not sure- Uh, I ever restored function to a degenerative joint, however, uh, function recur- r- returned well before the de- degeneration, uh, regeneration occurred.

Yeah. Now, um, also just kinda, I, I love this, um, you, you had kinda put this in an email and I really liked it. It was just kind of like a, a signing off thing here, but it was, you mentioned, uh, Jan Harfinson, and he's a DC PhD, and he writes, uh, "I'm a clinician that is guided by science, but a clinician has to be more [00:13:00] than a scientist."

Um, can you speak to that a little bit and, and what, what your thoughts are on that? Yeah. Uh, the, the scientists, uh, remove all the, uh, variables- Mm-hmm ... and try and isolate one variable and decide what we're doing with that. And, uh, we don't have to remove all the variables, and, uh, we can use multiple therapies and, uh, get a, a better result than the, uh, researchers do- Mm-hmm

with their, uh, RCTs.

And, uh, I think we should go back to pragmatic studies and just [00:14:00] show what we're good at first and then ex- explain what we're is, what it is that we're doing. Mm-hmm. And, uh, so I went through 1956 to 1960 at Chiropractic College at CMCC. Mm-hmm.

I just realized that the subluxation was a bogus and innate intelligence and all that nonsense of Palmer was, uh, was bull and- ... we didn't really know what we were doing. So I set out to understand what we were doing, and, uh, I made a, a [00:15:00] mistake of calling it the subluxation complex, the bio-psycho-social model.

Mm-hmm. And, uh, Palicia and, uh, Reichman, who had a, a seminar going that was very busy- Mm-hmm ... they, they, uh, made a synonym and, uh, tied the, in the whole Palmer philosophy, which i- isn't a philosophy. And, uh, we had a philosophical conference in Florida many years ago, and, uh, Gilardi and Reichman and, uh, I forget who else, were the speakers.

And, uh, you [00:16:00] had, uh, university professors that looked at what they were doing and, uh, said it was just, uh, a, a bad explanation as to what was going on with chiropractic, and it wasn't a philosophy at all. And, um- So that's how the conference ended on Sunday at noon. And, uh, all, all of the speakers and Gilardi and, uh, Reichman and Clum, uh, they kept repeating themselves, and the professors from universities, uh,[00:17:00]

explained how it wasn't a, a philosophy- Mm-hmm ... and what needed to be a philosophy. So there's been a... It seems like there's been a... You know, obviously the word subluxation brings a lot of, uh, thoughts and, and, and conflicts to it. Yeah. And the, what they're calling subluxation, obviously, is kind of more of the bone out of place subluxation versus what your subluxation complex was more of like the bio-psy- psychosocial model.

Is that, is that accurate? Yes. Okay. And, uh, what happens is that, uh, the colleges never took up the bio-psychosocial model. Mm-hmm. And, uh, John Scarange is now writing, uh, in, uh, Facebook, [00:18:00] he's now writing that chiropractors are doing s- so many different things that, uh, it's... And he doesn't call it a bio-psychosocial model- Mm-hmm

but he's, uh, describing what it is and, um, so the chiropractor has to be really good at, uh, palpation and manipulation and directions that are restricted in a motion unit- Mm-hmm ... and, um, then have other things to deal with inflammation- Mm-hmm ... soft tissues, fascia. And, uh, when I used to lecture, uh, Warren [00:19:00] Hammer, who by the way is dead now.

Yeah, I heard he just passed. I had learned from him as well. Yeah. Great pioneer. Yeah, he was. And, uh, he did soft tissue book- Mm-hmm ... and realized that I had just mentioned it, and it was a very big subject and, uh- And then the stress, I used to get people to read The Stress of Life, a lay book, that it, it- Got that on my bookshelf right now because of you, year, 20 years ago.

Yeah. And- On Selye, right? That's right. Mm-hmm. And, um, it's really important that, um- You, you deal with the stress factor in some patients. Mm-hmm. And, [00:20:00] uh, it, the stress is the dominant feature, and so you have to recommend, uh, uh, a counselor and, uh, work in a coexistence with the counselor. Mm-hmm. Uh, I used to have, uh, somebody in the building who was, uh, very good and understood, uh, stress.

Mm-hmm. And, uh, was a Selye. Uh, they study it, but a lot of them don't believe it. Mm-hmm. The... So he was a believer and, uh, worked at de-stressing and, uh- Mm-hmm ... my, my [00:21:00] latest book, Say Goodbye to Back Pain, it has the back chapter of relaxation techniques. Mm-hmm.

The, uh It's also at, uh, uh, amazon.com Perfect And World Amazon I wanted to, I wanted to go back to the, The Chiropractic Odyssey for, for a moment and, um, let our audience know, like, what would be kind of the overarching thing they would get from, from reading the book and, and understanding, um, that, that they would take from that?

Well, I think the, the major thing is understanding [00:22:00] treatment plans. Mm-hmm. And, uh, most of them are not busy because of faulty treatment plans. They, they cause the patient- Mm-hmm ... to, uh, not believe what they're doing and, um They move on to some other practitioner Yep And, uh, once you explain to them And f- make them feel the restrictions Mm-hmm And then the manipulation restores those restrictions and they start to feel free, and their pains go, and, uh, [00:23:00] th- they hang in there for three or four months or five months or whatever it is, and, uh

I had a, an 84-year-old patient in England- Mm-hmm ... that was, uh, he owned a, a big estate, and, uh, he had gillies that, where he could fish for trout, and he had gameskeepers where he could shoot, uh- Mm-hmm ... pheasants and snipe and whatever. And, uh, he couldn't do any of this. Mm-hmm. And he went to an orthopedic who told him he was 84 years.

Mm-hmm. And I was just in practice, and I said to him, "I've been told [00:24:00] if I see you twice a week for a year, I can get you moving." Mm-hmm. And, uh, he said, "I've got the money and the time." And so that's what we set out on. By the end of six months- He was walking his dogs- Mm-hmm ... fishing, and shooting. At the end of a year, he started coming once a month- Mm-hmm

and he lived to be 99. Oh, that's great. Yeah. And, uh, every year he brought in two trout, two pheasants- ... and two snipe, and two plover, and all kinds of game birds that he had shot. And, uh, that taught [00:25:00] me that, uh, you've gotta look at people smack in the eye- Mm-hmm ... and tell them the truth. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, That it's, uh, so many doctors got really busy by attending my lectures and- Mm-hmm

uh, going to MPI and, uh, when the other lecturers lectured what I was doing, doctors learned to, how to do it and, uh, learned how to make treatment plans and, uh, learned how to get the results with chiropractic and it's, it's not a, a magic. [00:26:00] It's hard work. Yep, yep. And I think something that, that I've noticed, uh, that's happening is it's hard work to get good at palpation and adjusting and, and I think a lot of folks are lacking the, um, delayed gratification to get better at it and the mastery of it 'cause it can be hard to get there.

And so now we might have too many chiropractors that, uh, are under-dosing their patients in a sense where they're, they're, they're trying to get them better in three or four or five visits. Yeah. And they're also maybe not as, maybe they're a little bit ineffectual with their palpation and adjusting and, and then almost kinda end up resorting to saying, "Well, the adjustment's not that impactful."

Um, but it's more of just ha- they haven't mastered that part because it takes time, and I, I just really, um, try to get chiropractors to understand is, like, you will get really good at it if you practice it often, and when you are really good at it, you will see the impact of it. [00:27:00] And when you start to layer on a great palpation and adjusting with the other things, great, and, and you do that, you are now a remarkable chiropractor in the community and, and it's just gonna be such a practice builder- Yeah

in general. Exactly. And, uh, and, and I hope they, they take you up on reading your book and getting, uh, the wisdom from that. Um, this has been, this has been a, a pleasure. Where, where could... Where can they find the book? Where can they find anything else you're doing? Yeah. Can you give us some of that information?

It, uh, it's at, uh, amazon.com. Mm-hmm. Amazon.ca. Amazon.co.uk.uk. All the, all the Amazons, right? Yeah. It's, it's worldwide. Mm-hmm. And, uh, it's not expensive because I'm 88 years old [00:28:00] and I'm not trying to make a living anymore and, um- I just want to, uh, make it my swan song Mm-hmm And, uh, it really grieves me that chiropractors are seeing 15, 20 patients a day.

And, uh, that means that they aren't doing treatment plans- Mm ... and, uh, getting really good results. Because, uh, in my highlight, I was seeing 16 new patients a week. Mm-hmm. And, uh A lot of them came in knowing that they were going to have two visits a week for [00:29:00] months and months Mm-hmm. Yeah ... because, uh, they got fed up taking, uh, NSAIDs-

Mm-hmm ... that, uh, just made them worse in the long run. Yeah. And, um, there's research papers on that, and, uh It, uh, uh, I, I, I just can't imagine people read- writing that they're, they're thinking of giving up chiropractic because they basically don't know what they're doing. Mm-hmm. And they've been given a bad model at the chiropractic college they went to that cost them 200,000 And [00:30:00] they, they can't believe that it's a bad model.

Yeah. And so, um, they, um, they just quit. Yeah. Happening too much, that's for sure. Yeah. Well, Doc, this has been a, a true pleasure and, and definitely a, a highlight of my career as a chiropractor and, and podcaster. And so I wanna thank you for, for all the years of, of helping others out, whether it's your patients or other chiropractors.

It's, uh... I know it's been a- Yeah ... an odyssey, and, uh, I really recommend people, uh, read that book and get that book and, and really open your mind to, um, the, the model of care that you're providing and, and get some great insights and wisdom. So, so thank you for that. Yes. I, I appreciate that. And, uh, I didn't know that you were, were steeped in, uh...

So [00:31:00] you went to MPI seminars? Oh, yeah. I graduated from Logan in 2005. Um, I started taking MPI courses probably in 2003, and w- I, I learned from you in a couple of those early on, uh, as guests. Yeah. And, and, um, you know, I have good, good friends with Mark King and Corey Campbell and Brett Winchester and everybody and still go to seminars.

Yeah. I went to the sports summit this year and, uh, yeah, uh, MPI has been a instrumental part of my career and life, and I, and, and I thank you for spearheading a lot of that. Yeah. I appreciate your, your, uh, compliments and, uh, hopefully people listening to this will read the book. It's a couple of hundred pages long.

Mm-hmm. Big print. Yeah. And, uh, it has many, many [00:32:00] references such as Davis' Law and Salter with, uh, continuous passive motion- Mm-hmm ... what motion does for healing and, uh, a lot of other references. Uh- Perfect. And I'll make sure we put that in the, in the show notes. So thanks again for your time today, and I really appreciate it, Doc.

Right. Thank you.