• Matthews A

• Affiliation(G) / Northern Ireland / Belfast
• Child Care
• Chiropractor-Patient Relations
• Chiropractor's Role
• Ethics, Chiropractic
• Ethics, Professional
• Open Access Document
• Patient Care
• Pediatric Chiropractic
• Physician-Patient Relations
• Vagus Nerve / physiopathology

There are essential ethical elements required for a chiropractor to establish an authentic professional relationship in order to maintain the integrity of a healing relationship with their patients. Ethically, chiropractors also have an ongoing responsibility to do their own personal and professional development. Therapeutic presence is the capacity to hold a healing space for another person by developing trust and rapport and providing them with a safe energetic container influenced by one’s calm and centered state of being. The Polyvagal Theory provides a neurobiological narrative that focuses on the importance of ‘safety’ and the adaptive consequences of detecting risk on our physiological state, social behavior, psychological experience and health to achieve presence. To fulfill our biological imperative of connectedness, our personal, professional and ethical agenda needs to be directed toward making patients feel safe in the moment and getting into right-relationship. Recognizing and interpreting the mother/baby dyad’s adaptive behaviors provides an insight into their pre & perinatal imprints which reflect the child’s Baby Body Language patterns.

Author keywords: ethics, right-relationship, chiropractor, therapeutic presence, Polyvagal Theory, safety, co-regulation, pediatric, birth trauma, pre & perinatal imprints

Author affiliation: Belfast Chiropractic Clinic, Belfast, Northern Ireland
Corresponding author: Anne Matthews—annematthewsbcc@gmail.com

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