Jan Müller

Interview

How did you become involved in chiropractic?

My journey into chiropractic commenced during my teenage years when a severe knee injury forced me to give up my sport and put my usual routine on hold for an entire year. Throughout this period, I underwent various therapies, and while doing so I realized more and more the lack of real understanding and interest in my knee’s condition among the professionals in whose care I was.

Motivated by this experience, I enrolled in a physiotherapy course, but quickly realized that it would merely be the starting point of my journey. I sought a comprehensive approach to accurately diagnose and effectively guide my patients on their paths to recovery.

Ultimately, I found exactly what I was looking for in chiropractic—a transformative and holistic method that revolutionized my perception of human complexity and continues to be my vocation to this day.

What is your understanding today of health? What constitutes a healthy individual?

True health encompasses physical strength, endurance, optimal functionality, and a symptom-free existence. It extends beyond the physical realm to encompass emotional stability, mental clarity, and a sense of spiritual connection.

What causes patients to seek treatment at your practice?

While many still perceive chiropractic care as primarily addressing back pain, its applications actually extend far beyond. For those experiencing pain and sickness,  chiropractic treatments can alleviate a wide array of symptoms. For those already in good physical health, it can support personal development, facilitate growth processes, and unlock latent potential. I think people really don’t realize yet what chiropractic care can do.  As a result, the most common issues with which people currently come to my practice are back pain, headaches, and various forms of numbness and tingling in their limbs.

However, even in those cases it is important to me to not only see the physical symptoms, but to understand the human in front of me as an integrated whole. I want to sensitize people to a holistic perspective on their body. That means to not just look at symptoms as isolated occurrences, but to also consider the symptoms’ roles in the broader interconnected system, which includes the status quo of our life and any potential areas that might play a role in contributing or impeding our wellbeing.

In recent years, my specialization and focus has gravitated increasingly towards patients with chronic pain, exhaustion and fatigue symptoms, hypersensitivity and similar issues—all often underserved by conventional medicine. The suffering is immense and witnessing their relief and improved well-being post-treatment brings me great joy and satisfaction, particularly when the benefits for the patient are long-term.

What makes chiropractic so special, for you?

I think that my personal perspective here probably diverges slightly from most other chiropractors. For me the biggest gift is the insight that the physical body is a gateway to deeper, holistic healing. By influencing the physical body we can influence the subtle body, consequently affecting emotional, mental, and spiritual aspects. That means that the physical body is a fantastic entryway to a much deeper level of healing, which then occurs via the energetic system.

How do you perceive your role as a therapist?

In addition to addressing physical ailments, I also understand myself as an advocate for this holistic viewpoint, because it is enormously important to me that people really understand the interconnections. When people come to my practice, because they feel unwell, I find it important to recognize that they don’t just have an “issue” or “problem”, but that there is a cause and a reason for what is happening. In my eyes, it is part of our responsibility as individual humans to truly understand our structure and to master it. Therefore, I think my role as a therapist is to guide and help people better understand their own structure.

What do you mean by “structure” here? And what does it mean “to recognize yourself” in this context?

We are all built in a particular and individual way. It’s almost a cliché to say that we are all individual and different, but it’s true. Although most people have two arms, two legs, and one head, there are significant differences. Some of us experience ourselves primarily through emotions, others can sit and read books all day and are more intellectual. And then there are others who need to be outside and physically active all the time, otherwise, they don’t feel happy and fulfilled. These personality structures are also reflected in the structure of our bodies: there are those who are so stiff that they have to stretch all the time, and those who are so unstable (or flexible) that they have to constantly find ways to stabilize and strengthen. This is something that really fascinates me, because I think it is a really important aspect of life: to really understand yourself and your own structure. To recognize what your body needs, what you need in order to achieve health, well-being, and fulfillment.

The patient only experiences how you touch, move, and adjust the body. What is your own view? What exactly do you do with the body?

That’s a difficult question because I do something different for each person, but in general, I would say: balancing and activating. That’s what I really do at the core. I use physical tension and joints for that. I use muscles to set a process in motion that continues on its own when I am no longer there as a therapist. I use targeted healing impulses to ensure that the body has enough information to bring itself back into balance.

What do you believe is the greatest potential of chiropractic care?

The greatest potential ist that someone can get in touch with something similar to limitlessness, where the body is no longer experienced as restrictive, because it is in a complete state of flow. When that occurs, humans are happy and the mind and spirit become lighter and let go of tension.

The truly transformative effects often happen when individuals come to me after symptoms have already dissipated or I treat patients who start with the goal of alleviating an acute ailment but then continue with their sessions to deepen their sense of wellbeing. In these instances we can work on a distinctly deeper level of health. Witnessing the resulting transformations is incredible and also a profoundly rewarding gift for the chiropractor.

What are your objectives when welcoming a new patient? How do you chart their journey to health?

It is of great importance to me, to understand the unique needs of the patient in front of me. I really want to fully comprehend what is bothering them and what they want to accomplish. Because there is a big difference between me telling them what they want to achieve and me actually listening to what they themselves want to achieve. And that’s why one of my first tasks is to understand what the objectives are. Based on their goals and an understanding of where they are at in their healing process, we can then together map out the healing journey, and I can structure the treatment plan accordingly.