01/23/2026
I recommend a listen to this interview featuring Paul Ingraham
https://www.thethinkingpractitioner.com/e/161-science-skepticism-keeping-heart-with-paul-ingraham/
"How do we tell the difference between what helps clients and the stories we tell ourselves about why it helped? When does confidence in a method turn into intellectual blinders? And how can practitioners stay curious and effective without clinging to explanations that may not hold up?
Discussed:
Paul’s move from massage therapist to science writer — and the unresolved questions that pushed him there
“Modality empires” and why techniques so easily become identities
The challenge of separating your identity from your methodology — and why it matters
Confirmation bias in clinical practice: how we see what we expect to see and miss contradictory evidence
Placebo, context, and why they complicate claims about mechanisms in manual therapy
Paul’s critique of “structuralism” — the exclusive focus on alignment, posture, and movement dysfunction
How to think about biomechanical explanations without falling into reductionist storytelling
Why connecting dots between distant body parts (like foot problems causing back pain) can slip from plausible hypothesis into speculation
The role of neurophysiological effects in manual therapy outcomes
How to engage with research critically without becoming paralyzed by uncertainty
Why practitioners may need intellectual humility more than confidence in untested theories
The tension between skepticism as a tool and skepticism as a communication style — and what can get lost when critique outpaces curiosity
The future of manual therapy as it integrates pain science and biopsychosocial models — and where Paul remains unconvinced"
🎙 Science, Skepticism, & Keeping Heart (with Paul Ingraham) What happens when a former massage therapist turns a skeptical eye on his own profession and starts asking uncomfortable questions about pain science and manual therapy? You get Paul Ingraham of PainScience.com — a writer whose wor...
