Basic principles of osteopathy
Osteopathy was founded around 1870 by Andrew Taylor Still, an American Physician that was not convinced of the way medicine was practiced at his time. He wanted to treat the cause of illnesses instead of its consequences. Basically, he was convinced that health in the body is possible only when all its tissues and anatomical parts function together in a harmonious way. He came up with a manual therapy based on four principles.
First principle: “The functional unity of the human body “
In osteopathy the human is considered as a whole with its material, emotional and spiritual aspect. All the structures forming a human being, from gross to subtle level, are linked together and any problem of any structure at any level will affect the whole. The same way, if there is improvement or release in a part of the body, other parts of the body as well as the whole will benefit from it.
Second principle: “The structure governs the function”.
It means that if there is a problem with the structure of any part in the body, that part will not be able to do its function. If we restore structural integrity of a part of the body, the function of that part will be restored.
Third principle: “The role of the artery is absolute”
A.T. Still insists on the importance of the free circulation of the fluids in the body. With this principle, he intended the free circulation of blood in arteries and veins as well as lymph and nervous circulation. In my opinion, we can extend this principle to the free circulation of prana in the body. A part of the body that is not well vascularised or innerved will eventually become ill. Osteopathic manipulations restore the position of structures in the body, restoring at the same time the circulation in that region.
The fourth principle: “The auto regulation”
The body has the capacity to heal itself and has all the internal drugs to take care of itself if it is given the chance. When we remove the obstacles that prevent the supplying of nutriments and oxygen to cells as well as its possibility to evacuate its waste, the body can regulate and heal that region by itself.
The science of osteopathy is based on the knowledge of anatomy and physiology as well as the palpation skills and sensitivity of the practitioner. Over the years, osteopathy has evolved and more fields were added like cranio-sacral and visceral osteopathy. One major change in osteopathy happened in the USA where the osteopaths where included in the conventional medical profession which has resulted in osteopathy becoming mostly the same as allopathic medicine.
The traditional manual therapy that was osteopathy in its early years continued its life and expanded mostly in Europe, where former students of A.T. Still started osteopathic schools. The osteopathy that I am learning comes from theses traditions.
Ok, that’s all good in theory but what is it really in practice?
An interesting quote from Still is: ”Man is composed of Matter, Movement and Spirit”. If there is no movement, there is no life. An osteopath work is to find with palpation of the body the regions and structures that are stuck, where there are no movements. Once these areas are found, he uses a various set of techniques to restore movement in that structure. Then, with these obstacles removed, the body is able to restore health. To put it simply, osteopathy works by restoring and boosting the healing mechanisms already existent in the body to let them work.
To say it simply, there are two main categories of techniques that an osteopath uses. First there are direct manipulations in which, with impulses applied to bones, the positions are restored.
But what I find most interesting are the set of techniques that are called functional techniques used to restore mobility and harmony in the body. In these kinds of techniques, the osteopath, with very gentle manipulations, is proposing to the body a new healthier position. The hands of the osteopath act as a support (which is called a fulcrum in osteopathic jargon) for the body to lean on and resolve the strain that restrain the area in the body. Once the hands are in contact with a structure of the body in a technique, the tissues of the body start moving by themselves in a subtle way, trying to find a new balance with the help of the hands that gives them a support. In this phase of the techniques, the osteopath is not trying to move the body part in a specific way but is only there as reference, a fulcrum, to be used by the body to find a new equilibrium. After about one minute or so, the movements of the tissues will get more precise and slow and then all the movements will come to a halt. That is called the stillpoint. During the stillpoint that lasts for a couple of seconds, no more movements are perceived. In fact it is a kind of silence that is not empty but filled with presence not unlike the silence tasted in meditation. The stillpoint is the corrective and therapeutic phase of these techniques as it is when the biodynamic force of the body (that yoga people could probably call prana) comes to the treated location and dissolves the strain restraining the body structure. I will talk more about the stillpoint later as I think it is related to yoga and spirituality.
What is great with these techniques is that the body of the patient finds the best possible solution for him all by himself and the osteopath is only a support and witness of the whole process.
The next parts I will write will probably be more about how I found that osteopathy was related to yoga and spiritual practices but I needed to give a general idea of what it is before.
Innercall
