My concept of osteopathy

(traduzione a cura di Vilma Vanetti)

What is osteopathy?

In my personal opinion Osteopathy is a way of thinking of being.

You can’t learn osteopathy, it’s inside of you, it’s part of you.

You can learn the technique but not the essence of Osteopathy.

Practicing Osteopathy without feeling is merely a mechanical act.

I know medical doctors that practice their profession with an osteopathic mentality (albeit not knowingly) more than many of  my colleagues. 

What does osteopathic mentality means?

It means going further, not only assessing the signs and symptoms that the patient presents. But also finding the primary cause, or as in alternative, the somatic dysfunction that is most meaningful for the patient and not for us.

Frequently, we forget the needs and the expectations of the patients and only think of our priority as physical therapist.

This couldn’t be more wrong!

Osteopathy aims to give an answer to the patient ‘s dysfunction: our main duty is to adapt our technique to every patient and not vice versa.

Osteopathy is essentially a manipulative treatment, it’s fundamental principle is that the body is a unit and its objective is to re-establish the harmony  between the various parts of the body (the nervous system and the muscle-skeletal system, the cardio-vascular system, etc…) stimulating the self healing mechanism, which are inherent, to every living organism.

Therefore, the Osteopath will attempt not only to relieve the pain, but also find the main cause and to recreate, where possible, the harmony between the systems, resulting in a sign of good health.

To reach this aim, the Osteopath will only use gentle manipulations, never traumatic or painful.

What are therapeutic indications for osteopathy?

I don’t like to talk of therapeutic indications for Osteopathy.

I think it’s reductive and doesn’t help to understand the exact meaning of this beautiful discipline.

When I read the “useful indications” of medicine, a therapy, an electric medical piece of equipment,

I smile thinking that can “cure the ingrown nail to the syndrome of Meniere.

If I was in the patient’s position, I would ask myself  “So is this the solution of all pains?!”.

Obviously not!

Osteopathy has no “instruction”  simply because osteopathy isn’t a cure. In fact, the osteopath doesn’t cure and doesn’t heal.

Well, you’ll ask yourself, “What does the osteopath do?”

Like an orchestra director he helps the organism to re-establish the lost harmony.

Have you ever been to a concert? Have you ever asked yourself if the musicians could have known how to perform without the orchestra director? The answer is yes.

The musicians could have known how to perform the music but nobody would have been there to correct them. A single mistake made by a musician, is usually followed by many other mistakes that may put the whole performance at risk.

The orchestra director’s intent is to operate and prevent (in case he doesn’t arrive in time to avoid that) the errors that the musicians had made, deceived by a single musician that had lost the harmony.

The osteopath does just this: he perceives the harmony of the organism (that is unique for every human being) and finds the organ, the system or the anatomical district, that has lost the harmony, and helps with manipulated treatment to re-establish the correct balance and function.

In this way the lost harmony is re-established in the orchestra. But above all, the osteopath avoids that the whole organism/orchestra may go in dysfunction, following the musicians that is out of tune.

This is why I find difficult and reductive talking about “instruction” for Osteopathy practice.

The osteopath isn’t a suppository or a tablet, to take when needed, he’s priority is to find and work on the acute symptom (a recent trauma), good on the chronic symptoms and incomparable on the …healthy person.

Thanks to the…of the osteopath, you may say.

It’s not a wisecrack, but a simple way to say that the osteopath basically works on prevention, therefore in the primary part of medical practice.

The three periods of medical practice and its contradictions.

As you may know the medical practice is divided into three periods: first of all prevention, secondly the diagnosis and cure, and last rehabilitation (restitutio ad integrum).

In my personal opinion the osteopath has to prevent the most common threats to musculoskeletal system, injuries caused by practicing sports, or any incorrect position we assume while working, that can be come toxic for the organism.

For all that is being said , we now understand, why it’s considered wrong, to associated Osteopathy ti physical therapy, discipline that belongs to the third of medical practice.

It’s also wrong to permit the study of Osteopathy only to medical doctors or physiotherapist.

Being a MD or a physiotherapist creates  only preconceived concepts, that a slow down and sometimes prevent the learning of the osteopathic philosophy.