Laurence Hattersley Osteopath, Cork

What is osteopathy?

People frequently say: “Osteopathy? That’s backs, isn’t it?” or “That’s bones, isn’t it?” Well yes it is, but 'backs and bones' is really only how osteopathy is presented and perceived today.
Osteopathy is an established recognized system of healthcare which relies on manual contact for diagnosis and treatment. It respects the relationship of body, mind and spirit in health and disease; it lays emphasis on the structural and functional integrity of the body and the body's intrinsic tendency for self-healing. Osteopathic treatment is viewed as a facilitative influence to encourage this self regulatory process.
Pain and disability experienced by patients are viewed as resulting from a reciprocal relationship between the musculoskeletal and visceral components of a disease or strain.

The founder of osteopathy, Andrew Taylor Still, first used the term ‘osteopathy’ in 1874 to describe a philosophy of healing that he developed. Etymologically the word osteopathy derives from Greek: osteo (bone) and pathos (incoming effects from). Osteopathy describes the influence of bones in relation to disease: causation and cures; not bone disease or bone pain. Therefore ‘osteopathy’ is really ‘the incoming effects from bone’, or the suffering that results when disorder exists among them.
Pathology in orthodox medicine means the study of suffering (or rather the study of disease ‘products’, which is really a change in its original meaning.

The presumption that osteopathy is 'backs and bones' is possibly from the intent of osteopathy in more recent years (e.g. in the UK) where it has worked hard to be accepted into orthodox medicine, working with orthodox medicine’s philosophy of disease (see ‘What is Health?’). The main point here is that orthodox medicine deals with disease, not health. Being clear on this, it does consider good health, but only perceives health in terms of ‘normal’, i.e. it has parameters of good health: normal blood pressure, normal heart rate, normal blood glucose etc. Orthodox medicine treats diseases; it doesn’t make you healthy.

With all this, Andrew Taylor Still believed the body had an inherent healing ability, and that an uninterrupted nerve and blood supply to all tissues of the body was essential to their normal function. Thus if any structural problem (e.g. muscle spasm, chronic tissue tension or curvature of the spine etc.) interfered with normal blood and nerve supply, the self-healing power would also be interfered with and disease would be the result.

‘Osteopathic lesion’

Howard Beardmore DO – ‘The osteopathic lesion is not ‘a bone out of place’ but any obstruction to physiological processes or irritation, deficiency or excess that may, if left unaddressed, lead to a state of unhealth. This can include: diet, lifestyle, posture, mental or physical trauma and poisoning; any method that is only directed at only managing the symptomatic picture, acts by palliating symptoms and suppressing nature’s attempt to clean’.
Traditional Chinese Medicine states, “There is no such thing as incurable diseases, only incurable people”.