Osteopathy

Osteopathy is a healing art, which appreciates the beauty and wholeness of the human being and his/her connection to the natural world. The vision of a Civil War surgeon, Dr. A.T. Still, Osteopathy flourished in the late 1800's and early 1900's, and is again expanding both in the United States and internationally.

Dr. Still's insights were quite radical for his time. One of the most penetrating studies of living anatomy ever done combined with exceptional life experiences led Dr. Still to a transcendent understanding of health and disease. He then applied this understanding to a method of working with the neuromusculoskeletal system that has been shown repeatedly to alleviate patterns of injury and illness.


The Science

Osteopathy is a unique blend of Science and Art. The osteopathic doctor spends years of in-depth study of anatomy,physiology,biochemistry,pathology,embryology, pharmacology and all body systems. The science of each of these disciplines is explored and analyzed both in the classroom and in the clinical setting. The Osteopath emerges from medical school a fully trained physician.



The Art

Meanwhile, alongside this intensive scientific training, the Osteopath spends many more hours learning to understand and feel the living, dynamic, functioning human body, and its living, breathing musculoskeletal, fascial and fluid systems. We are taught to have thinking, seeing, feeling, knowing fingers. We are encouraged to sit still and learn to respect the essential ebb and flow of the body's homeostatic mechanism (the system that maintains our body's health). We then work with that mechanism using a gentle, thorough hands-on treatment to balance structures that are disturbed or strained by injury or illness and to increase circulation to all areas of the body. That circulatory impulse allows nourishment and repair of body tissues and cleansing through the lymphatics of the byproducts of metabolism. Healing is thus permitted and enhanced.

This comprehensive approach is referred to as Cranial Osteopathy, because it includes the manipulation of the cerebrospinal fluid. This fluid bathes the brain in the cranium (head), the spine, and the sacrum (tailbone), and its circulatory force reverberates through all living tissue.



Advanced Training

As we Osteopaths learn to listen to our hands, we are usually attracted to a teacher or teachers with whom to "apprentice". The many layers of sensation to which we are exposed requires the patient, wise teachings of those who have gone before to lead us through and learn to interpret what we experience. As we grow in the art of cranial osteopathy, the potential for healing grows also.

This training is a lifelong inquiry into a deep ocean of study. Advanced training and experience have taught me that the answer to many chronic health problems
is best sought from within the patient's body. One of our basic principles is that the body is a self-healing mechanism with wisdom installed from the embryonic
beginning. An osteopathic physician seeks to reestablish the pattern of health and eliminate superimposed patterns of disease and dysfunction without exposing the patient to undue risk. So strong are the forces within that we can usually count on them to see us through both minor and major episodes in our journey through life. They inspire awe in those who study health.