Osteopaths Guide is Launched!

Hi

As an osteopath, I have been frustrated with the lack of understanding of what we do and what we can offer the public. With the help of the NHS and quite honestly some “confused” marketing by the osteopathic community – we, as a profession have been lumbered (no pun intended) with the title – Back Pain Specialists.

Now, when Osteopathy was conceived back in 1874 by an American Doctor Andrew Taylor Still – is wasn’t because he was trying to cure lower back pain. He recognised the importance of the musculo-system in health and well being. As a result, he developed various techniques to improve the mechanical efficiency of the body to have an impact on all aspects of health. A. T. Still developed various principles and ideas and I’m not going to list them all today – but as a taster:

1) The Interrelation of Structure and Function– Bit of a mouthful, but essentially means that if the structure is compromised then it will have an impact on the function and visa-versa, if the function is reduced then this is often expressed through it’s structure. Common sense really and this principle can be applied to most things in life!

2) The body as a unit – This is where the holistic aspect comes in, the body works as a “complete machine” he recognised years ago that to look at health problems in isolation made no sense at all – each part of the body effect the others, all parts work in synergy. Eastern medicine recognised this centuries ago, however, the western methods of medicine seem to have rejected this fundamental understanding.

Right, well that’s enough of those for now, the main point of mentioning them was to highlight that Osteopathy is about treating the body via the musculo-skeletal system not just treating the musculo-skeletal itself. Unfortunately, for Osteopathy to become a state registered profession it has lost some of its principles along the way to fit into the mainstream medical model. Osteopaths promote health via the musculo-skeletal system, we do not treat symptoms, if we did then we would end up chasing symptoms round the body (we’ll leave that to the NHS thank you)…

It is about time osteopaths themselves starting promoting the profession – this is where the Osteopaths Guide comes in. It is an ideal platform for osteopaths to promote themselves and as a collective promote a better understanding of Osteopathy. Check out the website www.osteopathsguide.com

I’ll be back soon……