Introduction
The purpose of this book is to share with the reader what I believe to be the most useful information that I have learned in my personal and professional journey through holistic manual medicine. Most of the material that is being used in this text comes from my experiences in the field of Osteopathy, a field that I devoted my life to applying and teaching. This text is written from my perspective on the subject matter and is based on what I know to be true from my personal experiences, which is why there are very few references given, except whenever a quote or definition is used. Again, my goal is to touch upon what I believe to be the most important and useful pieces of information to assist those also interested in this field.
One could ask the question, “Why the term holistic, aren’t all manual therapies holistic?” The answer is no. Many manual therapists and health care providers in general, work from the notion that if the symptom is removed, diminished, or suppressed then the problem has been corrected. This is often not true and that kind of thought and treatment approach tends to be palliative in nature, may make the person more likely to manifest increasingly serious symptoms, and often does not look deep enough to find and correct the true underlying problems. An analogy to this would be if a house that has smoke coming from a window the observer would go and shut the window, believing that this corrected the problem. The holistic minded observer would try to locate the source of the smoke and then if possible correct whatever was causing it at its source. In the field of holistic manual therapy and Osteopathy, the goal is to find, and correct the underlying disturbance if at all possible.
It is not the purpose of this book to review anatomy, physiology, pathology, biomechanics, etc. in intricate detail, as volumes could be and have been written on each of those topics. Instead, an organized overview with salient points related to major ideas and concepts is how this book is constructed. It is designed to be relatively easy to read, and hopefully understood. However, the principles, concepts, and subjects addressed are extremely important and enlightening to the mind that is ready to comprehend the breadth and depth of the subject matter. Ideally, after reading this book, the reader will be motivated to continue their studies and further explore and clinically apply many of the concepts that have been addressed.
The Principles and Philosophy
The ultimate goal of holistic manual therapy and Osteopathy is to promote, restore, and/or maintain balance in the body of the person being treated. With that stated, there are some basic principles that when understood, followed, and applied will allow the holistic manual therapist to better understand their role in this process.
The basic and fundamental holistic principles that need to be understood, considered, and implemented to have the best possible outcome are as follows:
• A person is a complete dynamic unit of function (body unity principle)
• A person’s structure and function are interrelated at all levels (structure and function principle)
• A person has basic self-healing, repair, and defense mechanisms (innate or inherent healing principle)
The principle of body unity stems from the idea that a person is a composite of their physical elements (body), their thoughts (mind), and the energy that allows life to be possible (spirit). So a balance between body-mind-spirit is necessary for optimum health. If there is an imbalance anywhere within or between these components, then there will be a disturbance and subsequent symptoms which may or may not be apparent to the person with the imbalance. The disturbance represents, and will be observed by the properly trained manual therapist as a loss of integration, or to look at it another way, a dis-integration of the person.
From a language perspective, integration is related to the word integrate. According to Webster’s dictionary, integrate means “to form, coordinate, or blend into a functioning or unified functioning whole: unite; to incorporate into a larger unit”. When a person is experiencing optimum health, we say that they are properly integrated. From a philosophical perspective, we consider a loss of integration to be related to an underlying disturbance or imbalance. Essentially, this disturbance is from some miscommunication, over-expression, or under-expression in one or more of the pathways of communication that are utilized in the body.
Communication pathways
The communication pathways that the body utilizes can be organized into systems. We need to remember that this system classification is an artificial breakdown since the body is really an interconnected dynamic unit of function. The systems responsible for communication in the body are the following:
• Nervous
• Vascular
• Lymphatic
• Cerebrospinous
• Endocrine
The nervous system is a tremendous mediator of communication. It demonstrates its ability to bring information into (afferent) the body and back out (efferent) to the structures that it has influence over (fields of influence). This process allows for communication with and between the external and internal environment as well as within and between the elements of the person’s internal environment. This occurs locally, regionally, and globally depending on the nature of the stimulus and the body’s response to it.
The central nervous system generally has control over skeletal muscle, both voluntary activity and involuntary reflex-type activity. The autonomic portion of the nervous system also has elements of control and expression. The three main actions of autonomic nervous system activity are vasomotor (blood flow), pseudomotor (gland activity), and visceromotor (visceral function).