martedì, marzo 3rd, 2009
Back to the future Thoughts for “young” osteopaths; Recovering Osteopathic philosophy
Back to the future
Thoughts for “young” osteopaths; Recovering Osteopathic philosophy
By Danilo Bonometti D.O. Mt
There is a thought that recently came into my days so often i can’t ignore it. This thought is “back to the origins” and it seemed to me that Dr. Still was speaking telling me those words (don’t worry i don’t smoke strange things…). Many times i’ve attended seminars on osteopathic topics but not always i found lecturers with an “original osteopathic thought”. Dr. Still started his research on a new way of approaching the human body and nevertheless the human being, from philosophical thought, something i like to call a “revelation”, and with the light of that thought firmly in his hands he moved his steps on the path of body mechanics. The power of the “osteopathic philosophy” is the holistic approach to the human being and sometimes this is (incredibly), right what is lacking in some osteopaths or, so called, osteopathic treatements. We all know that we are living in a world where people want fast results and possibly fast positive results, so we concentrate on one specific goal and through a specific way we hope to obtain a specific positive result. The more the goal is high, the more we think we have to choose “one” way, one tool, to reach it.
In our job as Osteopaths, entrusted by Dr. Still, as founder, to carry on his philosophical approach to the human being, we shouldn’t fall into the trap of narrowing our holistic vision to get specific results. For example, i think that even if someone has a “lower back pain”, our aim should be to give this person a better balanced body that can give him a better balanced life and take him away from back pain and “blocked mechanics” in his body.
Many times my mistake in that case was to follow immediately the patient request : “take back pain away from me soon!”, and this is the wrong first step. Now i listen to the patient and his state, and then, based on the holistic approach, i get a “step back” to put some distance between me and the problem and in my mind do what i call “watch the panorama of the patient”. In the dictionary the word “Panorama” means : “an unbroken view of the whole region sorrounding an observer” and this is exactly what i think Holistic approach on the human being should mean, because only if you have a complete vision of a situation you can then ask yourself “why this is happening, and how can i help?”.