The power that made the body, heals the body

Think about it… we are ALL self-regulating organisms.

We grow, reproduce, heal and die by the same formula and cycle – whether we are human or animal or vegetable. It therefore stands to reason that the “power” and mechanisms that create us, also are used to heal and repair us!

As an Osteopath I tap into that inherent wisdom and mechanism to help your body, mind and emotions to make those changes so that the whole mechanism goes TOWARDS HEALTH.

This is a fundamental truth in life (as well as Osteopathy) and has been used all over the World for thousands of years.

Osteopaths are there to help the body align, re-balance, change its function or structure to better adapt and manage its surroundings.

We cajole, listen, act as a conduit, encourage, push or pull, decompress, understand, deduce, get to the source of the problem – but ultimately – we then let the mechanism do the work!

“Find it, fix and leave it alone.”

A quote from the Osteopathic founder Dr Andrew Taylor Still D.O. in the 1880’s.

Allopathic medicine (what we think of as reductionist “normal” medicine) has far less of a wholistic, understanding approach to the Health of the Organism. Harsh chemicals alter chemical pathways with no understanding of the other pathways that get disrupted in the process. Apparently this is thought to be OK as long as its doesn’t kill the patient (but surprisingly often it DOES!) although you don’t hear about this side often.

It was not always like this – but with the advent of updating the old Medical Schools in the early part of the 20th Century their curriculum became totally revised. The doctors lost the listening, caring, integrative skills of melding the mind, body and emotions in their care of the patient. Instead the pharmaceuticals won, along with trying to simplify everything down into measurable solutions and results… we are left with this legacy.

Fortunately Osteopathy has maintained and enhanced the wholistic outlook which is totally patient-led. Our “prescriptions” are unique, totally personalised but still informed with modern research and developments. You get the best of both worlds when you see your Osteopath, Gayle Palmer!

By focussing on what the “organism” needs at any given moment in time, the Osteopath can not only effect immediate, recognisable changes; but some of the alterations which we put into effect will take days, weeks, even months to come to full fruition!

Osteopathy is a healing discipline which keeps on giving.

In this video Gayle Palmer, with her locum Lissie Evans, discuss this priniciple in more detail:

Transcript:

PRINCIPLES OF OSTEOPATHY

By Gayle Palmer and Lizzie Evans

Gayle: Hi, this is Gayle Palmer from the Living Elements Clinic in Sidlesham. And today I wanted to introduce you to Lizzie Evans, who is also going to be working at the clinic and we wanted to talk about the principles of osteopathy. What osteopathy is based upon and why it works as well as it does. Now, four principles and which we are going to talk about one of them in this video and then will do the other ones too. So, one of the first principles that we have is that the body has a healing mechanism to heal and rebalance itself. Okay? You may not think of that as a big deal but if things do not work, you suddenly discover that your cut keeps bleeding or things keep hurting but we forget that actually they heal; we do not realize that as an amazing function of our bodies. So, tell us Lizzie if you can how that works as a joint effort. What is like to treat and heal someone using those mechanisms?

Lizzie: Yes, well still originally used to say the body has its own medicine chest. And at first when we started osteopathy school, we think what does he mean? And then, particularly if you like Gayle and I and you work in the cranial field biodynamically, you will get to understand that whatever enables us to doing and how they are injuring our cells, or working with pathologies along the way, that the body always does heal itself and what we do is set the body up so it can heal itself. And every night, when you are asleep, hopefully… between the hours of one o’clock and three o’clock in the morning, all these self-correcting mechanisms in the body are coming into play and things like the arterial circulation, how your blood pumps itself run the body, will slow down and always stop and reset itself so that you start the next day with the best possible pulse, heart rate and blood pressure that you possibly can have and that happens with absolutely everybody. So, one of the first things that and that is the question we always asked when we are taking history, how are you sleeping is to make sure that you are actually deeply sleep early…

Gayle: And able to use those healing mechanisms that your body does automatically but actually it comes into play and is able to perform its function, otherwise you become more and more depleted and your system struggles more and more as it tries to regain its balance and it is homeostasis which is the balance between health, your health being great, not feeling quite so great. And it needs to ??? the way are working with.

Lizzie: Yes. We are looking for the balance point of perfect. So, and it will always come into play and it will always be time to get to perfect even if you are very, very ill indeed.

Gayle: Yeah.

Lizzie: Well, having your hands or being able to palpate, to observe mentally, it can actually be a lovely experience for us as osteopaths because when the body is trying to be perfect and normal. It is a thing of beauty and you share that beauty by observing it in your patients.

Gayle: And the extraordinary thing is your body is always on your side and it will always aim to go towards better health if it possibly can. Sometimes it gets stuck and that is where the osteopath is able to bring more of our skills to play to start to get those healing mechanisms to work for you.

Lizzie: And when it is not working very well, you often get inflammatory procedures building up in the body and so when we ask you questions about how much water you are drinking because we want to get you properly hydrated. You know, when you get your aches and pains when you are doing work movements, etc and when your joints are giving you pain we might advise you on your diet and we might give you some exercises as well as treat you. And it is all about making your environment the best it can be so that your body’s natural inner self-correcting mechanisms can work as well as they can.

Gayle: So, hopefully that gives you a better understanding about one of the principles that guide osteopaths and the healing mechanisms within osteopathy and hope that is being useful.

Lizzie: Yes. And if you have any questions when you come in for a treatment, we will answer any question.

Gayle: We certainly will.

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© Living Elements Clinic 2019