What is osteopathy?

To help you get familiar with our profession, we`d like to answer an important question: What is osteopathy?

We would like to give you a brief introduction to its origin, essence and methods of treatment.

Everything in the body moves: from muscles to blood vessels, from organs to bones.

Adequate mobility of our body`s tissues is necessary for functioning optimally and without complaints.

Osteopathy was established in the early 1900s by Andrew Taylor Still, an American physician.

Osteopathy is a manual form of medicine in which the mobility and function of various tissues in the body are examined. It is a treatment approach based on principles from anatomy, physiology, embryology, and neurology.

Osteopaths strive to ensure an optimal functioning of the body`s self-healing ability.

For teaching purposes, osteopaths often make a distinction between the different types of tissues that can be treated:

–  Parietal tissues (mobility of muscles and joints)

–  Visceral tissues (mobility of organs, around their own axes and in relation to other organs/tissues)

–  Craniosacral tissues (mobility of the brain, brain membranes, dura, spinal cord, etc.)

Below you can watch a video from the Dutch Association for Osteopathy (NVO) that shows what an osteopath actually does. The video explains some of the core principles on which osteopathy is based.