What is Osteopathy?

Osteopathy is far more than what it appears to be at first glance. The name is somewhat misleading and can only be explained by the now 130-year-old history of this holistic treatment form. 'Osteo' means bone and 'pathy' comes from pathology, the study of disease in medicine. So the word actually means 'bone disease', and indeed a major area of osteopathy is working with the spine and joints.

And that's how it began when the American Dr. Still (1828–1917), highly dissatisfied with the methods of contemporary medicine, began to take a very close look at people again - their muscles and joints, their blood supply, their nervous system. And what he discovered were connections. A person with abdominal complaints comes, he examines them, finds blockages in the spine, adjusts them – and the pain improves. What happened? He primarily harmonized the nerve supply, which largely passes through the spine, and as a result, the internal organs can function more optimally again.

Later, his students developed further holistic approaches, including Dr. Sutherland's craniosacral therapy. Here, through very fine corrections, the nervous and hormonal system can be balanced. And later, osteopaths developed the important work on the internal organs themselves. It was found that the healing process also works in reverse: intensive work on the liver, for example, can relieve or heal knee pain.