My Approach (the short version)
In my treatments I aim to support and assist what the body is already naturally trying to do. I place great importance on being very tissue-specific, focusing on the underlying tensions that have led to one’s current problem. By addressing the body’s over-protective responses to past injuries and traumas we can only enhance the body’s capacity to self-heal, self-regulate as well as improve its ability to compensate for when new stressors arise.
Here is where I have a particular interest in long-term/chronic complaints. Addressing an old underlying injury, illness or pattern in the body can be the missing piece in one’s persistent pain, making all the difference in moving forwards.
Whilst the body can be very good at compensating and repairing itself, if it’s struggling to do so, a seemingly simple lower back or neck issue may involve attending to;
Here is where I have a particular interest in long-term/chronic complaints. Addressing an old underlying injury, illness or pattern in the body can be the missing piece in one’s persistent pain, making all the difference in moving forwards.
Whilst the body can be very good at compensating and repairing itself, if it’s struggling to do so, a seemingly simple lower back or neck issue may involve attending to;
- the whole-body mechanics, including influences from the feet, organs (viscera), the jaw and the teeth, and their affect on movement and posture
- nerve signalling issues that may unknowingly come from past incidences of;
- trauma and injury
- illness, gut and pelvic complaints
- surgery/scarring
- dental procedures
- and more!
Techniques used:
If you’ve seen osteopaths before, you may have noticed that from one to another the techniques used can be rather varied. My hands-on approach tends to have an emphasis on the more subtle, yet powerful unwinding and balancing techniques that are most commonly known within cranial osteopathy, cranio-sacral therapy or fascial unwinding/release.
Whilst I’ll use a range of other techniques when appropriate, I have a focus on these techniques not only because they can be used on any tissue/part of the body (no, it’s not just heads!!), or in any demographic from new-born babies, to the elderly and to the active sports persons & labourers in between but primarily I find these techniques are very powerful at getting to the heart of why someone is not getting better and why one is feeling persistently tight, weak or stuck in certain muscles or areas of their body.
If you’ve seen osteopaths before, you may have noticed that from one to another the techniques used can be rather varied. My hands-on approach tends to have an emphasis on the more subtle, yet powerful unwinding and balancing techniques that are most commonly known within cranial osteopathy, cranio-sacral therapy or fascial unwinding/release.
Whilst I’ll use a range of other techniques when appropriate, I have a focus on these techniques not only because they can be used on any tissue/part of the body (no, it’s not just heads!!), or in any demographic from new-born babies, to the elderly and to the active sports persons & labourers in between but primarily I find these techniques are very powerful at getting to the heart of why someone is not getting better and why one is feeling persistently tight, weak or stuck in certain muscles or areas of their body.
My Approach (the continued, longer version)
When someone comes to me with a complaint or symptoms of any kind, the main thing I want to know is ‘Why hasn’t the body healed these tissues?’ Or ‘why hasn’t the body found a way to compensate for this?’ ‘WHAT’S GETTING IN THE WAY??’
The body is very good at healing (in the right environment), it’s good at compensating when there’s an ailment. So I ask, ‘what’s stopping these from happening?’ Compensations are very helpful to allow us to continue on when a part of our body isn’t functioning optimally, but being a compensation, they’re less efficient and less ideal than what came before. If someone presents with symptoms, then it stands to reason that a series of compensations have already taken place, catering for underlying issues in the body. It’s only when the body has exhausted its options to adequately compensate that the regions under increased load cannot keep up with the demands placed upon them that they start to fail and become symptomatic…. it is this stage with which patients will seek out a therapist.
This is especially true of chronic conditions, the complaints that don’t seem to be getting better on their own. These are the cases I love to see!
But even the very fresh acute injuries, if they’ve seemingly appeared out of nowhere or from minimal activity, it’s very likely they’ve come about at the tail-end of a series of compensations for underlying issues that one may not have been aware of. As described above.
The exception can, of course, be the unfortunate traumatic injury. However, even here, I ask ‘Why didn’t the now injured tissue withstand and disperse the force throughout the body?’, ‘why did it fail and not the tissue immediately next to it?’, ‘What made it vulnerable in the first place?’ and ‘How can we ensure optimal healing (so that it doesn’t have to be compensated for later)?’
So here in lies my approach and what I can offer to you..
Identifying and helping the body to resolve these underlying issues to improve not only one’s ability to compensate but one’s ability to heal!
I said the body is very good at healing in the right environment. Well what is this environment? One with unimpeded circulation. Unimpeded access to fresh arterial blood with all of the oxygen and nutrients that it carries and unimpeded drainage of all of the waste products/metabolites and markers of inflammation.
It’s simple, in order to heal, you need nutrients coming in & waste draining out.
If there’s tissue tension, this will impede circulation.
If there’s swelling, this will impede circulation.
If there’s stress, this will influence the regulation of one’s circulation as well as increase tissue tension, inflammation and sensitivity to pain.
What do I actually do?
In simple terms… Using my hands I ease tissue tension providing a space / the right environment for optimal circulation.
Easing of tissue tension not only unimpedes circulation physically, it also calms down the nervous system, which in turn improves the regulation of circulation. Optimal circulation means optimal cellular healing and general cellular maintenance.
Now, when I treat, I aim to work on whatever tissue I feel is required. Be it ligaments, organs, blood vessels, fascia/connective tissues, bones, muscles, nerves, etc. Whatever it is, the principles remain the same; restore normal circulation and the tissues will begin to function normally again.
From one osteopath to another, you may have found that they can vary greatly in their techniques. (There can be many reasons for using all sorts of techniques but what binds osteopaths is their philosophy in that the body will heal in the right environment.)
Often massage will play a significant part of treatment for many practitioners. Whilst there is certainly a place for this and it can have its benefits, it makes up a very small part of my practice. Why?? Muscles have two main roles, to brace/protect and to move us. Both of these are under the control of the nervous system. The nervous system will get its information from every part of the body in order to decide whether or not to contract a muscle. If a muscle is tight, I want to know why?! What is it bracing for?? If the nervous system is telling a muscle to contract, it’s rarely due to information coming from a muscle and more often from information coming from the connective tissues/joints/skin, the organs, etc, as a signal to guard and protect them.
Sure, massage can feel great and with a skilled practitioner it can be a tool to influence the nervous system. There are times I will use it for this reason, other times it can be used because it’s relaxing, it gets fluid moving in a tired muscle, and can even help with bonding between a mother and baby. But loosening a muscle without removing the reason for it contracting in the first place will often lead to it just tightening straight up again, or worse, leave the tissue it’s suppose to be protecting and bracing for exposed and vulnerable to injury.
So if the body is so good at healing, why doesn’t it do this on it’s own?
Well, to an extent, it does. If you cut yourself, it will heal. If it’s a larger cut, the right environment needs to be restored through a bandaid or stitches, etc. If you fracture a bone, it MAY heal on its own, but it will heal more optimally if placed in a better environment, ie. a cast. My argument here is that an injury may heal even better or faster again if it has more optimal circulation by easing tensions and calming the nervous system down from the ‘alarm/danger’ mode at the time of injury back to its normal regulation.
The thing with injuries is most often there is some degree of shock. A fear-based response that something is ‘wrong’ and you’re in danger. And this fear or memory of the incidence often remains long after the threat is gone and maybe even the symptoms have disappeared.
Why??? Because your body and your nervous system doesn’t want it to happen again. Consciously you may have moved on but your nervous system and your unconscious hasn’t. This was a big deal! Evolutionarily, being injured can be the difference between life and death. So as a result, our nervous system maintains this state of fear and protection, instructing the tissues to continue to contract and brace in the same way that you did at the moment of injury.
Of course, this is ok in the short run, but long-term, this is tiring and unsustainable. Tight tissues mean poor circulation, poor maintenance and the inability to move with full physical expression. All of this means the body is going to have to find a way to compensate, forcing another part of the body to take on extra load. The body may successfully do this, for a while at least, but with time or with new stressors and injuries, often something’s got to give.
Given the above, I’m sure you can imagine one’s mental state at the time of injury can play a large role in how the nervous system (and subconscious) reacts. You will have heard in cases of severe trauma, people will dissociate with those parts of their bodies. This can be very understandable as it’s protective. The shock and trauma in the tissues can be too much to confront at that point in time. Well even in the less traumatic injuries, there is usually some degree of dissociation.
Our physical bodies, filled with fluid, are the vessels for our consciousness to attach to. In turn, our conscious embodiment provides the animation to our physical bodies. A kind of co-dependent relationship. When people are not ‘within’ their bodies, when they’re not connected, the physical body struggles to heal and even maintain itself. By the same hand, if we don’t move and use our bodies regularly, maintaining its fluidity, we lose conscious connection.
The body is very good at healing (in the right environment), it’s good at compensating when there’s an ailment. So I ask, ‘what’s stopping these from happening?’ Compensations are very helpful to allow us to continue on when a part of our body isn’t functioning optimally, but being a compensation, they’re less efficient and less ideal than what came before. If someone presents with symptoms, then it stands to reason that a series of compensations have already taken place, catering for underlying issues in the body. It’s only when the body has exhausted its options to adequately compensate that the regions under increased load cannot keep up with the demands placed upon them that they start to fail and become symptomatic…. it is this stage with which patients will seek out a therapist.
This is especially true of chronic conditions, the complaints that don’t seem to be getting better on their own. These are the cases I love to see!
But even the very fresh acute injuries, if they’ve seemingly appeared out of nowhere or from minimal activity, it’s very likely they’ve come about at the tail-end of a series of compensations for underlying issues that one may not have been aware of. As described above.
The exception can, of course, be the unfortunate traumatic injury. However, even here, I ask ‘Why didn’t the now injured tissue withstand and disperse the force throughout the body?’, ‘why did it fail and not the tissue immediately next to it?’, ‘What made it vulnerable in the first place?’ and ‘How can we ensure optimal healing (so that it doesn’t have to be compensated for later)?’
So here in lies my approach and what I can offer to you..
Identifying and helping the body to resolve these underlying issues to improve not only one’s ability to compensate but one’s ability to heal!
I said the body is very good at healing in the right environment. Well what is this environment? One with unimpeded circulation. Unimpeded access to fresh arterial blood with all of the oxygen and nutrients that it carries and unimpeded drainage of all of the waste products/metabolites and markers of inflammation.
It’s simple, in order to heal, you need nutrients coming in & waste draining out.
If there’s tissue tension, this will impede circulation.
If there’s swelling, this will impede circulation.
If there’s stress, this will influence the regulation of one’s circulation as well as increase tissue tension, inflammation and sensitivity to pain.
What do I actually do?
In simple terms… Using my hands I ease tissue tension providing a space / the right environment for optimal circulation.
Easing of tissue tension not only unimpedes circulation physically, it also calms down the nervous system, which in turn improves the regulation of circulation. Optimal circulation means optimal cellular healing and general cellular maintenance.
Now, when I treat, I aim to work on whatever tissue I feel is required. Be it ligaments, organs, blood vessels, fascia/connective tissues, bones, muscles, nerves, etc. Whatever it is, the principles remain the same; restore normal circulation and the tissues will begin to function normally again.
From one osteopath to another, you may have found that they can vary greatly in their techniques. (There can be many reasons for using all sorts of techniques but what binds osteopaths is their philosophy in that the body will heal in the right environment.)
Often massage will play a significant part of treatment for many practitioners. Whilst there is certainly a place for this and it can have its benefits, it makes up a very small part of my practice. Why?? Muscles have two main roles, to brace/protect and to move us. Both of these are under the control of the nervous system. The nervous system will get its information from every part of the body in order to decide whether or not to contract a muscle. If a muscle is tight, I want to know why?! What is it bracing for?? If the nervous system is telling a muscle to contract, it’s rarely due to information coming from a muscle and more often from information coming from the connective tissues/joints/skin, the organs, etc, as a signal to guard and protect them.
Sure, massage can feel great and with a skilled practitioner it can be a tool to influence the nervous system. There are times I will use it for this reason, other times it can be used because it’s relaxing, it gets fluid moving in a tired muscle, and can even help with bonding between a mother and baby. But loosening a muscle without removing the reason for it contracting in the first place will often lead to it just tightening straight up again, or worse, leave the tissue it’s suppose to be protecting and bracing for exposed and vulnerable to injury.
So if the body is so good at healing, why doesn’t it do this on it’s own?
Well, to an extent, it does. If you cut yourself, it will heal. If it’s a larger cut, the right environment needs to be restored through a bandaid or stitches, etc. If you fracture a bone, it MAY heal on its own, but it will heal more optimally if placed in a better environment, ie. a cast. My argument here is that an injury may heal even better or faster again if it has more optimal circulation by easing tensions and calming the nervous system down from the ‘alarm/danger’ mode at the time of injury back to its normal regulation.
The thing with injuries is most often there is some degree of shock. A fear-based response that something is ‘wrong’ and you’re in danger. And this fear or memory of the incidence often remains long after the threat is gone and maybe even the symptoms have disappeared.
Why??? Because your body and your nervous system doesn’t want it to happen again. Consciously you may have moved on but your nervous system and your unconscious hasn’t. This was a big deal! Evolutionarily, being injured can be the difference between life and death. So as a result, our nervous system maintains this state of fear and protection, instructing the tissues to continue to contract and brace in the same way that you did at the moment of injury.
Of course, this is ok in the short run, but long-term, this is tiring and unsustainable. Tight tissues mean poor circulation, poor maintenance and the inability to move with full physical expression. All of this means the body is going to have to find a way to compensate, forcing another part of the body to take on extra load. The body may successfully do this, for a while at least, but with time or with new stressors and injuries, often something’s got to give.
Given the above, I’m sure you can imagine one’s mental state at the time of injury can play a large role in how the nervous system (and subconscious) reacts. You will have heard in cases of severe trauma, people will dissociate with those parts of their bodies. This can be very understandable as it’s protective. The shock and trauma in the tissues can be too much to confront at that point in time. Well even in the less traumatic injuries, there is usually some degree of dissociation.
Our physical bodies, filled with fluid, are the vessels for our consciousness to attach to. In turn, our conscious embodiment provides the animation to our physical bodies. A kind of co-dependent relationship. When people are not ‘within’ their bodies, when they’re not connected, the physical body struggles to heal and even maintain itself. By the same hand, if we don’t move and use our bodies regularly, maintaining its fluidity, we lose conscious connection.
"Life is water, dancing to the tune of solids" ~~ Albert Szent-Gyorgyi
Part of what I do is provide this ‘safe space’. By taking up tissue tension / taking up the slack, the body and nervous system no longer needs to ‘hold on’, breaking this cycle of fear and protection. Clearing the shock and providing a safe space within which the body can move and fluid can flow, for many, this is the starting point towards conscious re-embodiment and healing.