People often ask me how I integrate osteopathy/manual therapy during sessions with clients, so here’s the answer:
I don’t.
I don’t, because there’s very little point in doing it.
Manual therapy (in all its different shapes or forms) is something PASSIVE. This means that the one doing most of the work is the therapist. It is NOT the client’s body.
That being said, If I want my clients to SOLVE their problems sustainably, I have to teach them how to address their issues THEMSELVES when I am not beside them.
Otherwise, I’d be signing them up for a lifelong membership, and I’d be taking advantage of their lack of knowledge… and I’m not keen on the idea.
Now I know that this might trigger some therapists who will read this, but guys, no matter how you want to spin it:
Manual therapy isn’t a sustainable solution.
Are there advantages to it?
Yes. (otherwise, nobody would do it)…
But it’s VERY limited.
So at the end of the day, you have to ask yourself HOW MUCH you want to help people and be fully transparent about it. With yourself, and with clients.
For me, providing my clients with a lasting solution was more important than practicing osteopathy. So this is why I don’t integrate it into my sessions:
I teach people how to solve their problems instead.
Granted, some people want to see a therapist, and some people probably need it at some point.
But I never signed up for this. I’m a much better teacher and an “engineer” than I am a therapist.
Also, while manual therapy can have its advantages in some contexts, I think that if we ever wish to evolve as a society, we’ll need to get a lot better at taking ownership over our personal problems and get good at fixing them…
Instead of having someone else fixing them for us. Almost everyone agrees with this on the psychological side of things, but when it comes to the physical body, it’s somehow way more accepted that it’s “OK” to dump your problems in the hands of a therapist. This may just be because people don’t realize that they CAN have a massive impact on their physical/structural health, and that if they knew better, they would be more inclined to want to change. I’m open to this idea. But in any case, even if this is true, we won’t go very far if almost every therapist/practitioner out there take on the responsibility of people’s problem instead of teaching their patients how to solve it themselves.
Anyways, this is the reason why I don’t do manual therapy with my clients anymore. I don’t want to be a part of the problem, and in fact, I would like to be part of the solution.