“Osteopathy is the science or healing system which puts the emphasis on the diagnosis of diseases using physical methods with the objective of discovering, not symptoms, but causes of illness, in relation with tissues displacements, blockage of fluids and what interferes with the resources and nutritious force of the organism.”
- John Martin Littlejohn
The fathers of osteopathy; Andrew Taylor Still, John Martin Littlejohn, William Garner Sutherland, went counter-current to traditional medicine to create and elaborate a new therapy aiming at compensating the lacks of this one.
By being interested in other aspects of illness and health, we offer a new way of treating and conceiving the body in its wholeness. Instead of only taking into account the pathology, we integrate physiological, anatomic and semiological concepts, the complexity of the human body as a whole and remedy its problems in a different manner.
In Osteopathy, we always integrate the human being as a whole and his environment. Osteopathy encompasses the whole person, as well its physical as emotional or spiritual aspect. Since the human being is an integral part of a whole, we shall consider it to be as such.
“The chain is as strong as its weakest link.”, in other words this interactivity is primordial in the organism’s equilibrium. If one of the essential elements is weak, it is the whole that will be affected. The body will search compensations to keep its equilibrium, its homeostasis.
This stability is only possible thanks to the body’s complexity, to the interaction and variety of its components. We are in the world of the living, the movement of permanent mutation. Life is the principle of change, in a perpetual unbalance which compensates itself. In the field of complexity, interactions are unpredictable and unforeseen.
“Systematic approach ... new methodology, allowing to gather and to organize knowledge with the aim of a greater effectiveness of action. Unlike analytical approach, systematic approach includes all the elements of the studied system, as well as their interactions and their interrelationship.“
- De Rosnay
“The system is a organized whole, made of united elements, being only able to be defined in relation to one another according to their place in the whole.” »
- De Saussaure
Most of the thinkers agree about the fact that a system is based on four great concepts; interaction, wholeness, complexity and organization.
Osteopathy will therefore be holistic; global when all these elements will be respected.
It is therefore in understanding the complexity and the systematic approach that we will truly manage to practice osteopathy as Andrew Taylor Still did it when he elaborated its bases.