The format of my practice is changing.
This is because there has been a time limit placed upon me and my osteopathic practice. It has something to do with my age but more to do with the ridiculous politics played by the osteopathic association who keep moving and raising the goalposts in order to impress faceless government and medical 'authorities'.
Their moves are futile. In Switzerland, we will never be on the level of acceptance that the medical profession or even the chiropractors enjoy. The new osteopaths are mostly ex-physiotherapists who saw that they can virtually double their income by becoming osteopaths. An arrogance that they are more knowledgeable has created a situation where the pure osteopath, there because he is a dedicated healer, is being made redundant.
In fact, it may all backfire!
Slowly but surely, medical health insurance companies (Krankenkassen) are eliminating alternative and complementary practitioners from their lists. At the end of 2012, osteopaths who have not completed the conditions set by the association and the government bodies will be forced out of practice. The end result will be osteopaths with a physiotherapists' mentality and therefore a poor understanding of what osteopathy really is. Already at least 50% do not manipulate because they are a.) afraid (because of poor education in the real osteopathic techniques ) and b.) laziness, they want to sit and cradle heads and so are no more than cranial therapists, a form of therapy that most of the public are now finding very ineffective for their ills and pains.
COMPREHENSIVE HEALING
With age comes wisdom but it comes not as an accumulation of experience abetted by a process of logical and creative thinking like saving money in a bank. It just appears. The reason it doesn't have anything to do with experience is because it shows up and generally discards all you thought you knew, especially about one's chosen profession.
Real, traditional Osteopathy, which is what I have been doing, is hard work. It is physically taxing but also mentally debilitating if you let it. The wisdom that I have mentioned had been creeping up because for years now I find that exhaustive questioning to gather a case history is no longer necessary. My hands go directly to the place that is in pain and the place where the root cause is.
The realization may have come about because I have been using other techniques designed to find the emotional causes of illness, pain and other maladies. Somehow, now I am aware of the type of events that have taken place in a person's life which block them, cause them to fail, be depressed or angry or bring about work related problems like burnout.
The end result is that I am getting better results, sometimes without even resorting to manipulation of joints. All that is required mostly is consultation, some diagnosis, some advice, and some routines for the client to carry out on their own. These can be physical movements or mental/meditative exercises. Thus we come to Comprehensive Healing, because this way we can address virtually any problem.
It is a natural part of "How Life Works" but with the accent on health concerns. The "HLW" focuses more on success, progress, lifestyle and happiness.
COMMENT ON OSTEOPATHY AND ITS FUTURE IN SWITZERLAND
I have long been concerned with the direction osteopathy has been taking in Switzerland and indeed, some parts in Europe. I make these comments only with one goal in mind; that of a good and pure standard of practice in this field compliant with real osteopathy as it is generally accepted world wide. My concern is not for myself and my practice as I am already beyond retirement age and will probably not go on using pure osteopathy beyond the 2012 deadline that the Interkanonale Prufungs Committee have set. My observation is that traditional osteopathy is already lost.
Despite hearing about a proposed ‘definition’ of osteopathy, none has come about and this is because in this country, it is too diverse. Basically it is divided between the Anglo Saxon original philosophy and the French school of thought ; the latter, through sheer force and determination of the French presence and political lobby, has convinced the legislators that :
a) Osteopathy should be registered on a Federal basis (not necessarily a bad thing) and
b) the accepted standard should be that of their established college in Lausanne (not necessarily a good thing).
It seems as though this is going to happen, which will be a great pity because it is not osteopathy or real osteopaths that are being sent out and accepted into practice but predominantly Cranial or Cranio-Sacral therapists. Traditional Osteopathy is a manipulative modality but the emphasis has been shifted to such a degree that the majority of practitioners graduated with approval to practice according to the Interkantonale Prufungs standards, are merely cranial therapists, a method with a very dubious track record as to results shown.
At a recent symposium run by the FSO-SVO in Lausanne, I was pleasantly surprised to see that some of the visiting lecturers were manipulative therapists, naturally, English and Australian trained, with the subject matter for the first time, being something that confronts us daily in practice, namely, Whiplash. During the breaks however, throughout the day, I questioned several attendees at random.; none of them used manipulation, all were using cranial and some even Reiki rather than traditional osteopathy! Nearly all I spoke to had completed the Interkantonale exam. This confirmed my impression I gained from the number of patients I have, who come from all over Switzerland after being treated by these 'new school' osteopaths.
The osteopaths should have been as wise as the chiropractors who, even though they use some cranio-sacral therapies and sacro-occipital techniques, have kept their integrity and not allowed these methods to dominate or change their basic premise and philosophy. This is why, along with good marketing, everybody knows what chiropractors are and what they do! Even now, very few people know what osteopaths are and if they have managed to go to more than one, they are even more confused because one manipulates and others sit and lay on hands or cradle the head. The fact is that most new osteopaths don’t know what osteopathy is!
I concede that it appears the new graduates are well educated in matters of anatomy and physiology and their detailed knowledge is commendable; even their diagnoses are sometimes correct. But from the number of patients’ stories I hear, none seem to have any knowledge of patient relations, psychology or practice management. These matters are even more important than most of the detail and microbiology they were obliged to study because the purpose of their schooling is clearly designed only to impress any governing body and the medical profession.
This year, a large part of my ongoing education was carried out back at my old university where once again I gained much that could be used in practice. The primary subject was manipulative treatment of geriatric patients, something that would probably horrify most osteopaths I know. The other was patient relations which speaks for itself and has little to do with how long you sit with them.
There is much more to be said but I am not sure any of this will fall on receptive ears. I have in the past offered to assist with the realities confronting osteopaths, especially in the areas of patient relations, practical osteopathy, some additional techniques (which do not require definition or changing the name of what we do) and even practice psychology. Generally my approaches have been ignored except for our Inner Schweiz sub-group of the FSO/SVO, an event that was poorly attended. This is typical because when we finish college/university, it seems we know all we need to know. Perhaps we do, but we don’t know still how to tell the general public what osteopathy is!