Since discovering the post grad courses run by The Institute of Classical Osteopathy, , Classical Osteopathy has become my passion. I have completed hundreds of hours of study completing their Foundation and applied post graduate courses, and continue to study with them every year to continue my Osteopathic education.
Classical Osteopathy is aimed at treating the whole body to improve the integration of body systems through a technique called the Body Adjustment. Classical Osteopaths use Long lever techniques through the extremities to allow every soft tissue insertion into the spine and pelvis to be addressed, restoring blood flow where lacking. It is aimed at achieving a stable, integrated structure, restoring the internal environment and providing essential long term stable and stress resistant recovery of the lesion state.
“You do not treat symptoms, you do not treat pain, you do not treat diseases, you do not treat parts of the body, you do not treat the musculo-skeletal system; you treat persons, you treat human beings. It is they who get well or not depending on the competence of their built-in health care system. I would like to hear you saying this more and more, that you are treating more than a musculo-skeletal system.”
Irvin Korr
“The overriding principle of classical osteopathy is therefore not bony adjustment, but body adjustment.
Long lever techniques through the extremities are used to allow every soft tissue insertion into the spine and pelvis to be addressed and restore blood flow where lacking. It is aimed at achieving a stable, integrated structure, thus restoring the internal environment and providing essential long term stable and stress resistant recovery of the lesion state.”
The Institute of Classical Osteopathy
“Osteopathy is not [purely] manipulation. The Osteopathic Lesion is physiological and not anatomical. The key to this is found in Adjustment, not correction: this is impossible in the living body. Clinically, the action is directed conjointly to all the body tissues, employing the limbs as long levers directed to the spine with mild articulation only. It is not possible to adjust the abnormal to the normal, which means that local treatment remains local without general or permanent effect. This can only be gained by a process of integration which begins at a point furthermost from the point of lesion, thus tracing the injury backward from the final to the original disturbance.
The loss of integrity and loss of balance in the body is due to an imbalance between the central and sympathetic nervous systems and the proper inter-relation between the laws of statics and dynamics in the body. These two mainsprings represent the basis of Classical Osteopathy.”
— John Wernam - Founder of the Classical Osteopathy movement