When we come to biodynamics and osteopathy, as students, there is always a question – where to start?
How does education begin? Often, we are told wonderful stories about how this “magic” of biodynamics/ostopathy helps, how clients or the storytellers themselves are recovered, returned to normal, to health. Each of those who come has their own motive – helping themselves, helping others, the desire to understand the secret of how everything works, or something else. If you look at the root of this motive – one way or another, everything revolves around health. In the end, it is for this that clients come to us.
And exactly with health – that’s where we should begin. This is what the founder of osteopathy A. T. Still proclaims as the main goal of every osteopathic treatment – “to find health”.
My favorite question to students, which I was once asked by Françoise Desrosiers, from whom I was fortunate to study, is “What is Health?”
Don’t read further, give your own definition.
Now look at your definition and tell – can it be used for treatment? Is it possible?
Osteopathy is a practical science – in practice we must be able to “find health”.
I immediately want to ask another question – “find and what next”? But let’s first try to decide what we will look for, and then what to do with what we find.
In osteopathy and biodynamics, we learn how to work first with the body, then with fluid, potency, function, but even at the first level the question comes – what is health in the body and how practically recognize it with our hands?
I will again turn to the model of three circles of osteopathy by J. Jealous (more details here: /blog_bio_3circles_model/ ). The model defines not only the stages of cognition from the matter to the subtle, but can also be used in the opposite direction, to describe the stages of body formation – from the subtle to the matter.
Modern embryology in details describes how a body is formed from a single cell through successive stages of division, cell differentiation, the formation of preliminary groups of cells, which then turn into (as an example) channels (form), from which blood vessels then appear, already as part of a mature organism.
The German embryologist Erich Blechschmidt, who introduced the term “biodynamics”, claims that the entire process of creation and development of the organism is directed and supported by biodynamic forces, i.e. external to the embryo, and everything that is embedded in the embryo develops in an ideal way, while adaptating to external conditions.
What is embedded in the embryo is the knowledge of what should become in the end. Some call this knowledge the health matrix, others the original plan, the idea, the master plan (blueprint). All these are metaphors, because no one knows for sure how and where this “plan” is stored, and how it is put into action.
In the biodynamic model, it is this built-in development plan that leads to cell differentiation, the creation of the necessary channels and structures. What makes cells divide, gather in groups and then create organs and structures is the plan that manifests itself in the form of functions, such as the function of the kidneys, heart, connective tissue, and the whole body.
For a function to manifest itself in the body field, it needs “fuel”. In biodynamics, this fuel is usually called potency. It is potency, under the guidance of a function, in the right direction and in the right volume, that directs cells and fluids in motion.
The movement of cells and fluids creates a form that, as the organism develops, turns into a structure. A living being is born with already formed organs and structures that, throughout life, go through stages of growth, maintenance, and decline.
All these stages are defined in the original “plan”, supported by “function”, fueled by “potency” and expressed in “form”, structure and normal movement of what we used to call tissues, organs and the body.
If we follow this logic, then Health is all the functions embedded in the “original plan”, expressed in full. Fullness relates to the fullness of potency, the fullness of form manifestation, the fullness of the function movement “through” and with the structure for its support, and the fullness of the rhythmic balanced interchange built-in the function (according to Becker).
I would like to note here that even though the article is about osteopathy and biodynamics, the word function should be perceived in a broader context. According to Ayurveda, life is a combination of the body, sense organs and organs of action, mind and soul, so the function here is the function of the body, and the function of the sense organs and organs of action, and the function of the mind and, if I may say so, the function of the spirit.
This definition immediately provides opportunities for diagnostics, search for Health and treatment.
We can diagnose each of the elements of this definition:
- For the structure – volume and normal of movement
- For form – again its volume and fullness of potency, the correspondence of its movement to the function that is embedded in it
- For a function – freedom of its manifestation in form and fluid
- For rhythmic interchange – the “inhale”/“exhale” phase and pause – their balance and completeness.
It is also important to diagnose the coherence of all these levels, that the movement of form corresponds to the movement of function, that a balanced interchange occurs both within the function and in relation of this function with other functions. This is all one continuous process of life.
The main question – what we are looking for in this diagnostic? Returning to E. Still – our goal is to find Health.
The most important question is how to find Health if we work with structure, rhythms, function? What will we look for during diagnostics?
- Still says that we should not be interested in diseases, dysfunctions, but only Health. And this is the most unusual thing we encounter when we move from official medicine or even official osteopathic education, where we are primarily taught to define dysfunctions, look for the root causes of dysfunctions, eliminate dysfunctions, etc. I would like to quote Rollin Becker from the book Stillness of Life, chapter “Silent Partner” ( /blog-bio-becker-silent-partner/):
“One thing you have to get over is the idea of relating to problems. Just as we have already said that the body is not the point, it’s also the case that disease is not the point. If you relate problems, you think about things in terms of problems, then all you’ve got are problems. All you have is one effect on top of another effect, on top of another effect. You will never get to the cause. So forget about the problems.”
How should we address health?
If you follow the path of embodiment – from the original plan, through function to form and then to structure, then the least distorted function, and therefore health, will be as you approach the original plan.
It was precisely this path, only in the opposite direction, that V. Sutherland followed. First, he noticed the involuntary motion of the cranial system, and then he followed the “chain of causes” – what causes this motion, where is the source of this motion, what fills this motion with energy, where is the source of this energy?
Usually, this is how the perception of a specialist develops – from the rough matter to the more subtle, it goes through approximately the same path for everyone who embarks on the path of studying osteopathy and biodynamics. The perception of health will depend on the level of development of perception and the stage of knowledge of osteopathy according to the 3-level model.
For simplicity, let’s start with what is accessible to a beginner specialist – the perception of health at the level of structure, body tissues. If we have already agreed that there is no point in looking for dysfunctions, then it turns out that we need to look for what is most functional, or what is a healthy norm for a given person. We can talk about testing the mobility of structures, and then for paired structures we can compare one structure and its opposite and evaluate where there will be more health.
In terms of this level, health would be defined as a structure that is more mobile, having normal motion for that part of the body, such as a joint or a range of motion of fascia. Having identified the normal state of a structure in its healthy area, we can move to the opposite side and when re-diagnosing it. The task would be to find the same sense of normality in the damaged structure. Sometimes this seems impossible, but there are several landmarks that can open the way to health in any damaged structure.
Remember the feeling of normal motion in a healthy part. How does it feel? Try to let go of your control and stop directing the tissues but start listening to them. They themselves will express the normal motion for them, they will kind of “slide” in the direction where it is easier, lighter, and most importantly more natural for them to stay. This “sliding” in the direction of natural ease is called motion in the direction of ease. I also like the expression that describes this feeling in the hands of a specialist – “silky path to freedom. This expression reflects both the desire of the tissues to take a freer, easier position for themselves and the very feeling of a natural “silky” motion towards this freedom.
The principle of following the motion of tissues in osteopathy is usually called “indirect techniques”, the direction of ease goes from the barrier, as opposed to direct techniques that go through the barrier in the tissues.
But the motion itself towards ease, without knowing where it leads, can lead a specialist into a false process of constant walking with tissues. If you do not get carried away by the motion itself but listen carefully at every moment where the motion in direction of ease goes, then you can see that the motion first goes from the barrier in the tissues, but gradually comes to the barrier in the opposite direction. When approaching the barrier in the opposite direction, attentive hands will notice this barrier a little in advance and notice that the tissues do not want to go there, they will stop just before reaching the barrier and the direction of ease will change again, and the amplitude of the motion will become a little smaller.
With each such motion from the barrier, the amplitude will be smaller and smaller until it reaches a point of rest, where ease will mean the absence of motion, or the possibility of motion in any direction.
The ability to move in any direction is the maximum expression of the function of this motion. In other words, a simple motion in direction of ease for a given structure leads to the point of its “contact” with its original function, the original plan, the desired health. More details can be found here: /blog-suth-potential/
If you “linger”, and in fact just stay with the tissues and listen to what is happening, you can notice how the entire system will be rebuilt to the current balance state at this point of health. The entire fascial network around and other tissues, right up to the whole body, also becomes lighter, more mobile, healthier. For the client, this is expressed in the relaxation of tissues not only at the point of balance, but also around, up to the relaxation of the whole body. The described process is part of an approach called functional osteopathy, and this process also has a scientific explanation through the role of the central nervous system, but we will omit this for now.
This is the first level of interaction with health and function. Further development of the perception level allows us to evaluate the primary respiration through these same structures first, and then fluid, to evaluate the fullness of potency, the completeness of function, its motion (for example, through embryonic movement).
Methods of working with the body and health begin with mechanical action and end with a simple stay of attention at the point of manifestation of the function, when all the therapeutic work is carried out by the forces built into our body, creating and supporting it from birth to death.
These forces are the expression of Health, this is the manifested Health itself, therefore our ability to create conditions for its manifestation will be the answer to the question “how to find Health?”. At the same time, for each level of perception and level of work, you can determine your own markers and signs of Health.
This article does not aim to describe all possible markers, and the article is called “where to start?”, but it is worth starting with understanding what we are looking for and in what direction to move in this search.
The main thing to keep in mind is that we must be able to create conditions when the function specified by the initial Health (plan), supported by potency, can be directly manifested. Thus, it has the opportunity to restore health in a given part of the body or the whole body at once. A description of these conditions requires at least a separate article.
Before finishing this article, it is important for me to discuss one more aspect of health. No matter what method you use, the very principle of health in osteopathy and biodynamics (and everywhere else) implies exchange, and according to Becker – balanced and rhythmic interchange. Interchange between what and what? – Interchange between tissues, systems, structures, and if you look more broadly – then interchange also occurs between a living organism and the outside world.
Blechshmidt’s biodynamics defines the principle itself – we are the result of external forces. In the biodynamic model, these are forces expressed in the form of primary respiration, so one of the main criteria of health for a biodynamic specialist will be balanced rhythmic primary respiration, both through a certain structure of the body, and the respiration of the whole organism – interchange with nature, the “ocean of nature” around us. Observation of the freedom of primary respiration is both the final stage of the process in functional osteopathy, and the criterion of the quality of the process in the craniosacral model of osteopathy, and of course in biodynamics. Free primary respiration is, in a sense, the goal of our work in each session.
The very observation of the exchange between the human system and the “ocean” of nature (or zone D) triggers regulatory processes at the level of the entire “body-psyche” system and can become a good independent practice for both clients and therapists.
I suggest you try this simple practice on yourself:
- feel the ocean outside of you
- feel the ocean inside you
- evaluate – is there something that separates one from the other
- if something separated, slide your attention along the process until the external and internal become one
- enjoy the feeling of “all one” without losing the sense of self.
Try, practice, ask questions, share insights, and in the meantime I will work on the next articles, I plan to talk about the very conditions that are necessary for the manifestation of natural, always present Health in us.