If you are familiar with Osteopathy already, you likely relate Osteopathy to the treatment of physical ailments, such as back pain, joint pain, and digestive issues. Physical ailments, like these, are common reasons why we tend to reach out to manual therapists, like Osteopaths, to provide us relief from pain. However, Osteopathic Manipulative Therapy (aka., Osteopathy) can provide us much, much more.

When a person experiences a mental health concern (e.g. depression, anxiety, PTSD), we tend to associate the symptoms and afflictions we are experiencing to only our brains/mind and not the rest of our system (body), and therefore, only seek a psychotherapist or counselor to “talk” our way to feeling better. Though psychotherapy has a great track record of demonstrating improvement and elevation of symptoms of mental health diagnoses, many psychotherapy modalities fail to understand the role of the nervous system and the body as a whole as being a contributor to a person’s mental health symptoms, and thus, talk therapy alone does not resolve a person’s symptoms. 

Our mind and body are an interconnected system, therefore, when we are experiencing emotional and psychological distress and/or dysfunction, we will also experience impacts to our system (body): sympathetic and parasympathetic tone (autonomic nervous system), heart rate variability, gut health and gut-brain communication, and structural functions – resulting in immobility, tension, and pain. In turn, if these functions and pathways in our body are not restored, they will continue to contribute to the persistence of dysfunction in our emotional and psychological health.

Osteopathy embraces the philosophy that the body has an innate or natural ability to self-regulate and to heal itself (Collebrusco et al., 2018). Osteopathic manipulative therapy (OMT) is characterized as a holistic, hands-on therapy emphasizing that the body systems are interconnected and function as a single unit. The musculoskeletal system has been viewed as having a vital influence on overall body system health and functioning, with impaired mobility of the body potentially disrupting an individual's overall health and contributing to disease, including mental illness (Dixon et al., 2020).  

Benefits of Osteopathy:

The first benefit from Osteopathy to note, is the release of oxytocin.

Physical interaction forms part of all therapeutic sessions involving manual therapies, like Osteopathy. When hands-on touch is combined with a sense of safety and trust on behalf of the client towards the manual therapist, clients experience and benefit from the release of oxytocin (through the activation of tactile receptors) (Uvnas-Moberg, et al., 2011), thereby causing a downregulation of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. This release of oxytocin contributes to systemic effects, including, decreased heart rate and blood pressure, decreased sensitivity to pain stimuli, and global reduction in anxiety symptoms (Dixon, et al., 2020).

 When we experience symptoms characterized as Depression, Anxiety, and PTSD, it is a result of disruptions and imbalances in the Autonomic Nervous System, and in the Limbic system of the brain (our “emotional centre of the brain”), such as neuroendocrine, neurotransmitter and neuroanatomical disruptions (Martin, et al., 2009).

Osteopathic Manual Therapy addresses dysfunction in emotional processing, and in the Autonomic Nervous System by focusing on the nervous and circulatory systems, spine, viscera (soft internal organs), cranium (head), and thoracic and abdominal diaphragm, in order to restore homeostatic balance, normalize autonomic activity, and, promote lymphatic flow, aiming to support physiological processes, “thus increasing the individuals ability to respond and adapt to various internal and external stressors” (Collebrusco, et al., 2018). Osteopathic Manual Practitioners seek to improve the “distribution of forces through the connective tissue, to reduce energy expenditure during activities of daily life, to improve respiration and circulatory dynamics, the integrated somato-motor function and the function of the neuro-immune-endocrine system” (Collebrusco, et al., 2018).

Mental health conditions, such as, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Major Depressive Disorder, and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, are all highly co-morbid, complex conditions that are systemic in nature, affecting multiple systems of the body. Osteopathy “addresses this complexity with a holistic and multifaceted approach, respecting the functional unity of the body. It considers compromised body functions as important to understanding the overall picture of the patient’s presenting condition” (Dixon, et al., 2020; Seffinger, et al., 2011; Still, 1902;). Osteopathic Manual Therapy targets structures related to the autonomic nervous system, including structural and neurovascular pathways that disrupt homeostasis and self-regulation, ensuring that these systems are free from tension in order to support optimal functioning (Dixon et al., 2020).  

Osteopathic philosophy recognizes that treating one area of the body or system can ultimately affect another (Dixon, et al., 2020). Osteopathic Manual Practitioners understand that each compromised state, such as, impaired digestion, increased pain, disturbed sleep-wake cycles, inhibited immune function, and increased muscle tension, can affect or induce another compromised state. Each dysfunctional state can also activate the HPA axis (the interaction between the hypothalamus, pituitary gland and adrenal glands) and ultimately influence the brain and the person’s emotional response. Osteopathic manipulative therapy serves to address the physical tension in the body in an effort to reduce the neural feedback processes that are causing dysregulated emotional responses (Dixon, et al., 2020).

Osteopathic Manual Therapy will provide you with relaxation through the release of the feel-good-hormone oxytocin, improved functioning of your autonomic control mechanisms (heart rate, digestion, breathing, urination, sexual arousal, and survival responses of fight-or-flight), balance of your Autonomic Nervous System – allowing better control over your reactions to stress, and increased responsiveness of your parasympathetic nervous system, reduction in inflammation and congestion, and pain relief (Collebrusco, et al., 2018).

As outlined in this blog post, there are SO MANY benefits to Osteopathic Manual Therapy. They can help people find relief for almost anything, and assist with reinstating balance and optimal functioning to our body and WHOLE system, including our minds. So, if you haven’t reached out to an OMT yet, now is the time! I promise you, as someone who has benefitted from Osteopathic treatments for many years, you will not regret it!

The Mind + Body Centre has a wonderful OMT, Jennifer MacLean. In addition to Jen’s astute assessment and clinical skills that have resulted in clients reporting drastic changes to their bodies and their functioning, Jen provides a safe, supportive and inclusive environment for all her clients.