Feel, think, treat – A review of the German Osteopathic Congress Berlin Nov 20–23 2008

Abstract 

This article is a review of the four day Congress organised by the Osteopathie Schule Deutschland ‘BODY/MIND – Feel, think, treat’. The Congress brought together some of the leading European and International practitioners, academics and researchers in the field of body–mind theory, emergent osteopathic body–mind practice, and energy medicine research.

Whilst much of the Congress was organised around investigating the phenomenological experience of touching and being touched within the context of osteopathic care, there was much else. For example expositions of foetal and infant development from a mind-body perspective; the measurement of subtle energetic changes in the body during physical therapy; psychosomatic medicine; developing therapeutic presence and working with energetic awareness; and finally encouraging engagement with concepts and understanding of the body-mind connection from other cultures and academic and therapeutic disciplines.

These issues, although well known in the UK, sometimes struggle to find a place in which scientific discourse can take place. This Congress managed the difficult of task of facilitating that debate, and helped ground the dialogue between the mental and physical aspects of osteopathic concern within a context of cutting edge hard science; case history presentations; participative workshops; and demonstrations.

The organisers achieved a useful balance between the esoteric and the pragmatic, the traditional and the contemporary, the philosophical and the practical. However the general absence of criticality and uneveness in the quality of presentations did at times undermine the endeavour and this would need to be addressed if the mind-body proposition is to be responsibly developed as an integral part of osteopathic practice.

Keywords: Body/mind, Phenomenology, Energy medicine, Therapeutic presence, Foetal and early infant development, Subtle energy measurement, Psychosomatic medicine, Eastern medicine systems, Cultural differences in the practice of osteopathy, Politics of public healthcare systems