OSTEOPATHY

 

I have been practicing osteopathy since 1997. Coming from an athletic therapy background I already had a great love of movement, anatomy and the body in general but the Osteopathy program opened my eyes to a whole new world. Rather than learning anatomy as different parts that work in isolation, we learned anatomy in a functional way. We learned how all the parts and layers were interconnected and how each part affected all the others.  The emphasis was on how everything interrelated and how you cannot isolate one thing or one part because the body is a functional, integrated unit. 

 

Studying embryology was eye-opening and answered many questions I had about the body. We are brilliantly designed and when everything is in balance, our bodies have an incredible capacity to autoregulate.  Our bodies have an innate ability to heal.  Think of what happens when you cut yourself.  Many processes kick into gear, outside of our conscious awareness, and the two cut ends of skin and tissue find each other and knit back together.  Think about how incredible that is!  Processes like this are happening all the time, we’re simply not aware of them.  It is when the system falls out of balance mechanically, chemically, emotionally, psychologically, spiritually that things start to shift and our ability to autoregulate becomes disrupted. 

 

As an Osteopath it is my role to facilitate the body’s natural autoregulation process. By evaluating the body as a whole and using manual techniques to address any areas of restriction, lack of mobility, lack of fluid or energetic flow helps to re-establish a state of balance and allows the body to do the work that it was born to do.  

 

A detailed medical history is an essential aspect of Osteopathy. Everything that has ever happened in our lives is part of our story and our entire life story lives in our tissues and our cells. We tend to be symptom- focused so when your shoulder hurts you go to someone and hope they work on your shoulder to fix your shoulder. In Osteopathy we strive to look for the root cause of a problem. By the time you feel that shoulder pain there had likely been many issues you were unaware of going on beneath the surface.  Our bodies have an amazing ability to adapt and so it does.   At a certain point, the body is no longer able to adapt or compensate and that is when something will show up in the body as an ache, a pain, a dysfunction, a change in mobility or a change in general health.  The ‘symptom’ is simply the body’s way of tapping you on the shoulder and saying ‘hey, you need to take of yourself’. Osteopathy can help to peel away the layers of compensation and to get to the root cause of an issue rather than simply putting a Band-Aid on the issue by only treating the symptoms.

 

It’s important to recognize that no one person holds all the answers. I have surrounded myself by an incredible team of medical and movement professionals who have expertise in areas that I do not. Anytime I feel that one of those professionals would be a compliment to the treatments I am giving, or a better fit for the person I am trying to help, I refer her on to those specialists.  I have included a list of professionals I trust on page ??? 

 

I am often asked if I specialize in treating certain injuries or conditions.  As an Osteopath and movement educator I am open to treating any and all issues, but these are the issues I tend to see the most:

 

• Chronic pain

• Spine issues (lower back, mid back, neck pain)

• Headaches and migraines

• Concussions and post-concussion syndrome

• TMJ (temporomandibular) issues

• Newborns

• Pregnant women

• Digestive issues

• Anxiety 

• Postural dysfunction / movement impairments

• Sport specific rehabilitation

• Somatic amnesia

 

 

EXPLORE TO RESTORE

 

TIPS FOR TEACHERS

Come join her and use the discovery of movement through asana, pranayama, mudra and mantra as a path to prevention and / or recovery.  Through her teaching, Colleen invites clients to experience the joy of movement through embodied exploration.  

 

interoception, proprioception and overall kinesthet She believes the key to good health lies in developing body awareness to return to a state where we listen to the messages our bodies are constantly providing us.  We are born with a natural intuition but the multitude of external stimuli we are exposed to and the nature of North American culture teaches us to move further and further away from those intuitive feelings.  Learning how to connect and trust those internal messages, that are always ‘talking’ to us, can bring us closer to the body’s natural power to express wellness.

ic awareness

This time also opened her eyes to how many different ways there are to work with and on the body.  It solidified the idea that there is no one solution that works for every person, injury or condition.