Osteopathy has changed so much to become the discipline that it is today. It is now practiced in many different ways by many different practitioners. For many the term Osteopathy is still "new". Though for Osteopaths sufficient time has passed for us to now use different terms to distinguish between the different styles of Osteopathy in use.
For the most part Osteopathy as a term describes a philosophy. Osteopaths have a set of rules that describe how we understand the body to work. The interpretation of these rules changes with the passing decades. We update our exact philosophy as more information and scientific research becomes available. Though in the last 150 years no new discoveries have taken us far from that early knowledge, discovered through hands-on experience, that forms our core Osteopathic principles.
The most common style in Osteopathy concerns itself with the structural form of the body and how it moves and resists external forces such as gravity. It describes the body in terms of levers and mechanics. It considers key structures such as bone, joint, ligament, muscle etc. Structures that can be seen and felt, or dissected and examined.
As Osteopaths we know this style as Structural or Mechanical or Orthodox Osteopathy. World wide this is the most commonly used style.
Practitioners in this style look for a mechanical cause of pain or disability.
Treatments to alter the body's function mechanically have an obvious form. Such therapies target bones and joints and muscles using an obvious physical input such as massage, tissue stretching or joint manipulation. Such interactions are designed to physically change structural elements of the body to improve functions such as elasticity or muscle tone or range of motion.
Such problems are primarily seen to have a physical or mechanical cause. Causes such as sports activities, lifting injuries, workplace or ergonomic strain from overuse of recurrent patterns or postures.
The other common styles in Osteopathy are Cranial Osteopathy and Visceral Osteopathy