Body, Mind, and Spirit

Body, mind and spirit are at the core of practices at Abacus Chinese Medicine. Our approach is informed by osteopathic principles which provide a whole-person focus and hands-on approach to healthcare. Steeped in the notion that people have a three-fold nature in a material body, a spiritual being, and a being of mind, osteopathy as created by Dr. Andrew Taylor Still (1828-1917), believed that the body has self-regulatory and self-healing powers. He stated that the body contains all the substances necessary for maintaining health.

A clinician using osteopathic principles therefore helps the body help itself by facilitating the body’s self-healing process. Dr. Still saw the physical structure of the body to be the basis of all life, and believed that the union of natural forces that constitute the body…is vastly superior to the capacity of any unnatural force applied in the pursuit of health. He saw the body as a unit, a harmonious whole made up of naturally dependent parts, and cited osteopathic principles of healing as focusing on the anatomy of the head, face, neck, thorax, abdomen, pelvis and limbs.

Dr. Still believed that the development of osteopathy was necessary because the healthcare practices of his day failed to determine the etiology and effective treatment of disease. Encouraging a radical alternative to mainstream healthcare, he stated that anyone can find disease, but an effective healthcare practitioner needs to find health. He believed that disease is the violation of natural law, and that health can only be restored by removing the causes of disease. Dr. Still said that nature has supplied her own forces of healing and we have only to find and apply them. These forces of healing reside in the body, mind, and spirit.

If you would like to explore how treatment informed by osteopathic principles can help you restore and maintain health, you can schedule an appointment here.