Glossary
Ohashiatsu
Ohashiatsu is a method of bodywork offering both giver and receiver a complete experience of self-development and healing. Combining Eastern healing philosophy and techniques with psychological and spiritual components, Ohashiatsu expands awareness of self and others through movement, meditation, and touch.
As a holistic method, Ohashiatsu emphasizes sensing and working with the overall energy flow throughout the body to create balance and relieve aches, tension, stress, and fatigue. Studying and practicing Ohashiatsu helps to develop a balanced condition of health and well-being encompassing body, mind, and spirit.
On-Site Massage
See chair massage. Click here to find an On-Site Massage practitioner.
Oncology Massage
Oncology massage refers to massage tailored to the needs of individuals with cancer. This specialized practice requires therapists to be fully educated in and pay close attention to the physical, emotional, and psychological needs of clients in all stages of cancer: diagnosis, treatment, recovery, survivor, or terminal. Training in oncology massage covers appropriate bodywork modalities for cancer clients, includes precautions for radiation, chemotherapy, and surgery, and covers physiology and pathology.
One Light Healing Touch
One Light Healing Touch focuses on clearing blockages and rebalancing the human energy field by using spiritual and energetic hands-on healing practices and techniques. The application of these healing art forms facilitates and increases our ambient energetic vibrations and awareness, strengthening the immune system and opening the client to her indwelling god or higher self. As the higher self awareness becomes activated, an evolutionary healing journey begins, moving the client through clarity of understanding, health, spiritual autonomy, and ultimately, culminating in the fulfillment of her purpose of being: to heal herself and other human beings and to find her place within the world.
Onsen Technique
Onsen is a Japanese word meaning at rest or at peace. It is a state of mind, but can also be a state of body. Developer Richard Phaigh translated it to mean balance, particularly length and strength balance in soft tissue, to form the basis of this new protocol.
Onsen includes three key components: muscle energy technique, post-isometric relaxation, and transverse friction massage.
Ortho-Bionomy
Ortho-Bionomy was developed by the British osteopath Dr. Arthur Lincoln Pauls in the 1970s and has since been refined into a comprehensive system of bodywork that includes a person’s energetic and emotional well-being, in addition to addressing the physical body. Pauls combined his understanding and techniques of osteopathy with the principles of martial arts and the philosophy of homeopathy to stimulate the organism’s self-healing reflexes without needing to use force or painful manipulation.
The term Ortho-Bionomy loosely translates from Greek into the correct application of the laws of life, to indicate Pauls did not invent something entirely new, but returned to a way of understanding the body and energetic field that had been known for centuries but had fallen into disuse by modern medicine.
On a physical level, a practitioner of Ortho-Bionomy uses comfortable positions and gentle movements to ease the body into releasing tension and pain and to reestablish structural realignment. Proprioceptive nerve activity and stretch reflex action are stimulated to educate the body about its own patterns and to support the organism’s ability to find balance, rather than forcing change from the outside. Since the changes that take place come from within, the results of the work tend to be long-lasting and affect not only the body, but the overall well-being of the client. The energetic and emotional aspects of the client are included to facilitate balance and release of mental and emotional holding patterns closely associated with physical imbalance or trauma.
Participation of the client is always welcome in Ortho-Bionomy, and sessions are often educational in character. Often, awareness alone will change a pattern, but specific exercises are also a part of what Ortho-Bionomy can offer a client.
Click here to find an Ortho-Bionomy practitioner.
Orthopedic Massage
Combining some elements of sports and medical massage, orthopedic massage integrates ten modalities to treat soft-tissue pain and injury. Emphasis is placed on understanding both the injury and its rehabilitation criteria. Three basic elements adhered to, despite the technical diversity in treatment, are assessment, matching the treatment to the injury, and adaptability of treatment. Click here to find an Orthopedic Massage practitioner.
Osteokinetics
This therapy utilizes dialogue, coached breathing, and applying qigong from one side of the body through to the other while lengthening, stretching and manipulating the body, all of which creates space in the musculoskeletal system allowing for emotional and psychological restrictions to be cleared.
Osteopathic Medicine
This system of comprehensive medical care goes beyond conventional medical philosophy to include an emphasis on structural balance of the musculoskeletal system. Osteopathic physicians use joint manipulation, postural reeducation, and physical therapy to normalize the body’s structure and promote healing. Most medical conditions are amenable to osteopathic healing. In some cases, osteopathy has been shown to resolve illnesses resistant to surgery and other medical approaches.