Visceral Manipulation
Techniques and methods which work on the visceral organs such as the liver, stomach, gall bladder, lungs, intestines, etc. have been used by many different cultures in Europe and Asia since pre-recorded times. Oriental medicine (accupuncture) has worked with the visceral system for probably thousands of years.
Dr. Jean-Pierre Barral, a French osteopath became interested in the possible role the visceral organs could have on the entire body while he was working as a physical therapist in Grenoble, France in the Lung Disease Hospital. Working with Dr. Arnaud he began researching the visceral system by following stress patterns in cadaver dissections as well as studying biomechanics in living subjects. In the 1970's Dr. Barral began developing his method of visceral manipulation. He has been teaching visceral manipulation in the United States through the Upledger Institute since 1985.
You may ask, " why would you ever need your visceral organs manipulated?" That is a good question which I will try to answer. There are definite links between somatic structures, such as the muscles and joints, the sympathetic nervous system, which is the "flight or fight response", the visceral organs, spinal cord and the brain. An example is the sinuvertebral nerve which innervates the intervertebral disk, and has direct connections with the sympathetic nervous system which innervates the visceral organs. The sinuvertebral nerves and sympathetic nervous system are linked to the spinal cord which of course has connections with the brain. In this way some one with chronic pain can have irritations and facilitated areas not only in the musculoskeletal system (including joints, muscles, fascia, and disks) but also the visceral organs (including the liver, stomach, gallbladder, intestines and adrenal glands), the peripheral nervous system, the sympathetic nervous system and even the spinal cord and brain.
I think that attempting to discover each patients primary or at least their least secondary problem or lesion is ultimately what we would all like to do. I feel if we are doing this, then we have a chance to be working on where the problem is located and subsequently giving the patient a better result.
With my own training, which is ongoing, I am able to many times locate the primary physical restriction; or primary lesion. I do this with a technique, Visceral Listening, which was developed by Jean-Pierre Barral, DO. This technique involves listening to the patient's body with your palpating hand and feeling for the line of tension in the body. It is not a metaphysical type sensation. It is a direct physical line of pull that with instruction and much practice, is something that anyone can learn. In this way the practitioner can allow the body to reveal where the problems are located and which ones are more primary. The osteopaths have some sayings that I find useful and they are, " only the tissues know" and "let the body speak". The reason I find this type of evaluation so effective is that the body is much too complicated to "figure it out" with our heads; especially with chronic problems that have resisted treatment. But I have found that the story is all there in the patient's body if you allow yourself to listen to it.
A final thought: I believe that each patient has an inherent ability to heal and function in good health. We don't "fix" the patient as much as we take away the reason their body is not functioning well. Then, their body actually does the healing. I think this shows respect for each individual's body and soul and allows a more complete healing. This is a philosophy , based in osteopathy, that I have found useful in my daily practice as a physical therapist.