Approach

osteopathy 't Hart's approach

What makes my osteopathic treatment unique?

Over the years, I have developed my own treatment method, based on experience, deepening knowledge, and insights from mentors. I am grateful to have met these people and to have learned from their vision and approach.

What distinguishes my approach is my different perspective on complaints. This requires a different way of examining and treating.

Complaints exist to protect us. When the body signals threat, it automatically triggers a protective response — often in the form of pain, muscle tension, or muscle weakness. This mechanism helps prevent damage, but can sometimes become dysregulated or lose its function. This is often seen with chronic complaints.

The challenge for the therapist is to identify which underlying mechanisms activate the protective response and treat these specifically.

While classical osteopathy primarily focuses on releasing tissues, I place more emphasis in my treatments on influencing the nervous system, so that the body can relax and release on its own. Daily I experience how this vision is confirmed in practice, as complaints such as tension, stiffness, and loss of strength often recover immediately after the right intervention.

precision and personal approach

Both the examination and treatment are completely tailored to the individual. Based on a comprehensive examination and targeted tests, the body shows which techniques are needed and where they should be applied.

The manual techniques I use differ from the usual manipulations within osteopathy. They are gentler, more subtle, and require great precision. A small adjustment can have a completely different effect. This is clearly felt by the patient: together we search for the right direction in which the body relaxes and the complaint begins to improve. Often the result is immediately noticeable.

Muscle testing and NeuroKinetic Therapy (NKT)
The muscle tests I use, and the way I examine and treat muscle weakness and its underlying cause, are also quite unique. This method comes from NeuroKinetic Therapy (NKT), a treatment concept that is not taught within osteopathy.

How a treatment proceeds

intake consultation

Every treatment begins with a comprehensive consultation. The complaints, medical history, and overall health are carefully mapped out.

Particular attention is paid to previous traumas, surgeries, and illnesses. These events can — even years later — still influence the body’s functioning and contribute to current complaints.

Physical examination

Postural Analysis (Posture):

The body posture is examined at rest and in movement. This provides insight into tension patterns, compensations, and possible dysfunctions.

Joint Movement:

The mobility of virtually all joints in the body is examined — from the spine to the arms, legs, and pelvis. Limited movement in one area can cause complaints elsewhere in the body.

This survival mechanism has been of great importance to our ancestors — and thus also to our existence today. But in some cases, this system loses its function. Then pain loses its protective role and can actually become an obstacle to recovery.

Muscle Tension and Connective Tissue Tension:

During treatment, it is examined where tension is located — both in the muscles and in the connective tissue. This tension often indicates where the body is out of balance or where blockages exist, even if no complaints are experienced there (yet).

Muscle Testing

Through muscle testing, insight is gained into the strength, coordination, and cooperation of muscles. This helps in detecting functional limitations and maps muscle imbalances.

the treatment

The treatment consists of a combination of joint corrections, relaxing and activating muscles, and influencing connective tissue. The goal is always to restore the underlying cause of movement loss or compensation, so that the body can function optimally again.

Restoring Joint Function

The core of the treatment lies in correcting faulty positions and restoring joint function. When joints can move freely and no longer send warning signals to the nervous system, muscle tension, muscle weakness, and pain often disappear naturally. With the right correction, movement loss or incorrect position can usually be restored within seconds. The effect is often immediately noticeable: more mobility, better muscle function, and pain-free movement.

Activating Muscles

Muscle weakness does not always mean that a muscle has too little strength. Often the muscle itself is healthy, but is inhibited by the nervous system, for example due to a protective response or disrupted cooperation with other muscles. By identifying why a muscle is inhibited and treating this specifically, the muscle can be reactivated. The brain then learns to use the muscle effectively again, often resulting in immediately noticeable increased strength.

Posture and Alignment

An important part of the treatment is improving body posture. When the body is in balance, it can better handle asymmetry and load. This not only helps reduce complaints but also prevents recurring problems.

Combination of Techniques

The treatments use a broad mix of methods. In addition to manual therapies and osteopathic techniques, other treatment forms are also applied that focus on influencing muscles, nervous system, and connective tissue. By combining these, underlying movement losses and disruptions can be effectively addressed.

Duration and results of osteopathy

In osteopathy, long treatment trajectories are usually not necessary. On average, 2 treatments are sufficient to notice a clear improvement, and the trajectory averages 3 to 4 treatments. With acute complaints, results can often be achieved faster, while chronic or more complex complaints sometimes require more time. The frequency of treatments is adjusted to the recovery pace and the client’s situation.

Don’t let complaints determine your daily life. Even if you have already tried many things, there is often still improvement to be gained once the body receives the right stimulus.

osteopathy 't Hart's approach

approach