Organization | Resources | Health
- Kaitlin Voellinger
- Jun 29
- 3 min read
Updated: Jun 29
WHAT ARE YOU DOING?
This is one of the most common questions asked by patients.
This post addresses some aspects of this complex question to help you to
understand osteopathy and the possibilities of an osteopathic treatment.
What follows is: A discussion of embryology and basic osteopathic concepts.
This information was originally inspired by a state-of-the-art video (posted below) showing an embryo progressing from a ball of stem cells through to the next embryological stages of development. The video and concepts herein are offered to help answer one of my patient’s most common questions: “Dr. Cohen what are you doing; how are you doing it; and why does it work?”
The following three words provide a foundational concept that will be elaborated:
Organization ➡️ Resources ➡️ Health
When a patient has lost their ability to naturally manifest their own Health through the Organization laid down in embryology, conventional (and frequently successful) medical treatments fail because the body lacks the Resources to know how to utilize and optimize these Resources.
The gentle “hand-holds” Dr. Cohen employs while performing osteopathy remind the body of its initial embryological Organization, formed in perfection in the earliest stages of life.
The manifestation and perfect expression of this Organization is referred to as the Health.
Health is the opposite of the diseased state.
The ability to access and manifest the Organization laid down in the original map of Health is a Resource the body can use to access and better maintain Health and lasting healing.
Organized for Life
Adult bodies consist of approximately 30 trillion cells (some scientists state we consist of even larger numbers of cells). Yet life starts as a single cell, formed by the egg and sperm, following conception.
Consider...
As the embryo develops and grows:
How do these ever-increasing number of cells know how to organize themselves to create and support our life?
Our embryological unfolding follows a map of Health along individual axes of Organization with each axis:
Facilitating the progress and Organization from one cell to 30 trillion
Each cell becoming the specific cell type, “differentiation” is the technical term for this, allowing each cell to fulfill its specific function
Each cell type is exactly where needed in the body’s anatomy to contribute to optimal physiological function
In Health, regardless of age, we continue to have the possibility of access to this Organization first laid down in embryology.
That first cell starts dividing, eventually becoming a ball of stem cells. Stem cells, by definition, are each perfectly identical to each other. Eventually the stem cells "differentiate" into different types of cells, resulting in different structures in the body.
Stem cells become, for example:
Muscle, tendon or bone
Organs such as heart and lungs
Neural cells forming our brain or nervous system
Blood vessels
Skin
And so on...
Some basic terms to aid in understanding Embryo – Fetus - Newborn:
Embryo or Embryological Development: Occurs from the moment of conception to the time all structures – of the future newborn baby are completely formed. This is completed by the end of the first eight-and-a-half weeks of pregnancy. Yes, all structures are completely formed in the first 56-60 days of life (approximately, give or take a few days). Thereafter, all the structures just become bigger.
Fetus or Fetal development: Is from the end of the embryological stage through to birth. This occurs from approximately eight-and-half weeks to the end of forty weeks in a normal pregnancy. In this time all structures formed in embryology get bigger.
Newborn or neonate: Starts with completion of delivery at the end of a pregnancy.
How does this miracle happen and how does this relate to the practice of osteopathy?
In a word, the first stem cells and all subsequent cells Organize, along a map, a blueprint for life. Osteopathy helps the patient to attain their best Health by helping them to recover and express this Organization.
This Organization first occurs along an Axis of Organization which forms following a bioelectric effect through the ball of stem cells. Some of the latest research about these bioelectric effects are detailed in the book published in 2024, We Are Electric by Sally Adee.
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