Optimize Your Osteopathic Practice!
Make your practice simpler and more efficient while giving longer-lasting results for your patients.
A Series of Three Courses Offered by Robert Morelli, D.O.M.P
Endorsed 24 CEUs (OAO)
Optimize! Part 1
Friday May 15th – Monday May 18th 2020
Vancouver College of Massage Therapy
Vancouver, BC
Dear Osteopathic Practitioner,
Manual osteopathy is potentially the most powerful medicine on the planet. Over the past 15 years I have developed a system of palpation and treatment that unleashes that potential in order to drive the body towards optimal health.
Osteopathic practitioners often question whether their treatment is as efficient, potent, and long-lasting as it can be.
Perhaps the more important question is, “How efficient, potent and long-lasting can any osteopathic treatment be made to be?”
Working with scores of extremely complex patients with chronic health concerns has made me optimistic that even the most complex of these patients can usually be helped with osteopathy.
In this course I intend to put that optimism in your hands!
The introduction to this course will provide a context for the above questions. We will look at why the thousands of tests and techniques learned at osteopathic schools can result in a “…cannot see the forest for the trees” conundrum.
My aim is to relate the personal context of the practitioner with his or her training. These will then be related to how the practitioner has been trained and shown in light of the evolving concept of the osteopathic lesion with an aim towards providing key ways to change—practically—your palpation and treatment.
The key variables of optimal osteopathic treatment lie both in the practitioner and in the patient. In this course we will turn our hands to identifying, clarifying, and learning to control these variables.
Come learn how to boost the potency of your work.
I look forward to meeting you,
Robert Morelli is a full-time Manual Osteopathic Practitioner in Toronto with over 20,000 clinic hours of experience.
He has served as Faculty Member and Head Clinic Supervisor at the Canadian College of Osteopathy, Toronto, as well as on the Board of Directors of the Ontario Association of Osteopathic Manual Practitioners.
Robert Morelli has a B.Sc. from Fairfield University, Fairfield, Connecticut and a D.O.M.P from the Canadian College of Osteopathy.
Robert Morelli presented “Equipoise: Placing the Hand Between Body, Mind and Spirit” at the Osteopathic European Academic Network (OsEAN) Open Forum on Palpation in Potsdam, Germany (2011).
Robert Morelli currently teaches Palpable Osteopathy: Optimize Your Osteopathic Practice! Parts 1—3.
Optimize Your Osteopathic Practice! Part 1
In Part 1 You Will Learn:
- How the evolving concept of the osteopathic lesion has affected your training and practice
- How the patient’s body reacts when palpated and how to control that reaction for optimal palpation and treatment using the “Lockdown System”
- A clear palpatory protocol for assessing the lesional information found in the patient’s entire body
- About the hierarchy—there is always a primary lesion—within the patient’s “Adapted Mechanism” of lesions, and how to use the “Inhibition” system to find it
- How to improve your palpation of lesions in the different tissues of the body by learning how to search for the lesions that you have been missing
- How to refine palpation of the patient’s vitality using a system called “Equipoise” designed to facilitate palpation in the body’s most difficult regions
- How to palpate the motility and mobility of the visceral and supporting fascial system given their integral importance to the structure and function of the whole body
- Ultimately, how to make your treatment simpler, more efficient and longer-lasting
- All participants will palpate / assess all other class members and, finally, treat each other
Optimize Your Osteopathic Practice! Part 2
In Part 2 We Will:
- Review and deepen our understanding and use of the key elements presented in Part 1
- Deepen our practice of Equipoise
- Deepen our understanding of each part of our palpatory protocol by strengthening our palpation of the key anatomical structures everywhere in the body
- Deepen our understanding of birth and cranial buttress lesions
- Deepen our understanding of the concept of the “Anchor” in our palpatory protocol
- Explore and add to our palpatory protocol: Traumatic and Chronic Strains and of their role in the “Adapted Mechanism” of Lesions
- Explore the vital role of the “Rhythmical Interstitium” of the visceral system in mobility and motility
- All participants will palpate / assess all other class members and, finally, treat each other
Optimize Your Osteopathic Practice! Part 3
In Part 3 We Will:
- Review and deepen our understanding and use of the key elements presented in Parts 1 & 2, based on questions from participants
- Examine the question “In Osteopathic Practice, Who Does the Work and How?” by exploring the evolving concepts of ‘Presence’ ‘Intention’ and of the ‘Inner Physician’ and their practical imperatives
- Review and deepen our understanding of Cranial Osteopathy and Review the Sutures and Facial Bones
- In Part 3 the participants will be asked to bring along a patient of their own to palpate / assess and treat. Participants will also palpate / assess and treat a new patient
Here’s what people are saying
”Thanks again for such an amazing course! Hands down: the best one I've done to date since graduating 3 years ago. I thought you should know that I've used what you taught us the past 2 days after being back at work, & the results are incredible! A first time patient today who hasn't been able to move her arms above 90° abduction and forward flexion was able to fully reach overhead after the session ended. She was literally jumping for joy! Thank you for sharing what you've learned through your own practice. I look forward to the follow up next year sometime.
Candace Kakowchyk, D.O.M.P., D.Sc.O.
”I have always had the feeling that in order to teach and learn the science of Osteopathy, we have ended up compartmentalizing and dissecting it to the detriment of it’s principles. The many post graduate trainings offering different approaches have complicated the simplicity of Osteopathy’s foundation.
How many times have I wondered what the point was of knowing so much anatomic detail if in the end I was always treating the same structures more or less.
In Robert’s courses I found again the essence of Osteopathy! By feeling first, thinking second, and allowing the body to reveal the nature of it’s suffering, palpatory perception becomes the cornerstone of our practice. By applying his thoughtful, respectful, reproducible protocol we are able to reach every corner of the anatomy of our patient.
Thanks Robert for sharing your knowledge and enthusiasm, and being one of the few Osteopaths out there who keep pulling on Andrew Taylor Still’s squirrel’s tail.
Sebastien Papailhau, S.P.M.P.O. (D.O.M.P. in France)
”Robert’s courses in Palpable Osteopathy is the best series I have found to propel my practice from classroom learning and into my hands.
Scott Fisher, D.O.M.P.
“Feel first and think second” is a key take-away, where we have not only addressed the primary osteopathic lesion but also assessed and treated the whole body of the patient in a time efficient manner. These courses are based on the original thinking of the founders of Osteopathy and are delivered in a format that fits with today’s realities and challenges. The courses have been a leap forward for my clinic with measurable results. Thank you Robert!
”I just wanted to send you a big hug and thank you again for the course weekend. I found the course very insightful…and really liked having…a better handle on the confidence in assessing. You were tremendous with your encouragements to all of us!
I've been more confident with my assessments and treatments the last two weeks and getting good feedback as well.
Deanna Brenneman, BSc (Hons) Osteopathy, Osteopathic Practitioner
”I've had the privilege of working with Robert in Optimize Part 1 and 2. The courses have fundamentally changed how I assess and treat my patients. The efficiency of his osteopathic approach has really fine tuned my treatments and I am getting more done in less time. I really enjoyed his precision when treating the viscera, especially the mesentery. I would highly recommend taking his courses and picking his very knowledgeable and experienced mind!
Zoe, McDermott
Course Schedule
Friday
October 25th
8:15am – 6:00pm
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Optional: 8:15am—Guided Bön-Based Meditation Practice with Kim Puil
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INTRODUCTION – Introduction to Optimal Osteopathic treatment—Why Do We Treat the Way We Do?
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Explore the Context of Your Osteopathic Practice: Your Religious, Cultural and Philosophical Construct, Your Osteopathic Training and the Evolution of the Osteopathic Lesion
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Understand the Exigencies of Optimal Osteopathic Practice
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Demonstration & Practice: Equipoise— Intraosseous Pelvis, Legs and Interosseous Membrane of the Lower Extremity
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Demonstration & Practice: First Steps of Assessment: 1) Visual Assessment of Patient in Standing (2) Use of the Lockdown and Inhibition Systems with Rotation of Pelvis and the Intraosseous Pelvis and Lower Extremities
Satellite 1: Breath and the Cough
Saturday
October 26th
8:15am – 6:00pm
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Optional: 8:15am—Guided Bön-Based Meditation Practice with Kim Puil
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Q&A and Review
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Demonstration and Practice: Elements of the Palpatory Protocol
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Logical Organization of a Palpatory Assessment Protocol—Osteopathic and
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Mechanical
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Cranium: Equipoise at the Cranium
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Core Link: Equipoise at the Dural Pelvis and Spine
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Breathing Mechanism: T-Vertebrae, Ribs, Endothoracic Fascia and Thoracic Viscera and Diaphragm. Demonstration and Practice: Equipoise and the Thorax
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Abdominal and Pelvic Viscera and Structure, and the “Rhythmical Interstitium”
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Hands-On Practice: Assessment of each of the components of the Palpatory Protocol of all participants
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Demonstration: Visual and Palpatory Assessment with an RM Patient
Sunday
October 27th
8:15am – 6:00pm
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Optional: 8:15am—Guided Bön-Based Meditation Practice with Kim Puil
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Q&A and Review
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Demonstration and Practice of Remaining Elements of the Palpatory Protocol…(continued)
Monday
October 28th
8:15am – 6:00pm
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Optional: 8:15am—Guided Bön-Based Meditation Practice with Kim Puil
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Q&A and Review
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Hands-On Practice: Course participants treat each other
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Demonstration of Practice: Robert Morelli Treats New Patient
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Invited ‘complex’ patients are treated by participants using the new concepts
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Q&A
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Final Remarks
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Q&A and Review Final Remarks