19/02/2026
What If the Tension I Feel… Is Partly Mine?
In osteopathy we talk a lot about depth.
About “staying in the tissue.”
About quiet holding.
About visualization.
All of that matters.
But over the years I kept sensing that something essential was missing.
I’ve experienced treatments that were deep.
Still.
Intense.
The patient let go.
Sometimes so much that words afterwards felt almost unnecessary.
And yet, something felt incomplete.
The process was strong.
Very leading.
Very therapist-driven.
The patient was regulated —
but also passive.
Visualization – Structure or Distance?
Visualization creates precision.
It organizes perception.
But if we stay too long in our internal anatomical image,
we subtly leave the relational moment.
It’s like in football.
You can visualize the corner of the goal.
But eventually, you have to shoot.
Palpation needs structure.
And the conscious ability to leave structure.
The Misunderstanding of “Projection”
Touch is not neutral measurement.
It is encounter.
Two nervous systems enter contact.
If I am unaware of my own baseline tone —
my breath, my internal pressure, my mental state —
resonance becomes blurry.
And then something delicate can happen:
I might create tension…
and then interpret it as dysfunction.
Not intentionally.
But realistically.
The therapist’s body is not a disturbance.
It is the instrument.
But every instrument needs calibration.
A Healing Tension Dialogue
What interests me today is something different:
A tension dialogue.
Not a new technique.
Not a new label.
But an emergent process.
I touch.
Something shifts.
I sense what comes from me.
I sense what reorganizes in the patient.
I adjust.
They respond.
We co-regulate.
Part of the tension is mine.
Part is theirs.
Part arises between us.
And that “between”
is the real therapeutic space.
Palpation is neither pure feeling nor pure thinking.
It is a calibrated resonance field.
If we only visualize, we lose the living moment.
If we only feel, we lose orientation.
If we ignore our own influence, we risk confusion.
When we accept that we are part of the process —
regulated, aware, calibrated —
touch becomes more than technique.
It becomes dialogical.
And sometimes,
a healing tension dialogue.