DocRobert

31/01/2026

¡SIN POLÍTICA, POR FAVOR! [For ENGLISH, scroll down]

Prefiero no hablar mientras atiendo a un paciente. Hablar de sus problemas debería hacerse antes o después, no durante. Pero a algunos les gusta hablar, otros no pueden callarse; ¡es increíble lo aterrador que les resulta el silencio a algunos! Pero bien, está bien. Cualquier tema es bueno, cualquiera excepto... ¡política! No toco política en la consulta. Hace tiempo, en la prehistoria, siendo muy joven, solicité un trabajo como profesor de inglés en una gran cadena de escuelas de idiomas en Grecia. Tuve una entrevista en Londres con el dueño de la empresa y me dijo: «Tenemos una regla: nunca se debe hablar de política en clase». Había algo más que no se debía mencionar, pero no recuerdo qué. Los griegos pueden ser gente fogosa y su política era frágil en aquel entonces; creo que hacía solo diez años que habían salido de la ley marcial. En cualquier caso, tenía razón, y ahora intento aplicar esta regla en la clínica. En el pasado, en la misma mañana, un comunista y un fascista me contaron espontáneamente sus opiniones políticas. No le veo sentido, ¿qué me importa? Siento que se espera que esté de acuerdo con ellos y que ambos podamos sentirnos bien juntos. ¿O si no, qué? Algunas personas se ofenden si no estás de acuerdo con ellas o cuestionas su punto de vista, y eso podría dañar la relación terapéutica. Además, ¡hablar de política no es la razón por la que estamos allí juntos! Así que debo mantenerme callado, ser anodino, neutral, sin comprometerme. Lo mismo ocurre con cualquier opinión firme que se exprese y que sea irrelevante para el tratamiento.

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[ENGLISH]

NO POLITICS, PLEASE!

My preference is not to talk while I treat a patient. Talking about a patient's issues should really happen before or afterwards, not during. But some people like to talk, some people cannot not talk - it is amazing how frightening silence is to some people! But I am cool with that, it's OK. Any subject is good, any except... politics! I don't do politics in the practice. Once upon a time in pre-history when I was a very young man, I applied for a job to teach English with a large chain of language schools in Greece. I had an interview in London with the owner of the company and he said, "One rule that we have is that you're never to talk about politics in class." There was something else not to talk about as well, but I can't remember what it was. Greeks can be fiery people and their politics was fragile at the time, I think they were just 10 years out of martial law. He was right in any case and nowadays I try to apply this rule in the clinic. In the past I have had, in the same morning, a communist and a fascist spontaneously telling me about their political views. I see no point in it, I mean, what do I care? I feel the expectation is that I should agree with them and we can both feel righteous together. Or else what? Some people get offended if you do not agree with them, or question their point of view, and that would risk damaging the therapeutic relationship. Besides, discussing politics is not the reason for us being there together! So I must remain quiet, bland, neutral, non-committal. Same goes for any strong views expressed that are irrelevant to the treatment.

28/01/2026

The material presented here is the result of a collaboration between myself and the Dusun, Seremban, Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia. It was first gathered in April 2013 and updated on a subsequent visit…

26/01/2026

Si me dieran cien euros por cada vez que he oído a alguien decir esto, ¡estaría camino de ser millonario! Suele suceder que no conocen su cuerpo tan bien como les gustaría creer. ¡De verdad, es cierto!

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If I had a hundred quid for every time I've heard someone say this, I'd be well on the way to being a millionaire!

It usually turns out they don't know their body nearly as well as they'd like to believe. Honestly, it's true!

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Picture from https://www.amazon.es/Know-My-Body-Childrens-Physiology-ebook/dp/B01A2YJ2ZW

16/01/2026

[ESPAÑOL más abajo] An expert is not somebody who knows everything about his field.

Osteopathy is both an intellectual and a practical discipline. I have been practising it for 32 years. Do I know everything? Of course not!

In this kind of discipline expertise is having enough depth and breadth of knowledge to understand the fundamentals well, to know how to apply them with reasonably predictable results, to know what to do if the results aren't as predicted, to know where to look for information that one does not know and what information to look for, and to distinguish with fair accuracy between information that is probably reliable and information that is dubious or probably wrong.

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[ESPAÑOL]

Un experto no es alguien que lo sabe todo sobre su campo.

La osteopatía es una disciplina tanto intelectual como práctica. Llevo 32 años practicándola. ¿Lo sé todo? ¡Claro que no!

En este tipo de disciplina, ser experto consiste en tener conocimientos lo suficientemente profundos y amplios como para comprender bien los fundamentos, saber cómo aplicarlos con resultados razonablemente predecibles, saber qué hacer si los resultados no son los previstos, saber dónde buscar información desconocida y qué información buscar, y distinguir con bastante precisión entre información probablemente fiable e información dudosa o probablemente errónea.

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[Image from https://wasteawaygroup.com/blog/integra-expert/]

15/01/2026

In both Traditional Chinese Medicine and Western herbal medicine, viral illness is understood not as a single entity, but as a dynamic interaction between an external pathogen and the internal terr…

19/12/2025

[For ENGLISH scroll down]

Una habilidad peculiar de los osteópatas es la mayor sensibilidad del tacto que adquirimos con los años. Podemos percibir pequeños matices en la textura y las características físicas de los tejidos corporales, así como pequeñas variaciones en la alineación, el rango o el movimiento de la columna vertebral y las articulaciones. Combinada con nuestro conocimiento de la anatomía, esta sensibilidad nos permite visualizar mentalmente lo que sucede en el cuerpo mientras trabajamos. Un famoso osteópata hablaba de "dedos que ven, piensan, sienten, saben". Algo que muchos osteópatas pueden sentir y con lo que trabajan, algunos más que otros, es lo que llamamos "Impulso Rítmico Craneal" (IRC) o "ritmo craneal". Se puede percibir como una expansión y disminución regular y rítmica del volumen de la cabeza, similar al movimiento del pecho al respirar que cualquiera puede sentir u observar, pero mucho más sutil. Algunos osteópatas comienzan a sentir esto desde el principio de su formación, incluso de inmediato; para otros, lleva un tiempo considerable. Los científicos y médicos suelen ser escépticos sobre su existencia, a pesar de que existen estudios que han detectado objetivamente un movimiento rítmico del cráneo. Pero la cuestión es simplemente que los osteópatas tienen dedos y manos muy sensibles. Para los osteópatas con experiencia en el tratamiento craneal, el ritmo craneal es tan evidente como la brisa en la piel del rostro.

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[ENGLISH]

One skill peculiar to osteopaths is the heightened sensitivity of our sense of touch that we acquire over the years. We are able to feel small nuances in the texture and physical characteristics of the body's tissues, as well as small variations in the alignment, range or movement of the spine and joints. Combined with our knowledge of anatomy, this sensitivity allows us to see moving pictures in our minds of what is happening in the body while we are working. One famous osteopath spoke of "seeing, thinking, feeling, knowing fingers". Something that many osteopaths can feel and work with, some more than others, is what we call the "Cranial Rhythmic Impulse" (CRI) or "cranial rhythm" for short. It can be felt as a regular, rhythmic expansion and diminution in volume of the head, much like movement of the chest in breathing that anybody can feel or observe, but much more subtle. Some osteopaths begin to feel this early on in their training, even immediately; for others it takes a considerable time. Scientists and doctors are often sceptical about its existence, even though there are studies that have objectively detected a rhythmic movement of the skull. But the thing is simply that osteopaths have highly sensitive fingers and hands. To osteopaths experienced with working on the cranium, the cranial rhythm is just as plain as a breeze on the skin of your face is to you.

07/12/2025

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VIVIMOS EN TIEMPOS EXTRAÑOS. Si usamos las redes sociales, nos bombardean con mensajes. Hay alguien que reclama tu atención a cada paso. Como si estuviera junto a cada farola, en cada esquina. Como el barrio rojo de cualquier gran ciudad. Como el bazar de las especias de Estambul. "¡Déjame ayudarte a gastar tu dinero!". En el ámbito de la salud, e incluyo lo que podríamos llamar salud espiritual, todos tienen la respuesta, el secreto, para curar todos tus males y eliminar todas tus neurosis. Las calles y los callejones de internet están llenos de ellos. Toda esta gente desesperada, desesperada por tu negocio. No se dan cuenta de cómo empobrecen el espíritu.

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[ENGLISH]

WE LIVE IN STRANGE TIMES. If we use social media we are bombarded with messages. There is someone soliciting your attention at every turn. As though standing by each lamp-post, on each street corner. Like the red light district of any big city. Like the spice bazaar in Istanbul. "Let me help you spend your money!" In the field of health, and I include what you might call spiritual health, everybody has the answer, the secret, to cure all your ills and eliminate all your neuroses. The streets and alleyways of the internet are crowded with them. All these desperate people, desperate for your trade. They do not realise how they impoverish the spirit.

18/11/2025

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A menudo resulta difícil explicar el dolor a las personas porque nos han inculcado la idea errónea de que el dolor debe ser "causado" por algún tipo de lesión física en el lugar donde se siente, o al menos en los tejidos que lo originan (como en el caso del dolor nervioso, por ejemplo, la ciática). Si bien este es un escenario común, también existen otros en los que resulta completamente erróneo. Por ejemplo, la intensidad del dolor, desde la ausencia total hasta la agonía, depende en gran medida de la sensibilidad del sistema nervioso en ese momento. Una mano, por ejemplo, puede ser normalmente completamente funcional, sin dolor y cómoda, incluso si técnicamente existe algún problema menor en una de las articulaciones, tal vez una lesión antigua o un punto de artrosis. Pero si algo sensibiliza el sistema nervioso sensorial —quizás un accidente o un estado emocional negativo intenso, como una fuerte discusión con la pareja—, de repente la mano comienza a doler. No relacionamos ambos sucesos porque, como la mayoría, hemos sido condicionados a pensar en el dolor de una manera muy mecánica.

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[ENGLISH]

It is often challenging to explain pain to people because we were taught the mistaken idea that pain must be "caused" by some kind of physical lesion in the place where the pain is, or at least in the tissues which lead to the pain (as in nerve pain like sciatica). Of course, this is a common scenario, but there are also other common scenarios in which it is a complete red herring. For example, a lot of variation in pain, from zero to agony, depends on how sensitive your nervous system is that day, week, or month. Your hand, for instance, may normally be entirely functional, pain-free and comfortable even though technically there is some minor issue with one of the joints, maybe an old injury or a spot of arthritis. But if something happens to sensitise the sensory nervous system - perhaps an accident or a strong negative emotional state like a big row with your spouse or partner - then all of a sudden your hand becomes painful. You do not connect the two events because you, like most of us, have been indoctrinated to think about pain in a very mechanistic way.

17/11/2025

Healthy sleeping rhythms....

Once, men and women did not sleep as we do now. The notion of “eight hours straight” was foreign. In the Middle Ages, the night unfolded in two distinct breaths: the first sleep and the second sleep.

As the sun dipped below the horizon and the sky turned to dark velvet, people would retire early, surrendering to the hush of night. After four or five hours, their eyes would open—not from anxiety or disruption, but from rhythm. This pause in the night was a quiet, secret world.

By candlelight, they prayed, leafed through worn books, or sipped spiced wine. Some crossed the street to knock on a neighbor’s door, while others lingered in the kitchen, telling stories to their children, hands wrapped around warm cups. It was the heart of the night, and yet life moved gently—intimate, unhurried, profound.

When the invisible clock of darkness signaled, they returned to bed. The second sleep carried them to dawn, when the rooster’s crow marked the beginning of the day.

For centuries, this was the rhythm of rest—recorded in diaries, stories, even medical manuals. But the 19th century arrived with street lamps, factories, and the clamor of urban life. The middle hours of the night lost their enchantment, and people began to sleep “all in one go.”

By the 20th century, the memory of segmented sleep had faded. What was once a natural rhythm became misunderstood. Today, we might call it insomnia.

Then… it was simply the most human way to live in harmony with the night.

06/11/2025

Osteopathy and the great flu epidemic...

“Here in influenza (and other infections) you have the master-tissue of the body - the nerves - pinched and pressed upon by tissue-tension at its very exit from the great central power house, the spinal cord, and tension there is important. If the osteopath lowers the tension and removes the block by loosening the tissues along the line from the skull to coccyx, we can fairly well account for his quick results in influenza in the following way:

1. The toxin of influenza has entered the blood, and has made rigid ( among other muscles) the muscles of the spine.
2. The body cells of the influenza patient are making antibodies as fast as they can.”

M. A. Lane, Dr. A. T. Still, Founder of Osteopathy, 1910.

13/10/2025

This page is from the book Narziss and Goldmund by Hermann Hesse. I first read the book when I was a "young" man(!) and I find it just as captivating and worthwhile (or more so) the second time. The story takes place in the German Empire in the fourteenth century, and partly during the years of the Great Plague (1347 to 1351). The highlighted text is interesting in the light of a reflection on human nature and its manifestations during our most recent "plague"...

13/10/2025

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¡AFINAR UN CUERPO ES (un poco) COMO AFINAR UNA MANDOLINA!

Al afinar un instrumento de cuerda, se aumenta o disminuye la tensión de cada cuerda para que cada una cumpla su función a la perfección (toque la nota correcta) en armonía con las demás. Pero cada vez que se aumenta o disminuye la tensión de una cuerda, se modifica mínimamente la curvatura del mástil, aumentando o disminuyendo así la tensión de las demás. Esto ocurre especialmente en instrumentos como la mandolina, que está diseñada para tener una tensión de cuerdas relativamente alta. Lo que ocurre es que, tras afinar una cuerda, se afina la siguiente y luego la primera ya no está exactamente afinada. Para afinar todo el instrumento, hay que revisar cada cuerda tres veces, ajustando cada vez las desviaciones de la afinación producidas por el propio proceso. Al final, se obtiene un conjunto equilibrado de tensiones de cuerdas, lo que significa que el instrumento está finalmente afinado.

Algo similar ocurre cuando ajustamos el cuerpo con tratamientos osteopáticos, y esta es una de las razones por las que es absurdo esperar que un solo tratamiento resuelva algo que no sean los problemas más simples de reciente aparición. En mi experiencia, cuando hay problemas que se han desarrollado durante mucho tiempo, puede llevar hasta 18 meses de tratamientos regulares, primero semanales y luego bimensuales, para optimizar el cuerpo. Por supuesto, esto no es económicamente viable para la mayoría de las personas, así que hacemos lo que podemos, lo cual suele ser suficiente para reducir los síntomas a niveles aceptables en cuanto a frecuencia, intensidad y duración, o incluso mantenerlo asintomático durante largos períodos.

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[ENGLISH]

TUNING A BODY IS (a bit) LIKE TUNING A MANDOLIN!

When you tune a stringed instrument, you do it by increasing or decreasing the tension in each string so that each string serves its purpose perfectly (plays the right note) in harmony with the other strings. But every time you increase or decrease the tension in a string, you change to a minute degree the amount of bend in the neck, thus increasing or decreasing the tension in the other strings. This is particularly the case with an instrument such as the mandolin, which is constructed to have relatively high string tension. So what happens is that, having put one string in tune, you tune the next string and then find the first string is no longer exactly in tune. To get the whole instrument in tune you have to go through each string three times, each time adjusting for the deviations from good tuning produced by the tuning process itself! In the end, you have a well-balanced set of string tensions, meaning the instrument is finally in tune.

A similar thing happens when we adjust your body with osteopathic treatments, and it is one reason why it is absurd to expect a single treatment to resolve anything but the simplest issues of most recent onset. In my experience, when there are issues that have developed over a long time, it can take up to 18 months of regular treatments, first weekly then twice monthly, to tune the body to the best it can be. Of course this is not economically viable for most people, so we do what we can, which is often enough to reduce your symptoms to acceptable levels in terms of frequency, intensity and duration, or even keep you symptom-free for long periods of time.