Beyond manual technique: an integrated epistemological framework for the essential functions of osteopathic touch
Abstract
Therapeutic touch occupies a central place in osteopathic practice, yet its epistemological foundations remain insufficiently clarified. It is typically framed either as a technical intervention explicable through biomechanical or neurophysiological mechanisms, or as a vector of non-specific relational and contextual effects. While these perspectives provide valuable insights, neither fully accounts for the complexity of touch in osteopathic care. This article proposes a pluralistic epistemological framework that integrates scientific, experiential and operational dimensions of osteopathic touch. Evidence-based approaches to manual therapy have contributed to the scientific understanding of osteopathic interventions by identifying measurable mechanisms and therapeutic effects. However, there is a tendency to objectify, detaching it from the lived, perceptual and relational dynamics through which it actually unfolds in practice. Drawing on embodied and phenomenological approaches to care, this article argues that osteopathic touch emerges at the intersection of neurophysiological processes, lived experience, perceptual attunement, and situated clinical action. Rather than proposing a unified theory of touch, the framework clarifies how multiple epistemological perspectives may coexist within osteopathic practice without being reduced to a single explanatory model. This framework has concrete implications for osteopathic clinical reasoning, education, and reflexive practice: it provides practitioners and educators with a clearer conceptual foundation for navigating the biological, experiential, relational, and ecological dimensions of therapeutic touch.
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BibTeX
@article{jacquot2026beyond,
title = {{Beyond manual technique: an integrated epistemological framework for the essential functions of osteopathic touch}},
author = {Erwann Jacquot and Aline Paintendre and Mathieu Ménard and Bernard Andrieu},
journal = {International Journal of Osteopathic Medicine},
year = {2026},
month = jul,
doi = {10.1016/j.ijosm.2026.100859},
url = {https://hal.science/hal-05729643v1},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Beyond manual technique: an integrated epistemological framework for the essential functions of osteopathic touch
AU - Erwann Jacquot
AU - Aline Paintendre
AU - Mathieu Ménard
AU - Bernard Andrieu
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/07/14
JO - International Journal of Osteopathic Medicine
DO - 10.1016/j.ijosm.2026.100859
UR - https://hal.science/hal-05729643v1
AB - Therapeutic touch occupies a central place in osteopathic practice, yet its epistemological foundations remain insufficiently clarified. It is typically framed either as a technical intervention explicable through biomechanical or neurophysiological mechanisms, or as a vector of non-specific relational and contextual effects. While these perspectives provide valuable insights, neither fully accounts for the complexity of touch in osteopathic care. This article proposes a pluralistic epistemological framework that integrates scientific, experiential and operational dimensions of osteopathic touch. Evidence-based approaches to manual therapy have contributed to the scientific understanding of osteopathic interventions by identifying measurable mechanisms and therapeutic effects. However, there is a tendency to objectify, detaching it from the lived, perceptual and relational dynamics through which it actually unfolds in practice. Drawing on embodied and phenomenological approaches to care, this article argues that osteopathic touch emerges at the intersection of neurophysiological processes, lived experience, perceptual attunement, and situated clinical action. Rather than proposing a unified theory of touch, the framework clarifies how multiple epistemological perspectives may coexist within osteopathic practice without being reduced to a single explanatory model. This framework has concrete implications for osteopathic clinical reasoning, education, and reflexive practice: it provides practitioners and educators with a clearer conceptual foundation for navigating the biological, experiential, relational, and ecological dimensions of therapeutic touch.
SN - 1746-0689
SN - 1878-0164
ER -