Risch Andreas.pdf - Osteopathic Research

10 Conclusions
Tendency towards a normative behaviour regarding a
social/psychological/ethical understanding of health.
Low metaphoric grade for economic concepts of health.
The metaphoric concepts suggest a change of paradigm towards a
salutogenetic point of view compared with allopathic medicine.
It is impossible not to use metaphors when talking about health. Recent research in
cognitive linguistics Lakoff/Johnson, 1980) has put the metaphor on top of the list of
tools for generating meaning and allowing the management of physical and cultural
experience on a cognitive level. This helps and improves the understanding of
abstract contents.
By highlighting or hiding certain aspects of the target domain, the metaphors only
create a partial understanding of reality but they demonstrate at the same time their
selective character by showing a different point of view. Metaphors are not „models of
reality“ but „models for reality“ (Geertz, 1973), they have operative, e.g. action
guiding function, they help to provide an orientation for action in the world, they
reduce complexity and increase dimension (Ziegler, 2008).
With the help of a quantitative and qualitative analysis of metaphors, 10 interviews of
German-speaking osteopaths with an academic background were systematically
screened and evaluated for osteopathic conceptualization of health. The question of
this study was to find out which concepts of understanding for health osteopaths use
in their profession.
By talking and reflecting about health, osteopaths use a high grade of
metaphorization which indicate a wide spectrum of experience. This is also reflected
in the main categories metaphors are taken from. A high quantitative percentage of
interoceptive sensory experience, orienting and associative physical body experience
and sociological and technological thematic experience draw a conclusion to the
value of these concepts of health for osteopaths. The strong emphasis on the