Effects of osteopathic treatment on emotions and pain

Amanda Redmond                                                                    Supervisor: Frank Vincent

Abstract

This study explores changes osteopathic treatment has on emotion and pain. It looks at individual emotions that have been identified as important to health and positive and negative affect. Emotional style, represented by emotional intelligence, is also explored.

Patients were asked to complete a two-part questionnaire that collected the patient’s demographic information, information on emotional intelligence and information on emotions and pain before, after and during osteopathic treatment. The information on emotions was collected using self-report likert scale.

The study found that osteopathic treatment significantly reduces pain levels and changes all assessed emotions for the better. Changes in pain due to osteopathic treatment were accompanied by a significant improvement in negative affect. Surprisingly, this change was not reflected in positive affect. It was not possible to identify a relationship between changes in positive and negative affect from osteopathic treatment, suggesting that the relationship between positive and negative affect is not mutually exclusive. Patients with greater emotional intelligence benefited from osteopathic treatment more, gaining a significantly greater reduction in pain.