My name is Katharina Engemann and I live in Bremen, Germany. I have been practicing osteopathy for 20 years in my own practice.
Twenty years ago, osteopathy was still unknown in Bremen. In 1995, I started my education at College Sutherland Hamburg. It soon became clear to me that there were still no sufficient regulations in Germany for the profession of the osteopath, and the situation hasn’t changed until today.
In 1996, Marina Fuhrmann introduced the Verband der Osteopathen Deutschland e.V. (VOD) at our school, and I entered the VOD shortly afterwards. By the end of the 1990s, the AFO (Akademie für Osteopathie e.V.) presented the first theses on osteopathy. Because of these theses, the VOD saw an opportunity to support the political objective of establishing its own profession. Since I wanted to pursue my profession on a solid political and scientific basis, I conducted a scientific study with my colleague Gabriele Hofmeier from Hamburg. We presented our results in 2009. Attending the methodology workshop of Florian Schwerla and Professor Karl-Ludwig Resch was also an important component for our study. This workshop gave me an overview of the various possibilities of scientific work. To have the chance to work together with different colleagues and have the opportunity to really test osteopathy and not the individual osteopath inspired me. However, at that time, this was still without any practical effect.
After the study, I translated Margaret Sorrel’s book, Charlotte Weaver: Pioneer in Cranial Osteopathy. During her life, Charlotte Weaver conducted various studies and made suggestions for future studies. This enthusiastic and unusual scientist impressed me very much. The scientific underpinnings of osteopathy were also very important to her.
In 2016, Marina Fuhrmann introduced me to the DO-Touch.NET staff at the VOD Congress in Bad Nauheim. There it finally was. I had found the international network of osteopaths who want to work scientifically! I am delighted to be part of this network and I look forward to the findings that will result from our research.