Contact us

P: 97551554
M: 0433088919
​(phone or SMS)
E: healingtreeosteo@gmail.com

64 Hayes Rd, Quindalup

Serving Dunsborough, Vasse, Busselton and Cowaramup

FAQ's

Is healing tree osteopathy the right clinic for me?

If you seek an approach to treatment that integrates physical biomechanics with the bioenergetics of self-awareness, emotion and spirit (bringing together structure and function to initiate a self-healing process), then you will feel right at home.

Healing Tree Osteopathy also values kindness, gentleness and a natural generosity of spirit - and tends to attract such like minded people.

What is David's story?

David studied Osteopathy in Melbourne, but his family has lived in Dunsborough since the 1980's.  

​In 1998 he began his Osteopathic career in Busselton, working with Dr. Yvan Ducat at the Busselton Osteopathic Clinic.  Yvan had been David's mentor for many years prior to this, sharing a passion for meditation.  After sustaining an injury, David moved to New Zealand to undertake intensive training in Cranial Osteopathy (with a faculty member of the Sutherland Cranial Teaching Foundation), in addition to undertaking many years of further training in Biodynamic Cranial Osteopathy both in Australia and the USA with Dr. James Jealous, the founder of this wholistic extension of Cranial Osteopathy.

David has a passion for the treatment of babies, pregnancy (and adult seeking their original health within), which arises from birth trauma that he himself experienced - with surgery and time spend in NICU for an intracranial haemorrhage.  Whilst eternally grateful for the benefits of life saving surgical intervention, the longer term physical and functional effects of birth trauma itself where not addressed.  David has first hand experience of how life can be affected by unresolved trauma, and the benefits of Osteopathic treatment (even decades later on).

David has now returned to the beautiful South West, serving patient from Dunsborough, Vasse, Busselton and Cowaramup regions.

How do you treat babies?

Cranial Osteopathy is the laying on of hands, with no physical pressure or force used. This method of treatment has been a part of Osteopathic Medicine for 75 years.

​It is quite common that mums also need treatment - and the ability for you rest and truly relax is a prerequisite for success. For newborns, babies and very young children therefore; it is advised that you bring yourself, your baby/child and a helper (grandma, husband or friend) along to your appointment also.

By treating mum and baby together, the number of treatments required is often significantly reduced.

Do private health funds cover osteopathic treatments?

In most cases YES.

Do I need to be vaccinated to attend an osteopathic clinic?

NO you don’t.

All health professionals are mandated to be vaccinated, but this doesn’t apply to patients.

Because Osteopathic treatment is within 1.5m and over 15 minutes in duration, it is classified as a high risk of COVID transmission.

Based upon recent clinical experiences in Europe and the East Coast of Australia: we can predict what will happen when WA opens it’s borders.  To avoid a clinic being closed for 2 weeks each time a confirmed COVID positive patient attends (ie the exposed practitioner being placed in home quarantine) - it is recommended that health practitioners wear a N95 mask, face shield or protective eyewear, undertake regular clinic cleaning, and request that all non-vaccinated patients also wear a N95 mask when in attendance.

* N95 mask - 4 instead of 3 layer surgical mask (with airtight edges) improves effectiveness again viruses.

What is osteopathic medicine?

Osteopathic Medicine is all about being humbled in the face of an infinitely complex, incomprehensible and miraculous natural world.  Each individual human body (which is also part of nature) is a finely balanced homeostatic organism, where all individual parts function together to sustain a self-healing whole.  In addition, each person is completely unique: having a multitude of intergenerational and personal traits, traumatic memories/events, challenges of daily living/relationships, coping strategies & compensations, and most importantly: the untouched original vitality of Nature (The Health) deep within - the same source of vitality and potential that resides within us all. With sensitivity and patience, a practitioner will be guided by this Health.

An Osteopath is trained to listen with their hands, interpret and be guided by the unique stories and Health contained within each individual's body. An accurate diagnosis will be determined by how quiet and receptive a practitioner can be, and the inner library of past experience they can reference. The long-term effectiveness of treatment will be influenced by a person's openness, and therefore the Health's ability to move unimpeded through the practitioner and patient's mind and body. As the Health within reveals itself, layers will come to the surface to be released. In this regard, each patient plays a important role in their own healing. The keys to helping one's own treatment are humility, the capacity for surrender, and being open to the unexpected.

"It is under the greatest adversity that there exists the greatest potential for doing good, both for oneself and others."
​Dalai Lama

Health (or Nature within us) is universal - it exists within every individual, and within every part of the universe around us - all parts inseparable (like drops within the same ocean).   It is only the human ego, that experiences itself as being seperate from others and disconnected/unaware of something more significant than itself.  

It is the ego that generates inner tension and resistance, because it fears the unknowable nature of change.  This is the same dilemma faced by every human being from the age of 2 years onwards - when the concept of "I" and "me" surfaced for the first time - and where the need to be right (and in control) became more important than knowledge of Nature (The Health) within us.

During times of pain and suffering, it is easy to become solely focussed upon oneself - but the willingness to step beyond one's own skin, provides the opportunity for Nature to flow through us - allowing tension and resistance to ease away.  The willingness to let go and surrender, offers any health practitioner a better chance of helping you heal from within.

The Healing Paradox

When focussing upon yourself (or what someone else can offer you), your body has fewer inner resources available for healing.  This can pose a challenge for any practitioner seeking to address the cause of physical or emotional pain.  It doesn't take much of a shift in perspective however, to make a very significant difference. 

"When you bare your innermost troubled heart and mind to a love beyond what you can grasp or understand, that is surrender."
Adyashanti

"It is the objective of the doctor to find health, anyone can find disease."

​~ Dr Andrew Still (Founder of Osteopathy 1876)

If you require advice beyond what you have read above, please feel free to get in touch.  If after reading, you feel more confused than when you started - it is best that you find a practitioner whose primary focus is symptomatic treatment.

VIDEO

* Principles of Biodynamic Osteopathy, as taught by Dr James Jealous DO (USA)
Osteopathic Physician and Obstetrician

David Bennett
BEcons, BAppSc (ClinSc), BOstSc
Registered Osteopath

David Bennett has been an Osteopath for 23 years.  He studied 5 years of Osteopathic Medicine at RMIT University Melbourne, and began his career in Busselton, Western Australia.   He has since pursued post-graduate work and studies in New Zealand and the US.  

David has a passionate interest in pre-conception care, pregnancy and babies: particularly in relation to secure bonding between mother and child (as an essential foundation to life).

David also enjoys treating adults who share his interest in wholistic treatment - of integrating body, soul and spirit - and so restoring inner vitality and potential.

Our modern culture encourages the pursuit of individuality and control over nature - but this is of limited use when considering a complex ecosystem such a planet (or a human body).  Indigenous cultures by contrast, prioritised their interrelationship with Nature; of listening, learning and being guided by something far more significant than their individual selves.

Osteopathic Medicine embraces the importance of listening to Nature - in this case using hands to listen. Treatments aim to restore homeostatic equilibrium - so that self-healing becomes possible.

Outside of Osteopathy, David has a natural affinity for animals and an interest in family, nature walks, gardening, fishing and therapeutic product design.

"It is my sincere wish that one day, an understanding of pregnancy,
childbirth and early life will form the basis of preventative healthcare."

Treatment methods

I will always assume that gentle is best. Where possible, treatment will be a soft touch method with no manipulation or physical force being required. Such treatment is guided by a patient's own self-healing potential within, and assists in restorIng inner awareness and an integrated self-healing capacity.

When appropriate for adults, I will use a long-axis decompression method of treatment (given that gravity is the common challenge that we all face); plus a variety of others (including spinal manipulation, muscle energy technique, impulse release and myofascial release). A decompression method of treatment increases the long-axis vertical height within the body, so allowing for an untwisting and unraveling within.

Osteopathic Medicine assists in revealing Health already present within.

In 1876 Kirksville Missouri USA, the name "Osteopathy" was chosen to describe a new medical profession which was to have a special aptitude for "bone-feeling" - or using the hands to understand the relationship between all bones of the body, and everything else that is attached to (and influenced by) them.

The Greek root word "Osteo" refers to "bone", and "path" refers to either "feeling" (as in em-pathy) or "disease" (as is Allo-pathy, the name given to modern medicine) . Osteopathy has little to do with naming bone diseases, and everything to do with feeling for Nature's inner expression of Health.

Osteopathic Medicine involves feeling for restrictions within the deeper tissues and organs of a body - and gently manipulating these structures towards normal function. By returning them to a state of integrated structure and function, an Osteopath reveals the body's natural self-healing and self-regulating capacity. The final health outcome is a restoration of normal osseous (bone), articulatory (joint), ligamentous, muscular, fascial (connective tissue), visceral (organ), neurological, arterial, venous, lymphatic, immunological and cerebrospinal functions - the basic essentials of life.

Osteopathy is a receptive and holistic manual medical system, which considers that each individual has the structural and functional characteristics of body, soul and spirit. Each of these elements are inter-related and inseparable from one another, and so fall within the scope of Osteopathic practice.

David Bennett has been a registered and practicing Osteopath for the past 21 years. He has a special interest in an approach of treatment that cooperates with the body's own self-healing mechanism. He has undertaken extensive international post-graduate training, and brings this wealth of experience back to Western Australia.

Registered with Australian Health Practitioner Regulatory Agency (AHPRA)

~ 3 minute water meditation ~
Dunsborough clinic fish pond