Mandy Banton

Mandy Banton is an osteopath practising in Newcastle upon Tyne, having graduated from the London School of Osteopathy in 2007 and becoming interested in research whilst teaching on the Master of Osteopathy Course at Leeds Beckett University.

She became a Fellow of the SCCO in 2014, the same year that she began her doctoral studies at the British School of Osteopathy (now the University College of Osteopathy), under the guidance of the late Professor Stephen Tyreman.

This lecture was first given in November 1998 by the late Dr Alan Becker, brother of Rollin, who had died two years previously.

American Osteopath, Dr Rollin Becker D.O. (1910-96) was known to many Osteopaths in the UK, having been guest lecturer many times at the Annual SCTF Osteopathy in the Cranial Field course held in London since 1972. His vision, understanding and interest in Osteopathy had a huge influence in the way many of the UK Osteopaths who were introduced to the Cranial Concept, utilised it in practice.

Dr. Becker’s approach represented a tactile quantum shift away from the very mechanical bony model that was being taught on postgraduate Osteopathy courses particularly in the USA. What became apparent to UK Osteopaths (amongst others) was that Dr Becker was a man who was able to think laterally and ‘out-of-the box’. His ideas and approach were seemingly more radical as they embraced an energetic concept, and a subtlety in treatment that was for many initially difficult to comprehend, but once understood seemed to open many doors in our understanding of our treatment of patients.  He embraced Dr Andrew Taylor Still’s concept that the role of the osteopath was to find health which he saw as an optimal balance between all systems of the body.

The Memorial Lecture.

Originally conceived in 1998 by the President of the SCCO, Colin Dove and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the SCCO, Clive Hayden, the Memorial lecture is intended to be presented biennially. It was created with the aim of inviting primarily – but not exclusively – osteopaths to present to an invited audience a topic of their choice. It was not intended that the lecturer should be able to review Dr Rollin Becker’s life and works but that the chosen topic should enhance our understanding of the way in which the body works. The ideal guest lecturer was therefore considered to be a person who in the spirit of Dr Becker had been able to ‘dig on’ and explore the truths, myths, conceptions and misconceptions in our understanding of the body.

The invited lecturer is ideally given 90 minutes (with perhaps a break midway) to present his/her topic and then should allow up to 30 minutes to answer questions. Where possible it is desirable that lecture notes should be provided at the time or made available afterwards for dissemination to the audience.

— Colin Dove, SCCO President

Previous lectures in the series