Chaitow’s Breathing Pattern Disorders began with a scare.
In late 1996 Leon Chaitow developed symptoms that looked alarmingly like a stroke. Hospital investigations found no abnormalities, and the cascade of neurological symptoms was eventually traced to dysregulated breathing. He later said that “learning to breathe better” became “a virtual obsession,” and approached the subject with the same intensity that he applied to problems that mattered both clinically and intellectually.
This was also one of the busiest periods of Leon’s working life. He was teaching at the University of Westminster, had been appointed resident osteopath at an NHS clinic, held private practice days, travelled to the USA twice a year to teach, and was writing or revising various books.
In the same year, he established the Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies, alongside an ongoing relationship with the publisher developing new book concepts and recruiting authors.
After his health scare, Leon did what he often did when he wanted to understand something fully: he built a book.
He took the concept to the publisher’s commissioning editor, and once the project was approved, began shaping a multidisciplinary volume on a condition that was widely under-recognised and poorly served by the existing clinical literature. His osteopathic training gave him one set of tools, but he wanted other perspectives in the room. He was never constrained by disciplinary fences, and there was no clinical textbook of this kind in circulation.
The First Edition
Working across the practical constraints of the late 1990s (snail mail, fax machines, and early dial-up), he recruited two specialists whose backgrounds differed sharply from his own.
Dinah (Morrison) Bradley in New Zealand and Christopher Gilbert in the USA were commissioned to contribute specialist strands to the project Leon was designing. First Leon introduced Christopher Gilbert to the largely MT readership through an invited series of papers in the then-young Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies, and as this series was completed, he announced the forthcoming book. He later ran a further piece including Christopher and Dinah alongside other respiratory therapists as they embarked on the project. Their contributions widened the range of approaches available to readers.
Leon then did the decisive integrative work that makes a book more than a compilation: he shaped the overall structure, aligned concepts across chapters, and edited the material into a coherent clinical framework.
The first edition emerged from that process.
It was grounded in clinical observation and informed by Leon’s commitment to whole-person care and multidisciplinary reasoning. His integrative osteopathic perspective sat in productive dialogue with Dinah’s pioneering clinical work, including work developed with her clinical partner Tania Clifton-Smith, while Christopher’s longstanding experience in psychophysiology and biofeedback added an important psychological and behavioural dimension.
A closing chapter gestured towards the “constellation” model that later became one of Leon’s signatures: a core clinical framework accompanied by a range of modality-based perspectives, included where they served clinical reasoning, rather than trends.
The Second Edition
Over the next decade Leon refined that model across his textbooks. When the publisher invited an expanded second edition, he used a larger contributor network and a markedly stronger evidence base, while maintaining the book’s organising logic.
The compressed “constellation” chapter from the end of the first edition became multiple full chapters, each developed by specialist contributors rather than treated as an appendix of possibilities. He drew in promising new researchers encountered through the JBMT to present core theory and practice with a growing evidence base. Returning contributors Dinah Bradley and Christopher Gilbert updated their material in light of new research and experience. At the same time, Leon reworked the core chapters so that the reader’s path remained clinical rather than encyclopaedic: concepts first, then assessment and diagnosis, then management, and only then additional modalities intended to spark further exploration.
As lead editor, Leon oversaw development and ensured the book read as a single clinical argument rather than a set of parallel essays. The second edition became widely used as a textbook and clinical manual.
The Third Edition
The third edition carried a different kind of responsibility. Revision is not only a matter of adding new findings, it is also preservation of a legacy book’s identity. Here, that identity is Leon’s integrative clinical framework, whole-person clinical reasoning, and a deliberately multidisciplinary range of perspectives shaped into a practical book through structure and editorial synthesis.
After Leon’s death, Elsevier appointed his daughter Sasha Chaitow Series Editor for the Leon Chaitow Library. She oversaw the third edition to maintain continuity of scope, structure, and integrative intent across the book.
Christopher Gilbert returned as the sole member of the original team, with Tania Clifton-Smith replacing Dinah Bradley following her sad loss. They were joined by Rosalba Courtney who provides a valuable osteopathic and integrative perspective, alongside a wider group of contributing authors. Together, their specialist contributions strengthen and extend the book’s established frame.
In preparing this edition, the Series Editor retained Leon’s core architecture while remodelling the flow for clarity in contemporary practice, moving from foundational concepts to assessment and diagnosis, through treatment approaches, and then into additional modalities.
The evidence base has been updated throughout, while the book’s integrative intent has been carried across chapters through consistent structure, shared language, and editorial synthesis. Unique in its focus and scope, this edition clarifies terminology, integrates the latest research, and explores the physiological, psychological, structural, and biochemical contributing factors. Guiding the practitioner in a range of clinical settings, it includes practical tips and techniques to support normal functionality.