A personal view of
Craniosacral Therapy
Finding the source of health
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A personal view of
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Craniosacral therapy (CST) is not the easiest thing in the world to describe. Paul Psutka's web page Stonework gives an analogy which is both beautiful and accurate. Other linked websites give similarly esoteric views of cranial work (see "the Heart of the Matter" below).
What happens during a treatment session
Fixing is fine sometimes, and sometimes "fixing" just doesn't work...
What I find is that more than 50% of people who come through the door CAN'T be "fixed". BUT THEY CAN BE HELPED - because the body is always willing to repair itself, but this may only happen when it is cooperated with (rather than done unto). So probably the most important thing I "do" is to give respect at all times to the body's own agenda - and so work in cooperation with your own inner healing mechanisms. One (limited) analogy I can give is a Rubik Cube. There is a particular sequence of moves which the cube has to go through in order to end up complete. That sequence may appear take you temporarily further from your goal, but each step leads to the next. Putting this into an (even more limited) physical analogy; a twisted ligament in the leg may require some slack to be given in an arm or some part of the intestines, before all the tissues around it align sufficiently well to allow the leg ligament to straighten itself. No amount of work on the leg alone will provide the necessary sequence of steps to allow it to heal itself. Perhaps a Rubic Cube is not a very good analogy, because it is something very mechanical. Ultimately, this inner drive towards health is intimately connected to the forces of Life, and the mystery of what it is to be a living, breathing Human being.... There is an intelligence at work in your body which is greater than you an imagine. You could call this God, or Life Force, the Inner Healer, or simply attribute it to the combined workings of our physical organisms's urge to be whole. In the end it is a mystery - life repairs itself. I recently saw my partners cat (Tom) develop an ulcerated eye, during which half the eyeball became infected, and there was clearly a large suppurating hole in the front of it. Now, several months later, the eye is whole again, and Tom can see with it again. I cant ask him how good his vision is, but the eye is back. We must ask, are human bodies really very different from cats? So what is possible? If you consider that a major proportion of your body's job is to repair itself and keep you alive, then how much of that "life force" could you release to heal yourself? Our Rubik Cube, our body, has its own intelligence, and knows how to line itself up - why not just listen to it, and follow its wisdom??
Upledger teaching describes bodywork to deal with "energy cysts", and fluid-based CST schools describe techniques to work with "fulcrums". Both of these terms are professional jargon for very similar (unfortunately not quite identical) concepts. The Upledger "energy cyst" model is more easily related to the physical body, so I'll start there. Energy cyst/fulcrums are an important aspect of the craniosacral paradigm, but by no means the whole story. If there is a physical blow to your body, then usually the energy is dissipated, absorbed, and the tissues return quickly to normal. Sometimes they don't, and the kinetic energy of the blow becomes locally absorbed, and retained. This retention takes the form of a spiralling inwards, containing the energy. Experiments on mice show that special proteins form in a sphere around the site of the blow, with the protein fibers radiating out from its centre. These proteins are less mobile than the normal tissue, and so act as a barrier between the point of absorbed impact energy (which may be some distance in from the site of the blow), and the rest of the body. Now, layers of connective tissue must be fully mobile against each other - otherwise the additional elastic tension places pressure on local nerves and blood vessels. Reduced blood and nerve supply also means an immune system which is locally less capable of responding, and so a site of potential future pathology is in place. Most of us are walking round with hundreds of these energy cysts in our body. Most of them are compensated for adequately to ensure reasonably good health for most of our lives. Sometimes the body cannot compensate adequately, and so illness and dysfunction start. There are a lot of cases of illnesses (particularly cancer) starting 18 months to 2 years after an accident or emotionally disturbing event. Illnesses may also begin (and are more severe at) sites which have suffered some kind of trauma up to 20 or 30 or more years previously. For instance, some people have hernias or reflux problems in their 40's, 50's and 60's when they have had colic as babies. The interesting thing is that energy cysts form most easily when the body is tense, if only because hard muscles do not dissipate shock as easily as soft muscles. A body is most likely to be tense when we are experiencing an uncomfortable emotion (anger, fear, sadness, guilt). The emotion at the time of the physical blow often gets recorded in the physical tissue along with the blow, and the emotion releases at the same time as the tissues. Work by a biophysics research team led by John Upledger at Michigan State University showed that release of an energy cyst is accompanied by very characteristic changes in total electrical activity of the body (click here to see figure). Hands-on work has shown that the origin of energy cysts can be emotional, chemical, physical, mental, due to shortages (food, water, nutrients, love, understanding) or due to electromagnetic / ionising radiation, or a combination of any of these. Fluid-based craniosacral schools take the concept of fulcrums a little further. A fulcrum can be an energy cyst, but can also be a process around which our life revolves, such as work, a way of thinking, a relationship, or a belief system. All craniosacral schools teach how to address energy cysts, usually through working with connective tissue and fluids. Describing how this is done would take a book (or indeed a craniosacral therapy training course!) rather than a web page, and I recommend " Your Inner Physician and You" by Dr. John Upledger for non-therapists. For medically trained readers, I recommend books by John Upledger (CST Volumes I and II) and "The Heart of Listening", Volume 1 and Volume 2 by Hugh Milne. The following few comments may give you a broader idea of what CST can be - both to the practitioner, and to the person receiving treatment. None of the above books really explains what happens in craniosacral treatment, or how it happens. Whilst the intention is always to work objectively with a physiological fluid or tissue system, experience indicates that there is an intelligence, a life force that arises from the body in ways which defy logic. Hence, the descriptions below are esoteric, because the day-to-day experience of craniosacral pratitioners raises some rather profound questions about the nature of consciousness, the body, and how the two interact. One appropriate description of the spirit of practicing Craniosacral Therapy comes from the Hawaiian principle of KINA OLE (pronounced keena ohlay) ...
Achieving this fully is a bit of a zen experience, and needs a following wind and a good breakfast. However, the intention is always there. For my own particular practice, this means working within as broad a spectrum as possible, and being at the right place in that spectrum. Possibilities include hard, soft, talking, silence, bone, muscle, tissue, fluid, "energy", being and doing, etc, etc, .... The emphasis is on being a human being rather than a human doing. There is a glorious paradox in that just being there (in the right mode of being) is often far more effective than doing. And the other end of the paradox is that sometimes being means doing!
If you want to use CST for therapeutic purposes (or if you're just very curious!), I suggest you have a few CST treatments - the experience is much more real than any amount of description. I would also suggest that you don't expect any of the specific experiences described or inferred on this page, because everyone responds in such different ways, and everyone has their own experience. If you live in East Anglia (UK), contact me, otherwise see the Links Page for Upledger and CSTA practitioners.
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