Articles for Practitioners

These articles are mainly intended for CST practitioners, but may also be of interest to other bodywork practitioners and maybe body psychotherapists.

All articles are subject to copyright and the file should NOT be sent to anyone else - please instead refer them to this website.

Text is supplied in printable but non-copyable PDF format.
Please inquire if you want a hardcopy version.
Comments welcome on any of these essays

1. Distance Work

   
   A hands-off bodywork approach to working with trauma and relational issues. In some cases of "traumatisation" the body places a defence zone around itself, and anything coming into this zone is considered (by primitive defense reflexes in the hindbrain) to be an invasive and potentially lethal threat. This has implications for any form of bodywork and psychotherapy. The authors experience working with this defense zone is presented, along with some relevent theoretical material. Comments and correspondence from Cranial pratitioners and psychotherapists welcome. The sublect matter has been covered entirely from an experiential point of view, and is supported by some brief notes that skip through the fields biology, physiology, psychotherapy, bodywork, esoterical energy and evolution.
   DRAFT Version 4.31 last updated 3rd April 2012
   
   • format : single column A4 (1120kB, 93 pages)
   This subject matter is being covered in a new one-day workshop in Norwich, UK, 11th June 2012. This workshop is designed to bring the theory into practice through experiential exercises.
    
    
    

2. Mirror Neurons

   
   A short essay on this important new area of research. At least 25% of our brain is engaged in playing out the outside world as if we are doing it ourselves withour own muscles. This provides our embodied sense of meaning, and has many implications for treatment, education, linguistics, communication and every aspect of life.
   DRAFT Version 2.2 last updated 25th April 2012 (135kB)
   
   • format : single column A4 (143Kb)
      
      
      

3. The Sphenobasilar Synchondrosis (SBS)

   
   A Flexible cranium model, compliance provided by the superior & inferior orbital fissures
   Consider a standard model of occipital-sphenoid motion as presented in any CST or Osteopathic textbook. When flexion occurs, the greater wings are shown to move forwards, the SBS is shown to hinge open on its supeior aspect and the sphenoid and occiput move away from each other, thus lengthening the cranium. Palpation reveals that the frontal-occipital axis foreshortens slightly during flexion - rather than the movement predicted by the SBS hinging model, which would require the cranium to lengthen. In fact, the cranium lengthens during extension. This apparent paradox is explored and a revised model of motion (which recognises the flexibility of living bone) is proposed which FULLY accounts for all the movement phenomena found during the flexion-extension cycle, including the "geared" motion of the vomer/sphenoid. Readers are encouraged to explore this for themselves when both palpating a living person and in detailed inspection of a plastic or real disarticulated skull.
   Comments and correspondence from cranial practitioners very welcome. So far (in 7 years) I've received two positive comments, one question and a rather dismissive "plausible". Come on - you can do better than that.
   
   • Article published in JBMT with errata corrected, July 2005 as format : single column A4 (811Kb). This article contains a technical description of detailed elements of cranial bone motion. If you get on OK with Magoun's book, you'll love this. If you don't (get on with Magoun), then you could still read this article, but have a disarticulated skull next to you and look at it as you read - and it will all be a lot more understandable. Alternatively, you could simply skip the detailed description of motion, and instead use the preceding description of structural elements to work out for yourself how things might flex (bend) and move. That's what I did.
     
   • Simplified version of the above, less jargon as format : single column A4 (294Kb). This is also a substantially shortened version, and the most easily readable of the three articles.
     
   • ORIGINAL version of the above before I even thought about publishing it. The alternate pov from the "official" peer-reviewed published version (which got slightly mangled for what seemed at the time to political resons) might possibly be easier to understand. There is a lot less jargon, but also a lot more depth of discussion to the various issues raised by this model of cranial motion.
     
   • Further comments and thoughts on a model of cranial osseous flexibility and motion. (Version 1.0, last modified 25th April 2012, 135 kB) This provides some more recent updates on this model. Actually, after the exhausting effort of publishing in a peer-reviewed journal, a process that eventually took some 15 months, I became interested in trauma and dissociation, and forgot about all of this bony stuff (see here). So these particular "further comments" are revisiting the revisiting, and are therefore something of a Möbius strip. This file will be revised, reviewed, expanded and updated occasionally with a new version number posted as appropriate.

4. Beginnings of a book

   
   Chapter 1. Physical Life : a brief introduction
   This is an introduction to a wide subject - basically looking at the body from the pov of a user, integrating the mind and body so that they are working together as efficiently as possible. Obviously, this is just a beginning, and I've skated very quickly over lots of complex issues to introduce them as ideas. Comments and correspondence welcome.
   format : single column A4 (212Kb)