My Journey with Cranio Sacral Therapy
In the two years where I studied Cranio Sacral Therapy have been a rollercoaster of processing with little time of proper integration. Having committed to studying Cranio Sacral therapy has been more challenging and more difficult to deal with, than I would have ever anticipated. And it was a long process that never seemed to end. And still today I reflect on the impact this modality had on me and how I differently I view life in general.
Coming from a body therapist background and having qualified in various modalities such as NAET, Sports massage, Shiatsu, Traditional Thai massage, Reflexology, Reiki and Hypnotherapy, I imagined the modality to come quite naturally to me. Nothing further could be from the truth.
In all the other treatments that I offer, I am always busy doing, from working on the affected muscles and postural problems, to stimulating meridians and reflex points, muscle response testing, inductions and suggestions etc. In short, I’m always quite busy. Cranio Sacral Therapy is exactly the opposite. It is truly about ‘not doing’. It is about being deeply still and present with your client.
This seems like a bit of a dichotomy, and it is. How can ‘not doing’ be an effective form of treatment? When clients come into your practice, they are expecting you to do something. This is probably why Cranio Sacral Therapy has been such an enigma. People that have experienced Cranio Sacral Therapy and swear by its effectiveness, when asked to relate it to someone else, utterly fail to do so.
Cranio Sacral Therapy was first developed by an American Osteopath called Dr William Garner Sutherland around 1900 and was originally called Cranial Osteopathy, where it finds its roots. Over the years it has developed into its own form of treatment.
This gentle yet powerful technique evaluates and improves the action of the craniosacral system. Anatomically, this system is comprised of the brain, spinal chord, their surrounding fluids (Cerebro Spinal Fluid) and membranes (meninges), the bones of the cranium, the sacrum, the spine, and the nerves emanating there from. This craniosacral system has its own rhythmic pulsation, slow but regular ‘tidal waves’ rolling through the system and reverberating throughout the body, and it is palpable. By means of gentle holding, one can facilitate and channel these pulsations. Indeed, this pulsation is evident in the embryo before it has a heart, brain and lungs. It is there in sickness and in health.
This pulsation or rhythm is also known as the primal breath or the breath of life, as it is evident in all mammals and it is still there for about 20 minutes after the heart stops beating in death; as it gradually tapers down before it completely stops. One could say that it contains the potency of the body or ‘life force’ that comes before all else and sets the core parameters for the organism. All functions of the organism underlie and are reliant of the potency of the breath of life for proper functioning.
Subtle tidal fluctuations within the organism can be sensed, worked with, followed, shaped, pumped, instilled and channeled. It can be worked with to reset its internal clocks of the system, to rebalance metabolic cycles and trigger healing in traumatized people of all ages.
Cranio Sacral Therapy is renowned for its way of working with babies, mothers and youngsters. It has wide applications in learning disabilities, in immune system recovery and in several developmental disorders.
There are two main schools of thought or branches of Cranio Sacral therapy. The most widespread in South Africa comes from the bio mechanical approach and concerns itself with the Cranio Rhythmic impulse, the shortest of the three perceivable tides within the system of the client. The Cranio Rhythmic impulse is a very turbulent tide and has about 8-14 cycles per minute. All the trauma and stresses of the person are perceivable within it. The interesting thing about this tide is, that indigenous tribes that still live close to nature don’t have it. It seems to be an adaptation of modern man to cope with fast pace stress of modern life. Results are focused around practitioner intervention. Clinical skills may revolve around engagement of tissues, fluids and membranes. The practitioner is focused on structures and their relationship relative to each other. Techniques may include stillpointing, unwinding and decompression.
The other branch of Cranio Sacral Therapy is the Biodynamic approach. This branch was developed by Franklyn Sills and works primarily on mid and long tide levels. These are much more stable tides and the practitioner directly perceives the action of potency, or the breath of life as it surges through the body. This potency is the organizing factor of the entire system, as the fluids, cells, tissues, membranes and bones orientate themselves around its action. The tide is experienced as an in-breath and out-breath of potency, literally as though source energy is breathing life into the organism.
The entire system moves as a unit of function. As the sacrum moves between the ilia, so the cranial bones move in accordance with this motion and vice versa. The practitioner holds a very wide perceptual field perceiving the whole of that person including the biosphere, and listens for places of stuckness or turbulences within this primal motion. The attempt of the practitioner is to support the system to resolve itself rather than interfering with it. The system holds the trauma in place, and subsequently knows what it needs to resolve itself. The treatment is thus hardly reliant on practitioner intervention.
Ultimately, there is a part of us that is always vibrant, youthful and healthy, regardless of how sick we may be externally and it is up to the practitioner to tune into that wellness and facilitate its function. This he does by being still and deeply present with that client, perhaps for the first time in his or her life.