What Is Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy?
Craniosacral Therapy ~
Craniosacral Therapy is a gentle, non-invasive hands-on holistic treatment effective in addressing a wide range of conditions. The recognition of the “Breath of Life” as the underlying healing agent provides an environment in which resolution and integration can occur on all levels – physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual. Healing at the root level is available through this elegant holistic therapy.
Breath of Life ~
Life expresses itself as motion. All living organisms are infused with an animating force which could be called the Breath of Life. At the deepest levels of the body, within the cerebrospinal fluid, a tide-like ebb and flow is always in motion, ensuring the full expression of health throughout the system. All tissues of the body, from dense bone to delicate nerves, participate in this subtle, rhythmic motion, a motion that can be distinguished through the sensitive hands of a trained therapist.
Biodynamic Craniosacral ~
Imagine, if you will, the moment of your own conception. It is as if there was a blueprint detailing exactly how you were going to develop, which of course you did. Over time, all manner of experience has occurred and now that original draft of you has possibly become obscured. Biodynamic Craniosacral therapy provides a way of contacting your original blueprint, allowing your system to remember how it was in the very beginning. This deep recognition of the original you allows everything that is not really you to simply drop away of its own accord. This is the essence of Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy.
Biodynamic Craniosacral therapy might also be thought of as the art of listening, in a particularly skilled way, to your entire life story – a history clearly reflected in the dynamics of the cells, fluids and tissues of your body. Treatment sessions begin with focusing our attention on what is fundamentally right with you rather than what is symptomatically wrong with you. Together, we listen to the story your body is holding, until your own healing resources are called into play and the roots of the story are revealed. Through this gentle process the natural functions of the Breath of Life are restored, and the inherent Health naturally emerges. Wholeness is the inevitable result.
Craniosacral Therapy originated within the science of osteopathy, however, its roots extend to ancient healing practices common to every indigenous culture. Andrew Taylor Still, a frontier doctor, introduced the founding principles of osteopathy in 1874. An osteopath envisions the body as a unit with self-regulating mechanisms; structure and function are seen as reciprocally inter-related. What has come to be known as cranial osteopathy was pioneered by Dr. William Garner Sutherland, a student of Dr. Stills’. In 1901, while examining a disarticulated human skull, Sutherland observed that the bones of the cranium appeared to be built for respiratory motion (similar to the gills of a fish). This very idea seemed preposterous at the time because conventional theory taught that the bones of the human skull become fused by adulthood. Nevertheless, Sutherlands wildly anarchistic thought led to his intense inquiry and experimentation. His research proved the conventional texts to be inaccurate. The cranial bones proved to be mobile, and it turns out human health and well being depends on this mobility. With his keen palpation skills Sutherland sensed deeper into what was eventually referred to as the Primary Respiratory System. He was able to clearly identify the distinct movements of each of the cranial bones as well as the sacrum. He could feel the movement of cerebrospinal fluid as a tidal motion flowing between the sacrum and the cranium. He deduced that this motion was brought about by a reciprocal tension in the membranes inside the head and spinal cord. This theory became the foundation of cranial osteopathy and the subsequent practice of craniosacral therapy. At the age of seventy-five, Sutherland came to another astounding realization. He observed disturbances within a patient’s body being released entirely by what he called the Breath of Life. In the course of his long practice Sutherland came to understand that this internal tide, the Breath of Life, was the key to unlocking the health which is always present.
Sutherland often told his students that they could “trust the tide” to do the work. Certainly he was referring to the tidal unfoldments of the cerebral-spinal fluid within the craniosacral system, and he may also have been referring to something even more encompassing. When client and practitioner come together in the joint practice of craniosacral therapy a resonance is established between the two individuals. Perception widens, and becomes deeper, allowing both to observe the layered rhythms-within-rhythms of the fluid universe of which we are a part. In this expanded state we are able to experience ourselves unfolding, much like a blossoming rose or waves upon the shore.
Based on many years of clinical experience, I believe Sutherland actually meant that we could “trust the tide”. . . absolutely. I find that when I am able to trust in this way, a treatment plan emerges that rarely coincides with any protocol I have been taught, and yet, the results are specific and often address much more than was intended. Thus, I have come to realize that Biodynamic Craniosacral therapy is essentially an exploration of what it means to be fully human. The practice of Biodynamic Craniosacral therapy is an art, as much as it is a science, and while there is much information about the anatomy, which may be useful in this practice, real knowledge comes only from direct experience. Thus, Biodynamic Craniosacral therapy is an invitation to embark upon a journey, in joint practice, to a place where all differences, all separation, all suffering can dissolve, returning one to the experience of who one truly is.
