Open Source Cranio

Tag: Cranial Rhythm

  • How does opposed motion relate to flexion/extension?

    + How does opposed motion relate to flexion/extension? – October 05

    Hey JD,
    Enjoying your Q and A’s.
    Here’s my Q.
    How does opposed motion relate to
    flexion/extension?

    Thanks
    B.F. London.

    >>>MY COMMENTS:

    Glad you’re enjoying the NL, B.F.
    I’m guessing you do a lot of text messaging on
    your ph.
    Here’s my C’s.

    When you first learned cranio sacral, you were
    probably told how the cranio sacral system moves
    in flexion and extension.   ‘In flexion, the
    parietals flex and extend around a medial axis
    running along the sagittal suture.’ and so on . .

    That’s called the similar motion model.  The
    main characteristic of which is that everything
    moves symmetrically around the midline of the
    body.

    What you will have found in practice is that
    some people just don’t flex and extend in
    symmetrical way.

    The fact is that no person fits into the
    theoretical models of flexion and extension all
    the time.  Some never.  No person’s head moves in
    the same way from one day to the next.

    It is important to learn flexion and extension
    in the beginning so that you can refine your
    palpatory skills to really be able to perceive
    flexion and extension in all its nuances.

    With the opposite motion model flexion and
    extension are felt asymmetrically.  When one
    parietal is moving into flexion the other one will
    be going into extension.  This creates an
    asymmetrical peddling motion within the whole
    cranium.

    The frontal bone will move anterior and
    inferior on one side (flexion) while the other
    side moves superior and posterior (extension).

    The squamous portion of the occiput will flare
    and move inferior and slightly posterior as it
    tucks under (flexion) on one side while the other
    side is narrowing and moving superiorly
    (extension).

    The sphenoid torsions around its body.  One
    greater wing will nose dive  (flexion) while the
    other side will be arching superiorly.

    It’s probably easier to get a mental visual of
    it all if you think of the membranous balloon
    lining the cranium, filling on one side while it
    empties on the other.  This will help you make
    sense of what the bones are doing.

    Trying to figure out every bone movement in the
    opposed motion model will do your head in.

    Not recommended.

    Get the idea of the way the membranes move and
    the bones will follow.

    You’ve probably felt this motion already and
    may have put it down to your inability to feel
    flexion extension correctly.

    Well you were right, there is a motion like
    that and it’s called opposed motion.

    Some days our system will move in similar
    motion flexion and extension and on other days it
    will have this opposed motion feeling.

    Hope that was of H.

  • ‘Am I making it up?’

    + What I feel with my hands, am I making it up? – September 05

    Mr Dalton.
    I feel I am at a crossroads in my craniosacral
    training. I have been studying CST for six months.

    I have listened carefully to my trainers.
    I have read books on CST. I understand the fluid
    mechanics of what is happening, in theory.

    When I tune into the system I begin to feel things.

    Then I begin to wonder am I feeling the rhythm
    because I expect to feel it. I wonder if I am
    not imagining the whole thing. What I feel with
    my hands is so tenuous that I could very well
    be making it up.

    My trainers say that the feeling will become
    clearer with time and practice.

    It has been six months now. While I can feel more
    than I could at the beginning it is nowhere
    as clear as I expected.

    I understand that with your experience and in
    your position you have a strong vested interest
    in ‘believing’ in what you do.

    I would appreciate it if you could answer me as
    honestly as possible.

    Do we make it up?

    Regards.

    M.S.

    Somerset.

    >>>MY COMMENTS

    Let me tell you right now, it’s not going
    to get any easier.. . .

    What you are looking for is a kind of certainty.

    Where you put your hands on someone’s body and
    it lights up like a Christmas tree and you can
    see EVERYTHING, every restriction pattern,
    every cause.

    And the road to health for that person looking
    like a well lit highway.

    And all this without that awful squirmy feeling
    like you are groping around in the dark not really
    sure of anything.

    I feel for you, but it’s never going to
    happen. There is something about this work that
    always keeps you at the limit of yourself.

    I’ll explain.

    When you started to learn six months ago and you
    heard about flexion and extension, it probably
    all made sense.

    Then you put your hands on someone and you tried
    to feel it and all you could feel was NOTHING!

    And it felt awful.

    You trusted your trainers and you persevered.

    As time passed you learned new things like feeling
    lesion patterns in the sphenoid or some such
    and when you tried to feel them, all you could
    feel was NOTHING!

    And it felt awful.

    You looked forward to the day when you wouldn’t
    feel that awful feeling.

    You didn’t notice two important things.

    1) Your palpatory skill was improving and
    changing. You were actually feeling more. When
    you were struggling to feel whether the sphenoid
    had a flexion or extension lesion, you failed to
    notice that you were feeling flexion and extension
    with relative ease.

    2) The awful feeling wasn’t changing. It was the
    same awful feeling six month ago that you are
    feeling now.

    As good as your palpatory skills get,
    as good as your diagnostic skills get,
    as good as you perceptive skills get,
    you will still have that voice in the back of
    your head wondering, ‘Am I making this up?’

    Outstanding cranio sacral therapists haven’t
    eradicated uncertainty, they have mastered it.

    It’s not like you get it sorted and never have
    to deal with it again. It’s something that goes
    on every time you treat someone. It’s one of the
    most difficult aspects of cranio sacral work.

    I know all this because I went/go through it myself
    and I have seen ALL the people I have trained go
    through it in one way or another.

    Here’s what I suggest: put the question on hold for
    another six months. Make a deal with yourself that
    for the next six months you are not going to ask
    yourself that question. For the next six months
    you are just going to take it that what you are
    feeling is true. It’s not forever, its just for six
    months.

    I’m not talking about kidding yourself.
    You need to understand what you are trying to do.
    You haven’t been conditioned to think in the way
    that you’re trying to think when you do cranial work.

    Your neuronal pathways are formed in a different way.

    Continually asking yourself if you are making it
    up won’t allow new neuronal pathways to form.

    We are not MRI machines. This is science, but not as we
    know it, Jim.

    Asking if we are making it up is a question from
    another approach.

    Because we are not machines we have the capacity
    to go far beyond our own expectations and pull miracles
    out of the bag. It also means we have the capacity to
    have an off day and get it wrong.

    To answer your very specific question.

    Do we make it up?

    Sometimes.

    Mostly in the beginning of training.

    With experience, 1-2 years minimum, you can begin to
    discern when you are making it up? You can spot it
    and in time it too becomes another thing to note,
    along with the multitude of other things you are
    registering as you work.

    ‘The rhythm is changing, I wonder what that means?

    The patient is feeling sadness, I wonder what that
    means? Now they are angry, I wonder what that means?
    I just made that bit up, I wonder what that means?
    Now they are about to release this bit, I wonder what
    that means? The sadness is still there. .’ and so on.

    Have a good look at what I’ve written. Talk it out with
    people who know you and care about you. Cranio sacral
    therapy may not be the thing for you. It doesn’t suit
    everyone. There are lots of modalities that offer
    much more of the certainty you are looking for.

    Having said that, I encourage you to persevere.
    The rewards far outweigh the difficulties.

    And the weird thing is as you become familiar with
    and master uncertainty, it permeates your whole life
    and it becomes more . . well . . fluid.

  • Maxillae

    + CST and orthodontic work? – April 08

    Hi John,

    Thanks for your reply to my letter regarding
    cancer in the New Years Newsletter.
    As to what to call you how about the “enlightened
    one”?
    Your reply to my question made me laugh but if I
    had received it a few weeks earlier I would have
    cried, can I remind you of your words

    “the chances of you giving yourself a major
    fright and setting you palpatory skills back years
    is very high.

    For example, let’s say you go against your
    teachers/mentors recommendation and start treating
    someone who is in the middle of dealing with
    cancer.
    And let’s say they have a major episode the day
    after you treat them and end up in hospital.

    “Take a minute and think about how you would
    feel.  Can you imagine how difficult it would be
    to stay objective about your contribution to their
    being in hospital.  Can you imagine how hard it
    would be to avoid putting yourself through the
    wringer wondering if your intention was too heavy
    or too light, how you could have missed what was
    coming and so on.”

    Well I can tell you how I felt !!, my Aunt had
    been given the all clear following Non hodgkinson
    and all the horror that the treatments entailed,
    bald and full of life she stayed with us for a
    week over xmas on the day she was leaving I asked
    if she would like to try some cranio (are you
    wincing?) her system did not react and as I had
    not practiced for some weeks thought it was me so
    pushed the intention a bit harder but all she got
    was a nice still point and a vision of a being in
    a crater looking at the blue sky (that made me
    wince!). She phoned me 3 days later to say she had
    not been out of bed since she got home she could
    not stay awake (but she felt good) I told her to
    go to the Drs asap! she had no white cells and was
    very close to dying.

    So how did I feel! all of the above! my teacher
    was on holidays but when I finally contacted her
    she believed the cranio probably brought it to the
    surface alot faster. My Aunt is doing alot better
    they think she is one of the rare ones that get a
    reaction to some injection they give post Chemo,
    but they also discovered her heart and lungs are
    stuffed from the Chemo! I offered her Cranio and
    we both laughed (but I don’t think either of us
    will go there!)

    I have been going through all your archives a
    couple at a time as it makes my head hurt! so many
    questions!

    So I will start with; I read about your case
    study, the girl you helped with facial disorders,
    my 18yr old son has a protruding lower Jaw they
    have done one lot of orthodontic work and are now
    waiting until he stops growing to operate on the
    lower jaw to pull it back ( a nasty sounding
    operation) and then a couple more years of braces
    to correct the bite. Do you believe that cranio
    could stop the jaw coming forward anymore and even
    better bring it back slightly? and my daughter 15
    has had two years of braces but because she had to
    a have a baby tooth removed that had no adult
    tooth to replace it they expect she will have
    braces for two more years! Do you believe cranio
    can really help in these situations, I have read
    in some of the Cranio books to seek out a
    orthodontist that works with Cranio but I don’t
    think there is such a person in Australia? I asked
    my orthodontist and he was very “polite” “what
    the?!!!”

    Many thanks
    God opps John
    Karen
    Australian

    >>>MY COMMENTS:

    Hello Karen,
    Thanks for sharing your experience about your
    Aunt.  It must have been awful for you.  Our
    palpatory skill is a wonderful but fragile thing.

    I’ve had a few emails from different people
    asking about orthodontic work and cranio sacral
    therapy and since both your questions are about
    that too, I’ll kill the few birds, humanely of
    course, with one stone and answer them all
    together.

    Can cranio sacral therapy really help in these
    situations?

    Hell, yes.

    Let’s start with the basics. Teeth are
    basically bone and contrary to common perception,
    bones ain’t bone china.  Bone is plastic and wet
    and it grows and most importantly responds to the
    pressure it is placed under and adapts.

    Wolf’s law and all that, don’t you know.

    What’s Wolf’s law?

    Wolf’s law states that the son of two wolves is
    equal to the son of the bears on the other two
    hides. . . or . . something . . like . .that.

    It basically means that bone will adapt to the
    loads it is placed under.

    That is how they can dig up someone from a
    thousand years ago and from a careful study of the
    shape of the bones of their forearm, work out that
    the person used to be a charioteer.

    The fact they were buried in a chariot helped
    but it was the bones, Jim, the bones.

    So just because our teeth are sitting in bone
    and our bite is essentially made of bone that
    doesn’t mean that it is fixed for all eternity.

    When you think about, that’s what Orthodontists
    are kind of banking on.

    From our perspective, you could think of braces
    as being like a form of direct technique, carried
    out over a numbers months or years.

    When I think of our ‘bite’, and this is
    probably because I used to be a carpenter, I
    always think of the mandible as being like a door
    and the temporo mandibular joints as being like
    the hinges of the door, with the temporals and the
    maxillae making up the doorframe.

    Thinking of it like this helps keep all the
    different parts in their rightful place.

    The mandible is roughly solid.  Yes, I know it
    used to be in two parts and in some ways still
    behaves as if it is but compared to everything
    else involved that still ARE in separate parts, it
    helps to think of it as solid. . . like a door.

    So if a person’s bite is off it is probably not
    the mandible itself but the temporals or the
    maxillae.

    Because if the doorframe is not straight the
    door will keep banging on the frame and never
    close properly.

    Now let’s look at the two examples you gave.

    You write that your son’s lower jaw is
    protruding.  The first thing I would ask myself is
    why is it doing that? Is the mandible sticking out
    or is the face pushed in? or is a bit of both.

    I would palpate his whole face and try and get
    a sense of what the overall pattern was.

    Once you do that you can begin to look at the
    hinges and the doorframe.   For example: There
    could be a pattern where his temporals are
    torsioned anteriorly and inferiorly in a kind of
    temporal nose dive and this in turn could have the
    knock-on effect of pushing his mandible
    anteriorly.

    Or both his maxillae could be driven
    posteriorly.

    If it is in the temporals I would treat it with
    indirect technique.

    If it is his maxillae I would treat it with a
    combination of indirect and then direct technique.
    Indirect to follow into the pattern and help it
    release then direct because the influence of the
    cranial rhythm is weaker in the maxillae and they
    can need a little help getting where they want to
    go.

    If the maxillae are driven posteriorly you will
    need to assess the palatines and help them release
    too if the pattern goes back that far.  You will
    also need to look at how the sphenoid is affected
    by this pattern, particularly the pterygoid
    plates.

    With your daughter, it sounds like they are
    trying to even out the gap left by the extraction.

    Again, I would palpate her whole face and try
    and get a sense of an underlying pattern that
    might have caused the situation.

    If nothing major presents itself, it may be a
    case that her body doesn’t register the situation
    in her mouth as being a problem.  This would make
    you work a lot more difficult and require a lot
    more direct technique.

    Assuming that your daughter’s braces are not
    fixed, you can work on the teeth individually.
    You can take each tooth and ‘unwind’ it.  That in
    itself may begin to even out the gaps.

    And finally, as a general note about working
    with the mouth, the bite and teeth, it’s important
    to rely on the fact that our body is NOT
    predisposed to have a banging, jarring,
    disharmonious bite. It wants to bite right.

    All you have to do is help it. Having said that
    I have found as a general rule that while bone is
    responsive it can take a while for it to grow in
    new directions and by a while I mean 2 to 4
    months.