Open Source Cranio

Tag: Emotions

  • Shortsightedness – Cranio Sacral Wall No.2 and How To Pass Through It.

    ShortsightedWhen a person comes to you for treatment and you are working with them to get a sense of what the cause of their symptoms is, being shortsighted, or not seeing deep enough, is a major wall in cranio sacral work and will result in mediocre, impermanent results.

    Fixating on physical causes and what the right technique to use for the physical manifestation might be, often overlooks the deeper causes for symptoms.  And I’m not talking about trauma or emotional issues.

    No single technique is ‘the’ technique for ANYTHING.  Techniques are ways we get a handle on the bigger picture. And the biggest picture is what you need to be available for.

    I am putting it like that because describing it as ‘looking’ for the biggest picture is way too active, eager, inefficient and INTURSIVE. You need to ask yourself, what is really going on here? Why has this person got these particular symptoms? Why are the symptoms in this configuration? What’s the root cause of this situation?

    Symptoms generally manifest physically, meaning they show up in the person’s body.  These problems are characterised by very physical causes and descriptions, “The tentorium cerebelli is pulled inferiorly here, causing pressure there . . .etc.” But that doesn’t mean the CAUSE of those symptoms is exclusively physical.

    Often EMOTIONAL issues will express themselves as physical symptoms.  Restrictions in the emotional aspect of the person can be caused by old emotional trauma.

    It doesn’t just stop there, often the root cause of what is going on has a physical component, caused by an emotional component but the root cause is not emotional it is something DEEPER.

    That may sound spooky or kooky to you depending on your slant but I have seen it time and again, where the root cause was deeper than physical and emotional issues.

    Core problems
    These relate to how the person sees themselves in their lives, their relationship with themselves, with God, with their idea of God.  A feeling that they are off track.

    And no, you don’t need to know what their track is.  Core problems can feel like fundamental disharmonies within the person. They are the hardest to perceive because they are so deep in the person. A disharmony in a person’s core will affect them emotionally and in turn affect them physically. 

    For example, someone might think they are fundamentally bad. This could manifest emotionally as anxiety and paranoia, which could manifest physically as headaches and chronic fatigue. The skill comes in being able to assess where the root cause of the problem is. 

    jumpingMost core issues circulate the person’s core question and to explain what that is you will need to imagine you are a kid. Not just any kid but a who likes to run and jump.  All day long you run and jump around in a big field at the back of your house. Running and jumping, jumping and running. Man, you just love to run and jump.

    Then let’s say one evening you’re looking at the telly and you see the 400m hurdles race at the Olympics. You are mesmerised as you watch the race. This is running-and-jumping heaven.

    As you look at it you hear a voice in the back of your head saying, “I wonder? I wonder if I could do that? I wonder if I could do that in the same way they’re doing it?  I wonder if I could be as good as that?”

    So you find your local athletics club and join it and you begin to practice. In time you become good enough to qualify for the state team and eventually you become good enough to make it to the Olympics.

    hurdlesLooked at from another perspective we could say that you have voluntarily taken on a series of constraints to help you answer a question about yourself.  When you were running around in the field you had no constraints.  In the Olympics you have many, you have to run within the lines of the track, you have to jump over hurdles of a specific height, and you can only start running when the starting gun fires.  You accept all these constraints because they help you answer your burning question, “I wonder how good I could be at this?”

    The voluntary adoption of constraints for the purpose of finding something out about yourself.  Hold on to that idea while I ask you some personal questions. As you think of the answers, I’d like you to discount any answers that come to you that someone else told you or from anything you’ve read.
    Ready? Here are the questions.

    Why were you born a man or a woman?
    Why were you born the race you were born?
    Why were you born in the country you were born in?
    Why were you born to the parents you were born to?

    Remember, leave out any answers you’ve been told or read.

    I think if you’re honest, you have to admit that you don’t ‘know’ the answers to these questions.  The funny thing is, we all have a sense that there ARE answers to these questions and the answers are NOT random.

    I discovered, through working with people with life threatening conditions, that in the same way that the kid who loved to run and jump eventually went to the Olympics to find out something about themselves, our lives are about finding something out about ourselves. What we are trying to find out is an extremely personal question for each of us.

    The four constraints I asked you about in my questions, your sex, your race, your nationality and your parents are part of the constraints we voluntarily adopt to help us explore the question we have about ourselves. These four are just the tip of the iceberg of constraints we have voluntarily adopted to help us.

    How often have you wondered at the apparent synchronicity of events in your life.
    Why that thing happened as against the other thing happening?
    Why this person and not that one?
    Why was that done and not something else?
    The different things that happen to us are tailor made to help us with our question.

    The different constraints we adopt are individual to each of us.
    All except one.
    The one constraint we all share is we don’t know what it is we’re trying to find out.  We don’t know what our question is.

    As to why that is I can only guess that it’s similar to reason we get upset if someone tells us the end of a movie. Particularly if it’s a movie we really wanted to see. Even if they tell us that the movie has a happy ending. It still feels like it’s ruined.

    Let me take a moment here to highlight that point. Even if the ending of the movie is a happy one we still feel like we’ve been gypped in some way. It sort of follows then that we are more interested in the watching of the movie than we are in the happy ending.

    I’m stressing this point because it is an analogy for life. I think one of the possible reasons we don’t know what our question is is because we are more interested in the living of our life and the exploration of that question than we are in knowing what the question is.

    In my experience, there is a deeper part of ourselves that does know what our question is. It has known from the beginning. It looks out into our lives with what could be described as dispassion, though I don’t think that’s what’s really going on.  It has a VERY broad view of our lives. It knows that in 200 years we will be dead and no one will know us. We might be remembered as a two dimensional historic figure but no on will know us in the way we are known by the people in our lives who know and love us now.
    I don’t mean to bum you out but it’s true.
    We know this too of course but we often live as if we don’t. We live as if we have all the time in the world.

    That deeper part of us is a bit like a compassionate Clint Eastwood. Eerily quiet. It never actually speaks directly to us yet it never lets us forget about our question. It doesn’t care about the silly sorts of things we care about, like life and death and food and security. It will break up our marriage. It will have all our money taken from us. It will make us sick if it needs to get our attention.

    That’s why I say it can appear ruthless but the reality is it knows that our lives are very transitory and the whole point is to explore this question we have about ourselves. So it forces us to keep facing it, even when we don’t want to.

    Whether you are working with an adult or a child makes no difference. This question is something we all work with from the beginning to the end of our lives.

    In most cases you won’t have a strong sense of what the person’s question is and that’s okay.  Remember this is a very private part of a person and information is given on a need-to-know basis.  If you get any insights about it, it will be because you were given or allowed them by that deeper part of the person.

    So you remain open to information about what the person’s question might be while being VERY humble and respectful of anything you receive about it.

    Before you go charging off into the great mystery, let me add this. It can be as easy to go the other way and start looking for deep emotional and core issues as the root cause of a purely physical problem.  “I just twisted my knee Mate!”

    I know that contradicts everything I said previously but you should have figured out by now that cranio sacral work is full of paradox.  The way to know the difference is to trust the process.  Trite, I know, but also true. Some part of the person picked you out and identified you as the one who could help them. Some part of the person brought them to see you, brought them in the door. And it’s the same part that will show you what it needs help with, physical, emotional or deeper

    I know. Try not to damage too much of the furniture. It will sound more helpful in a couple of minutes.

     

  • Cranio Sacral Therapist and Student Newsletter 24

    June 08 – 2007

    Questions and comments for this issue:

    + Do I use Somato emotional release?

    Hello,

    If you sent me an email towards the end of May
    and I didn’t reply, I’m not ignoring you and I am
    interested, no really.

    Sorry, . . what were you saying?

    My email server dropped the ball for about 5
    days and I didn’t get any mail so if you sent,
    please resend.

    I have some treats for you now and no, I’m not
    trying to butter you up.  Here are some videos of
    John Upledger talking about two cases he worked
    on. The volume is low so be ready to crank your
    speakers up.

    The first one is about a boy who had
    developmental delay, a spinal tap, cephaly,
    seizures and neutrapenia.  The video is in two
    parts.

    The second one is about a girl with hearing
    loss, seizures, and stiffman syndrome.  This video
    is in two parts also.

    The last one is of Dr John doing his thing. You
    may need to lower your volume for this one.

    As you know I gave my ‘Core Success’
    postgraduate seminar in Brisbane in April. Jenny
    Palmer organised the event and she has written an
    article about it, which you can read here.

    And speaking of postgraduate seminars, I have
    also got around to putting up an article about a
    full body release seminar I gave last year.  There
    are some good pictures of the full body team in
    action here.

    And lastly I am putting together a page of
    links for my web sites.  I have been collecting
    and book-marking web sites for a couple of years
    now an am just getting ready to share them.  So if
    you have a favourite website, a cause, an
    organization or a just plain funny site that you
    want to let me know about please send me the
    address.

    Anyhu, let’s get on with the
    mailbag.

    ***QUESTION***

    Dear John,
    Thank you for your newsletters.  I find them
    fascinating and very useful.  I particularly like
    what you say about craniosacral at the bottom of
    each newsletter. It is a vision which I fully
    support.

    So this is me participating by asking a question.
    I notice that you haven’t talked about somato
    emotional release in any of your newsletters.  I
    am wondering if you use it and what you think
    about it.
    Keep up the good work.

    KP
    Toronto.

    MY COMMENTS:

    I have received a number of emails asking me
    about somato emotional release.  I even had one asking
    about its lesser known culinary equivalent,
    Tomato emotional release.

    Boom. BOOM.
    I know. . .
    Tomato. . .
    No applause please.

    So I will combine your answer with the others.
    I don’t use somato emotional release per se.  What
    I use is a technique I developed called
    therapeutic inquiry.  My own cranio sacral
    training was somewhat osteopathic in approach and
    didn’t really encourage talking with the patient
    during treatment.  I felt this ignored a whole
    spectrum of possible information.

    I studied a couple of different talking
    approaches, including somato emotional release but
    found that none of them covered everything that
    needed to be covered.  I used elements from all
    and filled in the blanks.

    When it came time to teach this technique I
    called it therapeutic inquiry because the essence
    of what I was doing involved asking the patient
    the right questions, at the right time and in the
    right way.

    Not everyone needs to verbalise what they are
    experiencing when they are releasing a deep trauma
    but if they do then you need to know very clearly
    what is happening and be able to assist them
    verbally and that’s where therapeutic inquiry
    comes in.

    Knowing the difference between who needs to
    talk and who doesn’t is all part of the skill.

    At other times you will have a sense that
    someone is on the verge of releasing something and
    it is one of those releases that needs to come
    through the person’s consciousness.  The patient
    needs to verbalise it but it just won’t come,
    again this is where therapeutic inquiry comes in.

    Therapeutic inquiry is used to help a
    particular kind of restriction to release.  As you
    know, in the course of treatment we use different
    techniques for different kinds of restrictions,
    some require direct technique, some require
    indirect, some require remote work using intention
    away from the site of restriction while others
    require close work.
    Well some restrictions require therapeutic
    inquiry.  The sorts of restrictions that usually
    require therapeutic inquiry often have a big
    emotional component.

    To explain why you would need to use
    therapeutic inquiry, I need to talk a little bit
    about how these kinds of restrictions are formed.
    It usually happens during childhood and it goes
    something like this: (You can hum along if you
    know the tune.)

    A child finds itself in a situation it can’t
    cope with.  From the child’s perspective the
    situation is threatening to its survival.  The
    child needs to process the situation very fast and
    arrive at a solution that will insure its
    survival.  The child quickly reviews its part in
    the circumstances that have led to the current
    situation.
    It identifies the behaviour that is responsible
    and labels it as life threatening.  It then locks
    that behaviour away in its unconscious, setting up
    the emotional equivalent of a reflex arc.
    Too important to leave to mere memory, the
    child makes it part of its instinct.

    Instinct?

    If we hear a sudden loud noise our bodies will
    have an instinctive protective reaction.  Without
    thinking, our body interprets the noise as
    potentially dangerous and reacts to protect
    itself.  In these circumstances we are operating
    from our instinct.
    It is into this instinct that the child puts
    this emotional reflex arc.   Whenever the child is
    in a situation that is similar to the original
    situation, it will have an instinctive protective
    reaction.

    Back to our child.  Time passes and the child
    grows into an adult.  The difficult situation has
    passed but the embellished instinct does not
    change, it stays in place doing its job. Because
    it doesn’t adapt with the growth of the
    child/adult, what was once a lifesaver, becomes a
    source of disharmony in the persons body, or put
    another way, a restriction.

    Not clear enough? Okay here’s an example.

    A young boy pulls a chair over to the stove to
    investigate the strange wispy cloudy stuff coming
    from a pot.
    His mother enters the kitchen. Horrified, she
    sees her little darling about to scald himself.
    She rushes to the stove, pulls him away roughly,
    slaps him and tells him he is a very naughty boy.

    The boy can see she is very upset.  In an
    instant the boy decides the following, which I
    will explain in adult language.

    • ‘A. My mother is very angry with me.
      She has hit me and caused me pain.
      She normally doesn’t hit me.
      My mother is the source of love and
      nourishment in my life and if she
      continues to be angry, she will withhold
      her love and nourishment and she may
      continue hitting me.
    • B. If she withholds her love and nourishment
      and continues hitting me, I will die.
      C. What did I do that has caused this
      disturbance in my mother?

    Reviewing: : : : : – – – –

    Answer: I was being curious and
    adventurous.

    • D. I must incorporate into my instinct

    the following directive.

    WHENEVER I FEEL CURIOUS AND ADVENTUROUS
    I AM IN MORTAL DANGER AND MUST NEVER ACT
    ON THESE DANGEROUS FEELINGS.’

    The above conclusion is reached within minutes
    of being slapped.  The boy includes the new
    information in his instinct and gets on with his
    life.
    As an adult the boy/man finds change incredibly
    difficult.  He experiences abnormal stress at the
    prospect of changing house or jobs.  When his
    marriage breaks down he becomes so tense he has
    difficulty sleeping and experiences chest pains.

    Fortunately he goes to a cranio sacral
    therapist for help.

    Cranio Sacral Therapy to the rescue.
    High five!
    Low five!
    No?
    Suit yourself.

    Therapeutic inquiry allows the patient to get
    in contact with the embellished part of their
    instinct and begin to communicate with it.  All
    going well this dialogue will lead to changing the
    directive.

    I have found that a restriction will only
    change its function by a direct command from the
    person.  Even then it can be reluctant to accept
    that authority.  The command from the person has
    to be with the same emotional intensity with which
    the restriction was first imprinted, because the
    restriction was charged with the job of protecting
    the person against mortal danger.

    Restrictions are reluctant to return the
    authority if the person is half hearted.  They are
    understandably cautious because of the life &
    death imperative with which they were programmed.
    The difficult part of therapeutic inquiry is in
    easing this instinctive defensiveness.

    Therapeutic inquiry is a difficult technique to
    become competent in because it requires you to do
    all the difficult work you are already doing with
    your hands and presence AND include this very
    precise line of questioning.

    Just to give you a little window into the
    technical difficulty involved, there is a huge
    difference between asking,  ‘Are you afraid?’
    or asking, ‘How do you feel?’
    The first question suggests the
    idea of fear and in a nanosecond the patient will
    be thinking.
    ‘Why are they asking me this?  Is there
    something I should be afraid of?’

    Asking the patient how they feel allows them to
    tell you the way they are experiencing the
    situation; not the way you think they are
    experiencing the situation.

    It is very important to get it right because
    you are engaging with a very powerful part of the
    person and you don’t want to be messing around in
    there.  Therapeutic inquiry is the one technique
    that, far and above all the others, I found
    students have most difficulty becoming competent
    in.

    As with every ‘technique’ it is something that
    needs to be mastered and integrated.  In practice
    I rarely use isolated techniques and this includes
    therapeutic inquiry.  Everything blends together
    and is significant.

    From the first phone call with a new patient to
    everything I say to them and everything they say
    to me.  It is all significant and part of the
    blend of treatment

    So that’s it for this issue.

    Cheerio for now.

    Till the next time.

    Your Mate,

    John D.

  • Cranio Sacral Therapist and Student Newsletter 35

    August 2 -2008

    Questions and comments for this issue:

    + Report on feasibility study on the effectiveness of cranio sacral therapy on migraine.
    + Open letter from Cranio Suisse®, the Swiss cranio sacral association.
    + Comment from Al Pelowski in response to Joyaa Antares and maxillae.
    + Comment from Cathryn Nitschke in Australia about her Osteopathy training and how it compares to cranio.
    + Question about therapist burnout.
    + Question about talking about emotional issues.

    Hello,

    Well it’s a positively groaning newsletter this
    Time it is so full.  Lots happening in the world
    of cranio sacral with a report on migraine and an
    interesting initiative from the Swiss cranio
    sacral association but more on that later.

    I have spent quite a bit of time reworking the
    training part of the Open Source Cranio website,
    making it a better learning tool.  I have begun to
    add my training notes and to lay out a learning
    schedule.

    One of the new features is a search function
    which should make it easier to search the site for
    specific topics.

    Another new function is the comments feature.
    This allows you to leave comments directly on the
    site, under specific articles.  You have to click
    the comments tab.  So you can comment on the
    article and letters in this newsletter directly on
    the site if you want.
    I encourage you to leave comments or send me an
    email letting me know what you think.  The more
    feedback I get the better I can make it.

    I also encourage you to send me articles that
    you think might help someone in a developing
    country who is using the material to begin their
    cranio sacral learning and I will post them.

    I have fixed the problem with the newsletter
    subscription block so if you tried to resubscribe
    before and it didn’t work it’s working now.

    Speaking of learning let me direct you to a
    website I came across and intend to use a lot in
    teaching.  It is called the Visible body and is an
    online 3D anatomy viewer.  You can view the demo
    for it here.
    http://www.open-source-cranio.com/sacral-training/3d-anatomy/
    If you like the look of it you need to go to
    their site and register and then you can use the
    models yourself.  If you’re a Mac user forget PC
    only.  Discrimination rears its ugly head again,
    sigh, pout.

    Rightio, let’s get on with the mailbag.

    ***REPORT***

    Below is an extract from a press release I
    received about a proposed test for the
    effectiveness of cranio sacral therapy on
    migraine.  They propose to use low-strength static
    magnets as the control group.

    Double blind studies are not my field of
    expertise and is it just me or what, but I think
    people would know the difference between a
    therapist and a magnet.

    Ah well, they’re trying.

    ————————————————–
    Craniosacral therapy for migraine: protocol
    development for an exploratory controlled clinical
    trial.

    Migraine affects approximately 20% of the
    population.  Conventional care for migraine is
    suboptimal; overuse of medications for the
    treatment of episodic migraines is a risk factor
    for developing chronic daily headache.

    The study of non-pharmaceutical approaches for
    prevention of migraine headaches is therefore
    warranted. Craniosacral therapy (CST) is a popular
    non-pharmacological approach to the treatment or
    prevention of migraine headaches for which there
    is limited evidence of safety and efficacy.

    In this paper, we describe an ongoing feasibility
    study to assess the safety and efficacy of CST in
    the treatment of migraine, using a rigorous and
    innovative randomized controlled study design
    involving low-strength static magnets (LSSM) as an
    attention control intervention.

    Methods: The trial is designed to test the
    hypothesis that, compared to those receiving usual
    care plus a treatment with low-strength static
    magnets (attention-control complementary therapy),
    subjects receiving usual medical care plus CST
    will demonstrate significant improvement in:
    quality-of-life as measured by the Headache Impact
    Test (HIT-6); reduced frequency of migraine; and a
    perception of clinical benefit. Criteria for
    inclusion are either gender, age >11, English or
    Spanish speaking, meeting the International
    Classification of Headache Disorders (ICHD)
    criteria for migraine with or without aura, a
    headache frequency of 5 to 15 per month over at
    least two years.

    After an 8 week baseline phase, eligible subjects
    are randomized to either CST or an attention
    control intervention, low strength static magnets
    (LSSM). To evaluate possible therapist bias,
    videotaped encounters are analyzed to assess for
    any systematic group differences in interactions
    with subjects.

    Results: 169 individuals have been screened for
    eligibility of which 109 were eligible for the
    study. Five did not qualify during the baseline
    phase because of inadequate headache frequency.

    Nineteen have withdrawn from the study after
    giving consent.

    Conclusion: This report endorses the feasibility
    of undertaking a rigorous randomized clinical
    trial of CST for migraine using a standardized CST
    protocol and an innovative control protocol
    developed for the study.

    Subjects are able and willing to complete detailed
    headache diaries during an 8-week baseline period,
    with few dropouts during the study period,
    indicating the acceptability of both
    interventions.

    Author: John D Mann, Keturah R Faurot, Laurel
    Wilkinson, Peter Curtis, Remy R Coeytaux,
    Chirayath Suchindran and Susan A Gaylord

    Credits/Source: BMC Complementary and Alternative
    Medicine 2008, 8:28

    Published on: 2008-06-10

    You can read the full report here.
    http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6882/8/28

    ***OPEN LETTER FROM CRANIO SUISSE®.***

    I was forwarded this open letter from Cranio
    Suisse® who have launched an initiative to
    encourage communication between different schools
    and therapists which, as you know, I am all for.

    Their website is not in English so that limits
    the initiative immediately but other than that I
    think it’s great.

    If you want to read their site in English you
    can run it through Google translate.
    http://translate.google.com

    You need to scroll to the bottom of the page and
    enter their web address.
    http://www.craniosuisse.ch/

    ————————————————

    *International Networking for the Advancement of
    Craniosacral Therapy*

    Dear collegues,

    All the schools and therapists for Craniosacral
    Therapy in Switzerland have organized themselves
    in a new association – Cranio Suisse®. We are now
    number two among the associations for
    complementary therapies. The goal of this
    organization is to bring together all the
    different approaches of Craniosacral Therapy
    within Switzerland and to guarantee a good quality
    of schools and therapists. Cranio Suisse® is the
    official representative of Craniosacral Therapy
    towards governmental institutions and health
    insurance companies. In short, Cranio Suisse® is
    supporting and promoting Craniosacral Therapy
    within in the Swiss Health System.

    Furthermore the association acts as connecting
    link between patients and therapists. You will
    find more details under http://www.craniosuisse.ch/

    This year Cranio Suisse® established a new *study
    group for international contacts and research*. My
    task within this group is to establish contacts
    with associations/schools all over the world, thus
    building the basis for an efficient networking
    beneficial to all of us.

    I should therefore be very grateful if you could
    let me know whether you are interested in such an
    exchange of thoughts and knowledge.

    We would suggest the following procedure:

    *Step 1*: We put together a list of all
    associations/schools interested in putting up a
    Craniosacral “Knowledge Network”.

    *Step 2*: Evaluation of the importance and
    positioning of Craniosacral Therapy within the
    health system of each country (questionnaire). The
    final goal will be to exchange research reports
    and study designs or even realize common research
    projects to get more and broader evidence based
    facts about Craniosacral Therapy.

    Are you interested in such a project and if yes,
    do you agree with the proposed procedure or do you
    have different suggestions?

    We are convinced that an exchange of knowledge
    like this would create positive synergies for all
    of us, whether it be with regard to the handling
    of public health aspects for complementary
    therapies in general or strengthening the position
    of Craniosacral Therapy specifically.

    We are looking forward to your feedback. If you
    feel that there is some other institution, school
    or person who could be interested in the above
    project, please let us know.

    Thank you for giving our ideas a friendly,
    constructive thought.

    With best regards

    Barbara Liniger

    praxis@barbaraliniger.ch

    Member of the study group for international
    contacts and research of Cranio Suisse®

    http://www.craniosuisse.ch/

    PS: Between July 8 and August 24 I will not be
    able to answer any emails. I will get back to you
    in September as soon as possible. Thank you.

    Contactaddress:

    Barbara Liniger

    Praxis für klassische Homöopathie und
    craniosacrale Osteopathie

    Alpenstrasse 14
    6300 Zug

    Tel 041 720 03 20

    praxis@barbaraliniger.ch
    www.barbaraliniger.ch

    Barbara Liniger

    Praxis für klassische Homöopathie und
    craniosacrale Osteopathie

    Alpenstrasse 14
    6300 Zug

    ***COMMENT FROM AL PELOWSKI IN RESPONSE TO JOYAA ANTARES AND MAXILLAE***

    Joyaa query, comments:

    Maxillary hypoplasia, where the maxillae have not
    grown properly, as distinguished from impaction,
    is a feature of some craniosynostotic syndromes.

    We see quite a few babies with that here in
    Africa.  I had a query on that yesterday in fact.

    In these cases you find hydrocephalus, premature
    closure and ridging of the sutures, bulging vault
    bones, protruding fontanels, webbing between
    fingers and toes, and distorted distal phalanges,
    all in varying degrees.  The maxillae can be
    unable to hold in the eyes.

    I had one case a few years ago where I had to push
    an eyeball back in..!  Most of these kids end up
    with craniofacial surgery and shunts.  Some of
    them can respond to cranio!  But by no means all.
    Many die young gagging with oropharynx
    restrictions.

    As to possible causes and complications I could
    speculate at length, but it wouldn’t amount to
    much (estrogenic pollution, dioxins, severe
    malnourishment in mother during 1st trimester,
    etc..).

    I would be interested if any of your readers have
    come across this and worked with it.
    Al in Joburg

    ***COMMENT FROM CATHRYN IN AUSTRALIA***

    Dear John
    Thanks for the link. I have just had a quick wizz
    through the site and I think what you are doing is
    brilliant, worthy and highly commendable. Good on
    you.

    I first met you maybe around 2002 or 3 when you
    were still in Brisbane. I did one of your
    introductory CST courses and really enjoyed it. I
    believe that the school wound down shortly
    thereafter (my memory is not the greatest so
    perhaps this is not quite the case). Anyway, I was
    keen to look more deeply into CST which led me to
    doing Patricia Farnsworth myofascial release/cst
    course and then Roger Gilchrist came to Australia
    for 4 years to teach biodynamic CST.

    I have also studied with Mike Boxhall in England,
    who I think is wonderful and have made contact
    with Charles Ridley whose writings really inspire
    me. Since then I enrolled in osteopathy at RMIT in
    Melbourne, thinking this would take me more deeply
    into the world of CST. I have just finished my
    first semester there and it has been somewhat of a
    let down. I really hear you when you talk about
    problems with CST training or training of any
    hands on healing modality. I find that the push
    towards health degrees and measurable outcomes is
    taking away from the power of the apprenticeship,
    “hands on” model and I lament this.

    I had studied at university before, but this was
    in the arts faculty in the early 90’s.  The
    science faculty as I find it in the late noughties
    is a very different world. The lecturers are
    generally not very competent or inspiring teachers
    and they seem to find students a nuisance rather
    than an opportunity. One of them told me I was
    only allowed to ask one question per semester and
    seeing as I had already used up my quota in the
    first week, that was it.

    I thought he was joking, but he wasn’t! This was
    disappointing because he is a very knowledgeable
    anatomist and I wanted to pick his brains, but
    obviously this is not meant to be. Some of the
    osteo lecturers find my questions challenging and
    potentially threatening, especially the ones
    firmly entrenched in the biomechanical model.

    On the first day of practical osteo classes, we
    practiced range of motion on the lower lumbars.
    The technique left me with an instant sore back
    and I had to self-treat with cranio work for the
    next two days to relieve it! I thought, do I
    really want to learn and be subjected to this? I
    enjoy the philosophy and principles of osteopathy,
    however, the prac classes seem pretty basic and
    archaic compared to CST. I feel like it is a
    backwards step for me. However, I have enjoyed
    delving more deeply into the anatomy and
    physiology, so my intention is to continue with
    the medical sciences part of the course and drop
    the osteopathic parts. Did you know that
    osteopathy in the cranial field is only briefly
    touched upon in 5th year?  All the rest of the
    time is spent on HVLA, MET, counterstrain,
    myofascial release, etc.

    Many of my CST colleagues lament that they never
    studied osteopathy and they seem to hold it up as
    the holy grail of osteopathy.  This is not my
    experience I can now say and I am glad that I
    checked it out. I noticed that osteopaths in
    Australia all have a pretty similar and extensive
    training but in my experience there are some
    pretty ordinary osteos around.

    I am obviously not a fan of the “rub and crack”
    school. And I have found a few gems whom I highly
    admire and have as mentors. So this makes me
    ponder what makes the difference b/w the
    practitioners I adore versus the ones whose
    treatments either leave me feeling worse or at
    best, like I didn’t even have a treatment. I put
    this down to the more subtle realms that CST takes
    the time to unpack and explore. Consciousness,
    presence, empathy, openness, etc. Such vital
    qualities in a health practitioner of any
    persuasion in my opinion.

    So really what I want to say to you is good on
    you. I admire the time and energy you put into
    your newsletter and website to expose more people
    to CST and encourage a discussion around all
    things CST. I think this is vital work to bring
    together a sense of community and to share ideas.

    I notice the osteos have a very close knit
    community and I think there is strength in that. I
    love the opportunity to exchange ideas,
    information, experiences with other health
    practitioners with a biodynamic bent (gentle and
    holistic). Also, I think that osteopathy is held
    up as something quite exclusive and prestigious in
    comparison to CST. They go to great lengths to
    align themselves as primary practitioners with a
    solid medical training. It seems that in turn, the
    medical world rejects them and they are not really
    embraced by the ‘natural therapies’ brigade
    either. They are positioned in a potential no-
    man’s land or on the flip side a potential
    powerful middle way.

    My greatest wish is to study this ‘stuff’ with a
    mentor, one on one. I think anyone can teach
    themselves certain things like anatomy and
    physiology out of a book, but the influence of
    someone who has walked the path before is
    invaluable to point out some of the pitfalls, the
    shortcuts and which bits of the scenery are worth
    lingering on.

    I have a chiropractic friend who I have great
    discussions with, and he maintains that he could
    teach me the ‘guts’ of the chiro 5 year training
    in an afternoon and I believe him. This work isn’t
    hard, as such, but the universities certainly turn
    it into a cerebrally challenging exercise filling
    the students heads with reams of facts at the
    expense of understanding.

    A phrase that speaks so much to me is “lose the
    techniques” as I heard from Gangaji. After all the
    study, to let it all go, and see what arises, to
    follow the heart and the gut and the fingers and
    the senses and feelings and to give the mind a
    rest.  This is what I love and see as the power of
    biodynamic CST.

    So in conclusion, I think any monkey can be taught
    the techniques, the vital part is how they are put
    together in the final package, the quality of the
    touch and the presence and care of the
    practitioner.

    I wish you all the best with this project.
    kind regards

    Cathryn Nitschke
    somewhere between Brisbane, Melbourne and
    Adelaide.

    MY COMMENTS:

    Thank you for all your kind words Cathryn.
    What a great letter.  I cannot agree with you more
    about the mentors, they are vital.

    I think I was lucky because that whole,
    ‘osteopaths are a more exalted form of cranio
    sacral therapist’ thing was nipped in the bud for
    me early in my training.

    Liz Kalinowska (http://www.craniosacralstudies.co.uk/about/frames.html)
    was one of my tutors.  She told me that she
    had become an osteopath first because she thought
    it would prepare her to become a cranio sacral
    therapist.  She spent 7 years becoming an
    osteopath.  She told me she felt she had wasted
    her time.  If anything she had to unlearn some of
    what she was taught.

    I have found over the years that it is very
    hard to resist the temptation to ‘pop’ something
    back into place if you know how.  I am lucky
    because I never learned how to do any thrusting or
    strong techniques so I don’t know how to ‘pop’
    things back into place.   I am forced to sit and
    wait and that is one of the reasons why I, and the
    people I have trained, get such great results.

    ***QUESTION***

    Hi John

    Thank you for the very valuable information shared
    by you and other CS therapists.  I’ve been a
    little out of circuit lately – life’s little
    challenges – so even though you may have not had a
    response from me, I’m still keen to remain
    connected.

    My preference would be more frequent shorter news
    rather than the other.
    Kindly advise what the donations will be used for.

    Any suggestions for therapist burn out? A long
    awaited holiday is needed, I know ,and am busy
    working toward one.  My forearms are taking strain
    and was told that Kinesiology NOT treatment can
    help.  I’m pretty good at caring for myself but
    what with juggling teaching yoga, CST, VM and my
    latest baby, doing readings it has all suddenly
    caught up with me.  I keep the yoga, therapy and
    readings for separate days giving me enough time
    to replenish.  Please throw some light (energy) on
    this subject.

    Kindly yours

    Peni in Cape Town

    MY COMMENTS:

    Hello Peni,
    There are lots of different energetic
    considerations when considering burnout but the
    one that stands out to me, from what you have
    written, is that you are doing A LOT!

    It may be nothing to do with any of the
    therapies that you are doing individually.  It may
    be that you are doing so many plus your new baby.
    I’m getting tired just thinking about it.

    It sounds like you know what I am going to say
    next but I’ll say anyway.  It’s important to find
    a way, that works for you, of removing any
    residual energy after you treat someone.

    For some people this means a full shower for
    others it is simply letting water run over their
    hands.

    Avoid seeing too many people in a week.  I have
    found that somewhere between 12 and 18 adults is
    about as much as most people can treat with cranio
    sacral therapy without burning out very quickly.

    Even if you find a way of removing excess
    energy after each person and you don’t see too
    many people you will still need to take a break
    every 3 months for at least 7 days.

    On top of all that you need to take a long
    break, around 6 months, every 10 years.

    It took me 12 years to figure that one out.

    What will the donations be used for?

    Well mainly to keep me in cigars and wine, oh
    yes and also to help me run open source cranio.
    It takes a lot of time and I do have to pay for
    things like web hosting etc.  I also plan to put
    teaching videos on the site and these all cost
    money to make.

    Primarily the ‘donate’ button is an opportunity
    for people to give back.  This is good for me, not
    just because of the cigars and wine, but also
    because it’s important to be able to receive, me
    included.  I have found that if you can’t receive
    comfortably then you can’t really give.

    ***QUESTION***

    Dear John,
    Thank you for your wonderful newsletters they are
    so helpful.  I find your wellness detective agency
    idea novel and very useful.

    I have a particular patient with chronic fatigue
    and Fibromyalgia for 6 years.  She is in a lot of
    pain.  The cranio sacral treatment itself is going
    reasonably well but I feel she has emotional
    issues that make her condition worse.

    I have broached exploring the emotional causes of
    her condition with her but she becomes very
    defensive and then frustrated and then despairing.

    Do you have any suggestions on how to approach
    these issues with her.

    Thanks again.

    PM
    Perth.

    MY COMMENTS:

    The secret weapon of cranio sacral therapy is
    silence.

    Personally, I can talk a lot about the other
    stuff.  Why the person might be sick and so on.
    I can talk about that stuff so much I wrote a book
    about it for crying out loud.

    But for some people talking can only make
    things worse.  They will usually have been sick
    for some time, like your patient, and will usually
    have seen quite a few other therapists.  They will
    have a number of theories crashing around in their
    heads as to why they are ill.  Ironically each new
    ‘helpful’ perspective you might offer can push
    them deeper into confusion rather than helping to
    clarify.

    That’s when silence really works. Just let them
    get on the table and begin your work.  You can
    chat with them but don’t initiate it or keep it
    going.  Eventually silence descends and in that
    silence and the depths of your work, changes will
    percolate to the surface from the depths of them.

    Over time deep changes will occur and no one
    will talk about it.  Sometimes if you are lucky
    they will tell you an insight they may have had
    and when they do it will usually have a deep ring
    of truth to it.

    So that’s it for this issue.

    Cheerio for now.

    Your Mate,

    John D.

  • How do you get someone to look at their issues if they don’t want to?

    + How do you get someone to look at their issues if they don’t want to? – November – 05

    Dear John,

    I am enjoying your profoundly irreverent letters very much.
    I think you are a naughty man.

    I have a patient for lower back pain.  She also has many
    emotional conflicts and issues within her.  She shows no
    interest in addressing these issues.  The opposite in fact.

    Here is my question.
    Is it possible to invoke someone to address their issues if they
    don’t want to?

    Kind regards.

    N. V.
    Singapore.

    P.S. Be nice.

    >>>MY COMMENTS:

    Cute . .

    When someone first comes to me for treatment, after the
    initial, ‘Hello’, and ‘Take a seat.’ etc.  The first question I ask is,
    ‘What can I do for you?’
    and then I shut up,
    and wait.
    Whatever their answer is, is what they are asking me to help
    them with.

    ‘No kidding Sherlock.’

    That may sound obvious but it’s surprising how many
    therapist don’t get it.  From the sounds of it, you might be one
    of  them.  [That’s me being nice, in case you missed that too.]

    Whatever they answer to question, ‘What can I do for you?’

    ‘I want to sleep better.’
    ‘I want the headaches to stop.’
    ‘I want to stop attracting the wrong man/woman.’
    ‘I want to stop feeling so anxious.’
    ‘I want to get rid of my fibromyalgia’

    It goes to form what I think of as a contract between us.  It
    forms the boundaries within which I work and a declaration on
    their part of what they want assistance with.

    Let’s say someone asks me to help them with a very physical
    problem and while treating them, I palpate lots of emotional
    disharmonies.  If the emotional disharmonies are NOT causing
    the particular physical symptoms I have been asked to help
    with, then it would be very bad juju for me to try and start
    working on the emotional issues.

    First and foremost it’s disrespectful.
    It’s like passing someone on the street struggling to carry
    a new TV into their house.  They ask me to help them carry
    the TV into the house with them.  I do this but once inside the
    house I get a dose of ‘Queer eye for the straight guy,’ and take it
    upon myself to redecorate the hall, stairs and landing
    because, ‘Let’s face it, this person has shocking taste!’

    Secondly, it’s more efficient to stick to the contract because it
    can always be renegotiated in the future.

    How come you are able to palpate the emotional issues in the
    first place?

    You can only ever see what you are shown.

    If you stay within the bounds of the contract, it leaves space
    for the person to say to you down the track, ‘I think I would
    like you to help me deal with my emotional issues.’

    It may sound unlikely but it happens.  It’s another form of
    trusting that the person will allow you deeper when they feel
    safe.  You’re job is not to invoke them to address their issues
    but to provide the safest space you can, allowing them to feel
    empowered enough to address their issues, if they’re ready to.

  • ‘Why are people so dumb?’

    + Emotional issues – Why are people so dumb? – September 05

    Ok Maestro. Read your blurb on your website.

    You don’t seem like your standard “Be still
    and know that I KNOW,’ sort of cranio person.
    Is there a factory somewhere I don’t know about
    that churns these folk out?

    Anyways, I’ve got a question for ye.
    I’ve been seeing people for 4 years now, using
    a combination of acupuncture and cranio.

    As time goes on I’m seeing the cause of many
    physical problems are emotional.

    They tell you their life stories when they come
    in and you can see how they keep repeating
    the same self destructive patterns over and OVER again!
    You point it out to them and they just keep doing it?

    What gives?
    Why don’t they get it?
    Believe me I’ve tried everything!

    So let’s hear your answer on that one Kemosabe.

    K. Orlando. Fl.

    >>>MY COMMENTS:

    Why DON’T people get it?
    Is it because they are dumb?

    Well let’s explore that. If the reason people don’t
    get stuff is because they are dumb then that would
    include you and me.

    Wouldn’t it?

    Or do you think we are special?

    That you and I get stuff quicker than other people?
    Maybe it’s just you and the rest of us are dumb?
    Okay, so maybe there is something else going on.

    It’s called subjectivity.

    Let me explain.

    This situation happens to about once every couple of
    weeks in my practie. I will be talking with a patient
    about their condition. I will be in the middle of
    saying something that I hadn’t verbalised before and
    what I am saying is COOL!

    Part of me will be listening and thinking ‘This is
    really good, profound, insightful stuff I’m saying.’

    Within a few minutes the patient will be looking
    at me in an awed sort of way. I can see them
    rummaging around internally for the makings of
    a nice pedestal to put me on. That’s when my
    ALARM BELLS GO OFF.

    For me and for them.

    While I acknowledge that every now and again
    I do say something original, I know it’s not
    good for me to get too self admiring about it.

    I also, know that the patient is about to disempower
    themselves if I don’t do something fast.

    At this stage they will usually be in the middle
    of telling me how they feel like a screw up of
    one kind or another.

    The inference being that there are people in the
    world who are normal, they are in the majority
    and the patient is an anomaly.

    I stop them and explain the objective/subjective dynamic.
    I make a point of explaining that I can have insight
    about their lives because I AM NOT IN THEIR BODY.
    I’M NOT LIVING IN THEIR LIFE.

    I further the point by telling them that if we
    swapped seats and I started telling them about
    my life, they could have some very useful insights
    about my life. Particularly the things I am not seeing.

    Bottom line Tonto, is you have been sitting in the
    therapist’s chair too long. You have forgotten what
    it is like to be a patient. You have started to
    believe your own press and feel like you should
    be up there on that pedestal your patients have
    been eager to put you on.

    WARNING! WARNING! YOU ARE IN DANGER OF
    FALLING INTO THE THERAPIST TRAP.

    I know because I fell in it a few times myself
    in different ways. It is one of those things
    you need to be very proactive in not allowing to happen.

    You have to nip it in the bud with yourself first
    and then with your patients.

    No pedestal building allowed.
    No special powers implied.
    No act together imagined.

    So be of good cheer, K of Orlando, it’s not hopeless
    but you will need to do something NOW.

    I suggest going to a therapist, a cranio sacral
    therapist even. Put yourself in the other chair
    for a bit.

    Take a class. Learn something new.

    Do whatever you can to break up the cocoon of
    smug superiority you have woven around yourself.

    Try and energetically stand beside the patient
    as you look at their problem, rather on opposite
    sides of it.

    Be with them, two people doing the best they can,
    sometimes with ignorance and fear
    sometimes with grace and beauty.

    Dude, somebody hug me.

  • Sciatica

    + Which technique should I use? – September 05

    + Comment from Al Pelowski, principal tutor with The South
    African Institute of Cranial Studies. on sciatica- October 05


    Hi John,
    Found your web site very useful and your URL easy to remember.
    I use it as my virtual business card. I have been treating a man in
    his late fifties with sciatica. I have had some success but feel I
    could achieve more.

    Can you recommend any techniques that you have found
    particularly useful for sciatica?
    Thanks
    J.P.
    Brisbane.

    >>>MY COMMENTS:

    Glad you like the site.
    I’m going to answer your question in two parts. Let me start by
    saying no one technique is ‘the’ technique for ANYTHING.

    Techniques are ways we get a handle on the bigger picture.
    And the biggest picture is what you need to be available for.
    I am putting it like that because describing it as ‘looking’ for
    the biggest picture is way too active, eager, inefficient and INTURSIVE.
    You need to ask yourself, what is really going on here?
    Why has this person got these particular symptoms?
    Why are the symptoms in this configuration?
    What’s the root cause of this situation?

    Symptoms generally manifest physically, meaning they show up
    in the person’s body.  But that doesn’t mean the CAUSE of those
    symptoms is exclusively physical.

    Often EMOTIONAL issues will express themselves as physical symptoms.
    It doesn’t just stop there, often the root cause of what is going
    on has a physical component, caused by an emotional component
    but the root cause is not emotional it is something DEEPER.

    That may sound spooky or kooky to you depending on your slant
    but I have seen it time and again, where the root cause was deeper
    than physical and emotional issues.

    How can that be?

    Let’s go through it one layer at a time.
    Physical problems.
    These problems are characterised by very physical causes and
    descriptions,  ‘The tentorium cerebelli is pulled inferiorly here,
    causing pressure there . . .etc’.
    Regardless of the source of a pattern of a restriction, it will show
    up physically.  Becoming accurate in identifying the extent and
    complexity of physical restrictions takes a lot of practice and is
    a prerequisite for working with the deeper causes.

    Emotional issues/causes.
    Restrictions in the emotional aspect of the person can have causes
    like, a person may need to leave a partner or job or it may be an old
    emotional abuse.
    Emotional restrictions are more difficult to identify accurately
    because it’s very easy to start theorising about the person’s problems
    instead of simply receiving the information from the person’s body in
    the same way you do with physical patterns.

    Core problems
    These relate to how the person sees themselves in their lives, their
    relationship with themselves, with God, with their idea of God.
    A feeling that they’re off track.
    And no, you don’t need to know what their track is.
    Core problems can feel like fundamental disharmonies within the
    person.  They are the hardest to perceive because they are so deep
    in the person.
    Your ability to see and work with these core issues comes with lots
    of practice and humility.
    Their revelation occurs in the dynamic between you and the person
    and what you have to offer each other.

    Are you with me?

    It generally works its way through the layers something like this.
    A disharmony in a person’s core will affect them emotionally and
    in turn affect them physically.
    For example someone might think they are fundamentally bad.
    This could manifest emotionally as anxiety and paranoia, which
    could manifest physically as headaches and chronic fatigue.
    The skill comes in being able to assess where the root cause of
    the problem is.

    Before you go charging off into the great mystery, let me add this.
    It can be as easy to go the other way and start looking for deep
    emotional and core issues as the root cause of a purely physical
    problem.

    ‘I just twisted my knee Mate!’

    Now the second part of my answer is purely physical.
    There are lots of different ways of creating sciatica.
    It’s a pain, which means there have to be nerves involved.
    The pain generally is in the lower back and travels down one
    leg or the other, sometimes both.

    Have a look at, [in books and with your hands] the lumbar plexus,
    the sacral plexus.  How are the nerves on both sides of the spinal
    column as they leave the vertebral foramina?

    Scan the nerves up as far as the thoraco-lumbar junction.
    Remember tight membranes can pull vertebrae together and pinch nerves.
    Consider how long the person has been getting the pain?
    Getting a sense of when and how the pattern of restriction was formed.
    So, look particularly at the dural tube.
    How are the membranes running?
    Most particularly how is the cerebro spinal fluid moving?
    Find ways to help it come into a harmonious flow.
    It’s all about flow.

    Top

    ***COMMENT FROM AL PELOWSKI***
    – On additional physical causes of sciatica.

    John,
    Some of the rootlets of the sciatic nerve pass through the psoas
    muscle – a noted emotional contractor- – slightly bent over posture,
    unable to fully extend hips without pain, affected leg externally rotated.
    Another sciatica tip: usually on right side, I-C Valve, Caecum.

    Yet other possibilities: Leg length differences, real bony differences,
    or more likely due to rotations in the leg from protecting an old sprained
    ankle or twisted knee — most commonly external rotation in the foot
    where there has been damage to the ankle lateral colateral ligaments
    — resulting in compression of the S-I joint and thus irritation of the epineuria.
    “from the ankle joint to the knee joint…etc” Remember the tune?

    Yo. Ta for newsletter. Much food for reflection
    A

    >>>MY COMMENTS:

    Thanks Al. All very useful places to look for the mechanics of
    the physical manifestation of sciatica.

  • Silence

    + Question about talking about emotional issues. – July 08

    Dear John,
    Thank you for your wonderful newsletters they are
    so helpful.  I find your wellness detective agency
    idea novel and very useful.

    I have a particular patient with chronic fatigue
    and Fibromyalgia for 6 years.  She is in a lot of
    pain.  The cranio sacral treatment itself is going
    reasonably well but I feel she has emotional
    issues that make her condition worse.

    I have broached exploring the emotional causes of
    her condition with her but she becomes very
    defensive and then frustrated and then despairing.

    Do you have any suggestions on how to approach
    these issues with her.

    Thanks again.

    PM
    Perth.

    >>>MY COMMENTS:

    The secret weapon of cranio sacral therapy is
    silence.

    Personally, I can talk a lot about the other
    stuff.  Why the person might be sick and so on.
    I can talk about that stuff so much I wrote a book
    about it for crying out loud.

    But for some people talking can only make
    things worse.  They will usually have been sick
    for some time, like your patient, and will usually
    have seen quite a few other therapists.  They will
    have a number of theories crashing around in their
    heads as to why they are ill.  Ironically each new
    ‘helpful’ perspective you might offer can push
    them deeper into confusion rather than helping to
    clarify.

    That’s when silence really works. Just let them
    get on the table and begin your work.  You can
    chat with them but don’t initiate it or keep it
    going.  Eventually silence descends and in that
    silence and the depths of your work, changes will
    percolate to the surface from the depths of them.

    Over time deep changes will occur and no one
    will talk about it.  Sometimes if you are lucky
    they will tell you an insight they may have had
    and when they do it will usually have a deep ring
    of truth to it.

  • B1.16.0 – Trauma Pattern Formation

    << Back to Basics 1 syllabus

    You are in the fruit and veg department of the supermarket. You pull a bag from the roll provided. You are talking to your friend as you try to open the bag. You rub the end of the bag between your thumb and finger. After a couple of attempts you realise that you are trying to open the wrong end of the bag. If you look closely at where you have been trying to open the bag, you will see that your thumb and finger have left an imprint in the bag. You could say there is a pattern of restriction in the bag. If you smoothed out the imprint as best you could, you would still not be able to get the fine creases out of the plastic.

    This is similar to the way restriction patterns are formed. The body undergoes a trauma of some kind. Let us say a car accident. The impact of the steering wheel on the body puts a large pattern of trauma in the body. Broken bones, lacerations etc. The body can release much of the pattern of restriction but it may not be able to release the entire pattern (the fine creases in the plastic). The residual pattern of restriction is what causes the symptoms that the person comes to you for help with.

    You might wonder why these patterns of restriction are not detected and treated with expensive machinery, like MRI machines. Also how could such small residual patterns of restriction be so devastating?

    To get an idea of what goes on in the body think of fascia as being like 20 layers of glad wrap one on top of another with a thin layer of fluid between each layer. When your body is functioning normally each layer glides over the next. If you poked your finger into the middle of those layers the imprint left by your finger would totally compromise the glad wrap’s ability to move one layer over the other. Take the above small analogy and multiply it by 1,000 and you will begin to get an idea of the effect patterns of restriction can have in the body. The machines are good but they are not looking for widespread minute restrictions.

    Patterns of restriction are often wide spread but like anything that is creased, some parts are more creased than others. They are called focal points, trauma focuses or energy cysts.

    Patterns of trauma are usually complex because the body moves as it is impacted. So in the example above the person would not have a steering wheel shaped pattern of restriction imprinted in the area of their body where they struck the steering wheel. The pattern of restriction will include the way their body moved as it was thrown around in the accident.

    If you have ever seen crash simulations using dummies you will know that they move around a lot during the impact.

    Also to be considered is the depth the pattern is imprinted in the body.

    You have a large bowl of jelly and a ball bearing. You hold the ball bearing 5cms above the surface of the jelly and let it fall. It hardly breaks the surface of the jelly. You retrieve the ball bearing and drop it into the jelly from a height of 1 meter. The ball bearing has now embedded itself into the jelly to quite a depth.

    With patterns of restriction the greater the force of the trauma the deeper into the body it is imprinted.

    EMOTIONS
    Emotional trauma also lodges in the body and can cause restrictions equal in severity to patterns of restriction formed in a purely physical way.

    You are six years old. You are walking past a building site. A brick falls off the scaffold and hits you on the shoulder breaking your clavicle. 40 years later you have frozen shoulder.

    You are six years old. Your father is angrily telling you that you are stupid. As he does this he taps you on the shoulder with his finger to make the point. 40 years later you have frozen shoulder.

    The memory of these events may not be in the conscious mind, but stored in the cells of our bodies. In the course of a Cranio Sacral session these memories can spring into the conscious mind as patterns of restriction are releasing.

    TISSUE MEMORY
    If you find the notion of ‘Tissue Memory’ difficult to accept, think of it this way; videotape is made of plastic with iron filings stuck on its surface. There is nothing too amazing about that, yet when the videotape is played through the VCR and we watch the film, we laugh and cry and become emotionally engaged. The cells in our bodies are a lot more complex than videotape. They store an incredible amount of information and perform a mind boggling number of tasks every second, it is very plausible that they can also store individual memory.

    TRAUMA RELEASE
    Patterns of restriction release when the body returns to the position it was in when the trauma was imprinted. For example if a person’s frozen shoulder was caused years before by their arm being violently. Then the pattern of restriction resulting from that trauma will release when the arm is in the exact position it was in when the trauma occurred, in this case bent backwards.

    When the body returns to the exact position that the trauma occurred in, a spontaneous release occurs.

    It would be practically impossible for the therapist to find the exact body position a particular trauma occurred in based on the person’s memory and external guesswork. Luckily for us we don’t need to work it out because the body remembers. The cranio sacral therapist tunes into the body and allows it to move. With skillful following the body will lead the therapist to the point where the trauma occurred.

    The cranio sacral therapist uses the body’s memory of the trauma and follows it knowing that with timely and appropriate assistance it will release it’s own restrictions.

    We will go into patterns of restriction in great depth as your training progresses. For now, knowledge of patterns of restriction will give an appreciation of what you have at your fingertips as you practice.

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