Open Source Cranio

Tag: Restriction

  • 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.

  • Why does the body return to the position of injury in order to release?

    + Why does the body return to the position of injury in order to release? – November 05

    Hi John
    I have a question. In SER the body often returns
    to the position of injury either emotional or
    physical in order to release the disease (energy
    cyst) held there.  This fits perfectly with the
    founding law of Homoeopathy “like cures like’ or
    similia similibus curentur.  But I can find no
    written explanation for why this law is a law!
    What is your experience of why the body holds to
    this?. Or does it always?
    Thank you.

    Lorraine Archer
    County Roscommon.
    Ireland.

    >>>MY COMMENTS:

    The principal of ‘like curing like’ is the same
    in cranio sacral therapy and homoeopathy but the
    mechanics of how the ‘curing’ happens are
    different for each.

    During cranio sacral therapy the body goes to
    the position it was in when the trauma occurred so
    that it can reconnect with its underlying
    energetic blueprint.

    But hang on, I’m getting ahead of myself.
    Let’s talk about the blueprint for a minute.

    Why do plants, trees, animals etc. grow into
    the shape they do?   How do the cells in a bone
    know to become bone cells?
    Currently we are told that the answers to these
    questions lie in the mysteries of DNA.

    DNA is very cool stuff and remarkable in its
    own right. But in time, the limitations of DNA
    will reveal themselves.  The genome will be mapped
    better than Manhattan and these questions will
    remain unanswered.

    What has yet to be proven is that when a seed
    is planted it starts to unfold an energetic
    outline or blueprint of the shape it will grow
    into and the cells migrate in accordance to the
    blueprint.  DNA is the executive of this process
    and responds to the blueprint.

    Think iron fillings, magnet, paper.  The magnet
    (Blueprint) influences the iron filling (Cells) to
    form into a particular shape, the shape of the
    magnet.  You may not be able to see the magnet
    because it is hidden behind the paper but you know
    what shape it is by the shape the iron filing are
    forming.

    Most of the older traditions have identified
    different expressions of the blueprint and
    represent it in different ways.

    In traditional Chinese medicine there are the
    meridians. In Ayurvedic medicine there are the
    charkas.  In Toltec or Mexican shamanism there
    are what are called the feathers of the eagle.

    The botanist, Rupert Sheldrake has been talking
    about this kind of stuff for years, he describes
    it in terms of morphic fields.

    When a person’s system gets traumatised, the
    cells may be displaced but they return to their
    original position under the influence of the
    underlying blueprint.

    As they do this, they have a particular
    movement which thankfully for us, is palpable.
    The whole process goes to make up the auto repair
    mechanism we call a release.

    When the trauma won’t release it’s because the
    blueprint itself has been bent out of shape.

    We learned early on, that given the right
    support a body will start to move of it’s own
    volition.  If we can follow this movement and
    know when to hold it, we may be able to facilitate
    a release.

    That initial movement is the cells of the body
    looking for the blue print.  When the persons body
    returns to the position where the trauma occurred,
    the cells and the blueprint reconnect.  It’s at
    this point that all the different manifestations
    of release can occur, pulsations, trembling,
    shaking, sweating, crying, laughing and that’s not
    to mention what goes on for the patient.

    Couldn’t resist.

    Once the cells and blueprint reconnect then the
    whole system, cells and blueprint, come back into
    alignment and harmony.

    So as I said it’s a process of re-collection.

    Not all bodies need to go into the traumatic
    position to release.  Sometimes restriction
    patterns are very ripe for release and need very
    little support to complete the process.

    I’ve also found over the years that as I’ve
    gotten better at working with the blueprint,
    deeper subtleties have revealed themselves.
    I find more releases are happening at deeper
    levels and require less gross movements on the
    surface.

    Back to the homoeopathic question.  As you know,
    I’m not a homoeopath but I do know some great ones.
    So I went and checked with one of them to see if my
    suspicions about how the mechanics of ‘like curing
    like’ are different between cranio sacral and homoeopathy,
    and she confirmed what I thought.

    With homoeopathy, the remedy caries an
    energetic signature that causes the whole
    energetic structure in the system to change.

    So going back to the magnet and iron filings
    analogy, I’ll explain the difference in mechanics
    that I spoke about in the beginning.

    If a square shaped magnet gets bent out of
    shape on one side.  What cranio sacral does is
    collect all the iron filings on that side and help
    them to ‘find’ the bent shape and collect it,
    allowing it to return to its original state of
    squareness.

    With homeopathy a magnet that is normally red
    has become blue.  The homeopath identifies the
    remedy the magnet needs.  Blue.  They know this
    because in the proving of the remedy many healthy
    red magnets were given this remedy and they all
    started demonstrating blue symptoms.  So the blue
    magnet is given the blue remedy and the whole
    composition of the magnet starts to change.
    Eventually the magnet returns to its natural state
    of red.

    Who said two wrongs don’t make a right.

  • ‘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.

  • B1.06.0 – Direct – Indirect Technique

    << Back to Basics 1 syllabus

    HOW ARE RESTRICTIONS RELEASED?

    We use two approaches
    ✬ Indirect technique
    ✬ Direct technique

    It is through a combination of indirect and direct technique that restrictions can be assisted to release.

    INDIRECT TECHNIQUE

    Indirect technique requires the skill of being able to follow the body to the point of restriction.

    FOLLOWING
    Following the Body is a skill that takes a lot of practice to get proficient at. Without getting too flowery about it, it’s a bit like singing along to a song. It requires you to keep in time and in tune so that your singing harmonises with the music. The combination of the music and your singing produces something more than the individual components.

    If you put your body in a flotation tank it will generally start to move because when your body has a gravity free environment it begins to unravel.

    Like a piece of cellophane that has been you crinkled up in your hands. When you let it go it begins to unravel.

    Following the body means providing this gravity free environment in which the body begins to move. The skill comes in following the dance.

    Indirect technique is a process of Unlatching.

    You are at a door that is locked. There is a key in the lock but when you try to turn it the key is stuck. You lean your weight against the door, pushing it even further closed knowing this will give the barrel of the lock the space it needs to turn.
    While pushing the door in, you try the key again and it turns freely.
    You release the door and it springs open.

    Indirect technique works in a similar way. It is one of the gems of the cranio sacral approach. It takes the view that substantial permanent release can be achieved by following the body into the pattern of restriction.

    If one of my vertebrae has been displaced to the left by a trauma, a whole pattern will have been established around the vertebrae that will keep it displaced to the left.

    No amount of pushing to the right is going to keep the vertebrae in line permanently. If that approach is taken the vertebrae will keep ‘popping out’ and will need to be ‘put back in’ with increasing regularity.

    A permanent release and subsequent realignment can be achieved by following the vertebrae into the pattern of restriction, that is to the left. At the point of the trauma the restriction will release and the vertebrae will return to alignment naturally.

    Indirect technique, going with the restriction pattern.

    DIRECT TECHNIQUE

    Direct technique is used when indirect technique fails to achieve a release. The restriction pattern has been felt and the therapist knows the structure needs to release in a certain direction. Direct technique is moving in that direction against the restriction.

    Direct technique works because of another gem of the cranio sacral approach; a little pressure over a long period of time can move mountains.

    You have just made a peanut butter sandwich. You suddenly decide you want to put jam in your sandwich too. If you pull the pieces of bread apart too quickly you will tear them. But if you apply a small amount of pressure and wait, the two pieces of bread will come apart in time.

    You are in a lake. In front of you is a huge yacht. You have to move it 200m from one jetty to another. You run at the boat and push it with all your strength. (Not easy when you are waist deep in water holding a peanut butter sandwich.) The boat hardly moves. Luckily you are a trained cranio sacral therapist and you apply direct technique. You place your index finger against the boat, applying a small amount of pressure and you wait. In time you will see that this huge boat has moved and if you continue you will cover the 200m in no time.

    Direct technique, going against the restriction pattern.

    << Back to Basics 1 syllabus

  • B1.7.0 – Intention

    << Back to Basics 1 syllabus

    [FLOWPLAYER=http://www.open-source-cranio.com/sacral-training/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/intention1.png|http://www.open-source-cranio.com/sacral-training/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Intention1.flv,560,350]

    In the video above I go through the difference between Attention and Intention and how we use intention in craniosacral therapy.

    Here are some other aspects of intention to consider. We use intention to help restrictions release. Intention has the potential to sound almost mystical. Particularly when the therapist works on the head from the feet, which can happen from time to
    time. Intention is similar to attention but includes intent.

    You are in a forest. A young boy is hiding behind a tree about 1 meter away from you. 10 meter in front of him you can see a young girl whom you suspect is his sister. She is hiding behind another tree. In the distance you can see their father looking for them. You are enjoying the reactions of the children in their game of hide and seek.

    What you are using in the forest is your attention.

    You look at the boy close to you, then the girl in the middle distance and then the father in the distance. When you are looking at the girl you are aware of the boy and his father, because they are all in your line of sight, but your attention is on the girl. The same when you look at the boy or his father.

    Attention has no intent in it. It is simply the focus of your observation. With intention we are talking about the focus of our palpation. What level or depth you are working in the person’s body. Like the princess and the pea, we feel through all the mattresses (layers of fascia) to the pea (restriction) at the bottom.

    You are six years old. Your grandmother has sent you a Christmas gift in the mail. Your parents place it under the Christmas tree and say you can’t open it until Christmas morning. As soon as you are alone you pick up the package and start to feel it. It feels like it might be a doll. But Granny has wrapped the doll in something before she put the wrapping paper on. It feels like bubble wrap. It is kind of squeaky and plasticy.

    You are palpating through two layers now, the wrapping paper and the bubble wrap.

    Opps! You have popped the dolls leg out accidentally. You can feel it through the dolls clothing. (That’s three layers you are palpating through.)

    After some wriggling and squiggling you manage to get the dolls leg back in its socket. You have done this without ever contacting the dolls leg directly. You have used a form of intention to put the dolls leg back in place.

    In Cranio Sacral Therapy we use our intention in a similar way to help structures to release, that are impossible to contact directly.

    You can read my answer to a question about intention in the newsletter archive here.

    << Back to Basics 1 syllabus

  • 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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