CRANIOSACRAL THERAPY 

The primary goal of Craniosacral Therapy is to support the nervous system, the core of you. Our body often lets us know when we are off. Pain, nausea, fatigue, anxiety, digestive or sleep issues interrupt our comfort and grab our attention.   

The medical model is usually the first avenue people explore for answers. It’s extraordinary when a solution resolves the issue. However, disease is often not the cause of our discomfort.  

When doctors can't find a direct solution there is little collective knowledge in our society to know where to turn. It is up to us to explore alternative solutions. How can craniosacral therapy help? It’s hard to explain, but here is one window in. 

The brain and the spinal cord are the physical structures of our nervous system. They are well protected inside the skull and bones of the spine. They are contained in their own casing of fascia called the dura. Sometimes there are places of restriction or stuckness in the dura that will effect function. Our goal is to find and release these restrictions to allow the nervous system to optimize.      

As experienced craniosacral therapists, our goal is to release the origin of the restriction so the whole pattern can release. We end up working with the whole body in order to support the change in the nervous system you are looking for.  Working with fascia is one example of how we do this. Fascia is the one thing medicine ignores, and the one thing that links every structure in the body.

In the medical model the only function of fascia is to separate structures. They cut away the fascia to explore the unique structure, an organ for example, to understand it’s processes.  As craniosacral therapists we recognize restrictions in the fascia as reasons for dysfunction. Traces of many of our repetitive actions, accidents, sports injuries, are held in the fascia. They kind of build on each other as twists, pulls, linking one place to another.  

Craniosacral therapy is a hands on modality. We engage with all the different specialized tissue of the body, the muscles, tendons, organs, bones, nerves, arteries, veins, through fascia. Fascia wraps things, it organizes each unique structure and the substructures within it. The true understanding of its layers in unknown. We know it separates structures, but its layers are continuous and dimensional. There is so much interconnectedness, many of the layers are not individually identifiable to only one structure. 

We have measures and techniques that allow our hands to sense tension patterns in the fascia as tortions, pulls, or stuckness. The goal of our sessions is to release the restrictions to restore optimal function. When a pattern releases there is an increase in flexibility. This creates more space, more freedom for the nervous system to organize to function differently.  

As therapists we listen with our hands to the loudest call for attention. Your body knows its history, the order of the injuries that it has adapted to. Your body is best equipt to organize the order of the releases. Listening to your body is the reason we can get so much done. All of our years of study, curiosity, and experience is what we bring to the table, to listen and follow and support the change your body is asking for.    

Higher level classes teach us to delve deeper and use our awareness to focus on specific structures of the brain, the gut, the immune system, and so on.  It is a very safe, effective way of working with the body as we never initiate without listening. In sessions I make an effort to teach you about your body, to dialog and listen to your body. To bring your awareness back home to you.

Our life experiences cause us to compensate. Whether it is to a knee that is sore, or a mom that is depressed. Over time we adjust and conform to all of the restrictions that create our reality across all levels of our experiences, physical, emotional and mental. These adjustments are necessary and valuable. Even amazing in that we move forward. Often our compensations become the new normal.  

Our intention as craniosacral therapists is to support you. To help identify what is out of balance. To see the truth your body is showing you. This therapy is body driven, not like talk therapy. Most of the time when others explain craniosacral therapy they are either extremely vague, or they hand you a book. This modality has depth beyond this introduction that your own experience will fill in. Are you curious and ready to explore and deepen your relationship with your body?  

It has successfully been used to treat:

• Headaches • Migraines •Anxiety •Joint Immobility • Jaw Pain • Sinus Congestion
• Neck Pain • Eye-Motor Coordination Problems • Strabismus • Fibromyalgia
• Back Pain • Hip Pain • Knee Pain • Undiagnosed Pain • Concussions • Chronic Ear Infections