Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy
from Michael Shea’s Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy, 2007, Appendix D
with minor edits by Scott Engler
The Power of Touch
For thousands of years, people around the globe have relied on the healing power of human touch. Without nurturing touch, a baby is traumatized, the human heart aches, and the brain is damaged. In modern health care, diagnostic test and pharmaceutical treatment have largely replaced “hands-on” care. Our body’s tremendous capacity to heal remains largely untapped.
The Biodynamic Craniosacral Model
All life expresses itself as motion. In the human body, all cells subtly move together in rhythmic waves that travel throughout the body’s fluid systems. The study of these rhythms began over 100 years ago, with biologists and embryologists but especially an osteopathic physician named William Sutherland. After years of study, Dr. Sutherland theorized that these rhythms were generated by a life force carried in the fluids. He called this force the Breath of Life, and the slowest and most stable rhythm that springs from it he called Primary Respiration.
As with the eye of a hurricane, motion in the body is oriented around a core of stillness. In studying the human embryo, scientists have observed that all growth and ordered fluid motion is related to a center of stillness. All around this stillness, Primary Respiration guides the formation of the embryo and continues to work throughout our life to maintain normal balance in the structure and function of our bodies. When Primary Respiration is expressed in the fullness and balanced to other important fluid tides in the body, a sense of wholeness and a perception of well-being are more fully able to manifest.
Stress
All living organisms experience stress. Science is constantly learning about the impact that elevated stress has on our overall health, and numerous studies have shown how stress depresses the immune system and causes heart attacks. From a biodynamic perspective, our fluid systems become shaped by our experiences in life, and stress can interfere with our fluid rhythms. This is especially true early in life when we are more vulnerable and difficulties have a greater potential to imprint the developing brain and body. This leads to patterns held in the body which change the density and shape of the fluids, leading to abnormal physiology.
Helping the Body Heal Itself
Biodynamic craniosacral therapy (BCST) sees health as a state of dynamic balancing between body, mind, and spirit. In this balancing process, our bodies utilize tremendous resources to overcome challenges. When we are stressed by the demands of the world around us, our nervous system tries to meet these challenges. “Adrenaline kicks in,” our energy gets spent, and our bodies are not fully able to tend to our internal world for repair. In a biodynamic cranial session, practitioners help clients slow down and relax deeply. In resting, our breathing slows, muscles soften, circulation increases, digestion improves, and other internal self-care processes become active. By working with deep internal fluid rhythms, practitioners engage deeper resources to foster healthy and balanced flow throughout the body. In doing so, practitioners help clients feel better, and this increased sense of everyday physical well-being can have wide implications emotionally and spiritually.
A Healing Relationship
The effectiveness of treatment depends on the client and practitioner forming a good working relationship. BCST practitioners undergo a minimum of 700 hours of training to develop their perceptual and clinical skills. During sessions, practitioners focus their attention on clients, working with them to co-create an optimal healing environment. They attend to clients’ needs for warmth, hydration, and comfortable body positioning during sessions.
In this day and age, it is difficult to fully relax. We are over stimulated and due to this highly active state rarely feel fully safe. Much of this patterning comes from the ways in which we were held and nurtured in childhood and before. BCST practitioners help heal early wounding by using a slow and respectful manner to negotiate a touch that feels right to the client, one that feels comfortable and nurturing. While working, practitioners cultivate a contemplative state of mind and this translates in the quality of their touch, allowing clients to deeply relax. As scientific research shows, clients can learn to change their perception of their physical body and thus reduce their symptoms.
Practitioners begin a session by sensing the rhythm of Primary Respiration in themselves and establishing a sense of feeling grounded, present, and peaceful. While orienting to their own slow Tide and resting in stillness, they then attune to the subtle motion of the Tide in the client’s body. The practitioner allows his own calm nervous system to resonate with the client’s, and the client’s mind and body becomes more coherent. When practitioners detect disturbances in the various fluid motions, they attempt to empathetically sense the underlying trauma patterns and bring about a therapeutic resolution via careful facilitation of the fluids back to a normal motion.
What to Expect
In a typical BCST session, the client lies fully clothed on a massage table while the practitioner sits beside him or her. The practitioner places his hands very lightly on the client’s body, after receiving permission to do so. Unlike other forms of craniosacral therapy that focus on the head, BCST sessions work with the entire body. Practitioners maintain a light sustained contact for several minutes in each hand placement. Clients are encouraged to check-in with the practitioner, to be sure that they are at ease at all times during the session. While total session length can be longer, the actual time on the table is usually around 60 minutes.
The efficacy of this work has not been formally studied and no claims can be made regarding treatment results. Anecdotal reports from clients, however, suggest that it may be an effective form of work for a wide range of health concerns. It has effects similar to those of massage therapy, such as reducing heart rate, lowering blood pressure, increasing blood circulation and lymph flow, relaxing muscles, improving range of motion, and increasing endorphin production (affecting the perception of pain). BCST may also hasten recovery from injury and lead to a more complete resolution of it.
BCST is suitable for most people of all ages, including babies, children, and the elderly, and may be effective in many acute or chronic conditions. Properly trained practitioners in this method receive the designation Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapist (BCST) from the International Affiliation of Biodynamic Trainings (www.biodynamic-craniosacral.org). They may also be registered with the Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy Association of North America, receiving the designation RCST® (www.craniosacraltherapy.org)
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