What Can Craniosacral Therapy Do For You?

By Debra Redman, LMT, NCTMB

Tim, a 54-year-old financial planner, had been running marathons for almost 15 years with significant back pain. For five years, regular chiropractic care alleviated the pain for while, but the pain always returned. He is frustrated that he is still living with pain. I explain to him that perhaps his body is hanging on to some old injury that isn’t responding to the treatments he has tried. Maybe his body needs a different way to release the muscle memory it is storing. I explain how a non-invasive form of bodywork called
Craniosacral Therapy (CST) sets up an environment that encourages the body to heal how it wants to heal without interference from either him or me.
The body’s innate healing wisdom tells us how to heal when we let it. The therapist’s job is to facilitate that process, listening for the changes in rhythms, watching for muscular releases, and holding space to allow any type of release to occur. Tim’s job is to allow for whatever no longer serves him to be released. During the fourth session, he remembered falling out of a window when he was a two-year-old child. His back released instantly and he has run without back pain for over four years now.

The rhythm of the cerebral spinal fluid moving from the head down to the spine and back up again was discovered intuitively by a Civil War field doctor doing triage on injured soldiers. For over 125 years, Osteopaths have been practicing some form of CST. In the 1960’s, Dr. John Upledger began doing research at Michigan State University on why CST works. Over the course of 15 years, he proved that CST works for almost all health conditions, both physical and emotional.

There are very few contraindications for CST, making it an ideal treatment for many people and an ideal adjunct to any traditional massage or other bodywork modalities. CST can be the only modality used in a session or it may be integrated with a manual lymph drainage massage, reflexology, neuromuscular and deep tissue massage, ear candling and energy work.

Adults & Children Benefit
From CST
Gabrielle is a two-and-a-half-year-old child with chronic ear and sinus infections from severe allergies, causing balance issues and numerous head traumas from falling. Over the course of treatment, her sinus and ear problems decreased significantly. Her balance improved. Her mom reported that Gabrielle was sleeping better, seemed happier and more relaxed. Allergies are still an issue, but CST has helped this family manage the stress of the situation.

Rachel, a 26-year-old woman about to get married, experienced emotional issues centered around this major life change that were causing physical pain. The behavior of her alcoholic mother dredged up old emotional wounds that threatened the serenity of the wedding day. Rachel released old emotions and regained a sense of her own personal power which enabled her to have loving yet firm conversations with her mom that she never thought would happen. By the time the wedding day arrived, any threats of her mother disrupting the weekend were averted and everything went off with great fanfare. After the wedding, Rachel decided to get help from Al-Anon and use CST to help her through the healing process.

How Does CST Work?
The body manufactures cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) in the brain. The bones of the skull, when moving appropriately (yes, they are supposed to move), pump the CSF down the spine. The sacrum (that bone between the hips) moves in tandem with the bones of the head. It flips the cerebral spinal fluid up the spine, creating the craniosacral rhythm. CSF protects the spine and it registers everything coming in from all the nerves that come out of the spine.

When you experience an event that becomes registered in your muscle memory, it changes the craniosacral rhythm. Those events can be physical, emotional, or spiritual in nature. The body automatically adjusts to the new conditions and you continue to function. That is, until you don’t.
By the time an adult decides to use Craniosacral Therapy, they usually have some chronic conditions set up in the body that haven’t responded to whatever form of treatment is being used to heal. This is why it is extremely beneficial for children to have regular CST sessions to prevent childhood injuries storing up in the body. It would be better for the body and your overall health to take care of things regularly, rather than waiting for the system to fail.

Craniosacral Therapy is a natural approach to healing that works at all levels.

Debra Redman is also a spiritual coach and Destiny Astrologer whose practice is located at 1216 Franklin Road, Marietta in Labyrinth Centre. Call 770.298.0991