Hello and Welcome,
My name is John Dalton. If you are reading this I am going to assume you are interested in learning to become a cranio sacral therapist and are wondering if it is the thing for you.

In my working life I have been a carpenter, a cameraman, a scriptwriter, I have even been a television presenter.

I can say without question that being a cranio sacral therapist is the most fulfilling work I have ever done. It is challenging, demanding and highly pressured work. It requires me to be very sharp mentally while at the same time deeply meditative. It demands a high level of confidence while at the same time being comfortable with uncertainty. At it’s core, helping people in pain – physical, emotional or spiritual – is a wonderfully satisfying practical application of compassion.

Why?
My motivation behind Open Source Cranio is making cranio sacral therapy training information freely available to people in developing countries. For me this is a no brainer as cranio sacral therapy is very effective and doesn’t require any technology to practice. Just a pair of hands.

My intention is to provide improved healthcare where it is needed so badly while at the same time creating jobs for the people who become cranio sacral therapists. If you are from a developing country and want to learn cranio sacral therapy I want you to know that I don’t pretend to even begin to know the challenges you face in this endeavor. I am counting on you to let me know how I can better tailor this site to help you.

Open Source
I borrowed the term ‘Open Source’ from the computing world where it is defined as, ‘A model of operation and decision making that allows concurrent input of different agendas, approaches and priorities.’ The current model for cranio sacral therapy training is to make the student pay for information and demonstration. There is little focus on assessment and this has the long term effect of devaluing the therapy because of inconsistent training outcomes.
Put another way, not focusing on assessment can produce some very incompetent cranio
sacral therapists With Open Source Cranio I am making my cranio sacral training information available on this site for FREE.

Do I think you can learn to become a cranio sacral therapist from a website? Certainly not. But I do think you can get the same amount of information and instruction as you would attending a 4 day weekend in a class of 40 with one trainer. What I think you should pay for is mentorship and assessment. I hope that other schools will adopt this model and focus more on assessment and recognition of prior learning.

How To Get Started
To get you started I suggest you read the Training FAQs to get a better idea of what is involved.
Then read How do I start to learn cranio sacral therapy? to begin.
Also, please leave comments and feedback so I can improve this site.
Wishing you all the best,
John Dalton

The first thing to do is get clear on where you are heading. Is getting the written qualification important to you? If it is then you need to find the school you want to get qualified with and find out their details, costs, time scales, recognition of prior learning criteria and policy, and so on.

The next thing you need to do is to find a mentor. If you can find more than one all the better. There are a couple of ways you can do this. You can start with the list of therapists on this site. You can do a google search for cranio sacral therapists in your area. If you are having trouble you can send me an email and I will pass it on to the email list.

The next thing you will need to do is develop a network of students. If you are working with a school this may happen automatically, even with that I encourage you to seek out students from other schools so you are exposed to different perspectives. If you are having trouble you can send me an email and I will pass it on to the email list.

How to use the information on this site.
Think in terms of 4 month blocks of time. Six in total. I have grouped the information for each block together.
Basics 1,2 & 3.
Advanced 1, 2 & 3.

Begin each block by immersing yourself in all the information that pertains to that block.

Go through the information with your mentor checking you understand it correctly. Get your mentor to check that you are practicing all the techniques correctly with some directional assessment.

Aim to practice on at least 3 people a week. Meet up with your student network once a month. Meet up with your mentor at the end of each month and get them to check that you are practicing the techniques correctly. Assess yourself on the anatomy, physiology and theory at the end of each month.

Use these monthly assessments to help you discover what you need to know.

Go to the Course Outline and start at Basics 1.

Over the years I have been asked many questions by people by considering learning cranio sacral therapy. I include the most common below. If you don’t see your particular question below drop me an email and I will do my best to answer it for you.

Can anyone learn to become a cranio sacral therapist?

Is that 2 years full time?

What do I need to become a competent cranio sacral therapist?

What kind of information do I need?

What kind of Mentor do I need?

What kind of support will I need?

What kind of assessment will I need?

What should I look for in a school?

How do I start?

Can anyone learn to become a cranio sacral therapist?

Yes, cranio sacral therapy is a skill like any other.
With practice and dedication it can be learned. Some people are more disposed towards it than others but it is possible for anyone to learn who wants to.

How long does it take?

It takes 2 years to become a competent cranio sacral therapist.  Let me qualify that, it’s like saying it takes 2 years to become a competent violin player. To become a virtuoso will require much more time and practice and dedication.

That is 2 years of between 10-15 hours of cranio sacral study and practice.

What do I need to become a competent cranio sacral therapist?

The key components are

• Information.
• A Mentor.
• Support.
• Assessment.

What kind of information do I need?

The anatomy and physiology that relates to the cranio sacral system and how it all fits together. The principles of how cranio sacral therapy works. The techniques that go to form the building blocks of practice. The skills involved in practitionership.

What kind of Mentor do I need?

A cranio sacral therapist who is achieving the sort of results that you aspire to achieve. Having a mentor is crucial to ensuring that you get where you want to go. You can read more about mentors here.

What kind of support will I need?

When you are learning, apart from the support you get from your mentor or school, it is vital to have contact with other students so you can share your experiences. You can hear the other students are having difficulty with, certain techniques or physiology. It is valuable to see that other people are having the same difficulties with same things you may be struggling with.

What kind of assessment will I need?

You will need to be assessed on everything you have learned. You need to know that you have integrated the knowledge and that you have mastered each technique before you move on to the next.  You also need to know that you have developed your palpatory skills sufficiently.

What should I look for in a school?

Approach.

Cranio sacral therapy is a developing modality. There are lots of different schools around the world and they each have a different focus, the main ones being,

• Mechanical
• Bio-mechanical
• Emotional
• Spiritual
• Quantum
• Energetic

Most trainings include a little of all the above.

The particular approach you are drawn to is an individual thing and all approaches are valid as far as I’m concerned

The basic content of most trainings is similar. If you want an idea of content you can have a look here at the syllabus for the Australian government accredited diploma of cranio sacral therapy I developed and taught.

Graduation.

Does the school take the approach that cranio sacral therapy is primarily an adjunct to other modalities and not a therapy in its own right? Does the school train cranio sacral therapists or people who, ‘also do a bit of cranio’?

If the school trains cranio sacral therapists, at what point can the trainees call themselves cranio sacral therapists?
After 4 days, 4 weeks, six months, a year?

Does the school monitor this?

Where I am going with this question has to do with your future career.

For example, you undertake a training and at the end of two years hard work you call yourself a cranio sacral therapist. If heavy handed Mary, who only did the 1st, 4 day weekend training with you, can call herself a cranio sacral therapist too, then the public has no way of knowing the difference between her and you.

If another classmate from that first weekend, heavy handed, ’I know what’s wrong with ya and I’m gonna fix ya’ Bruce, sets himself up as a cranio sacral therapist in your town, he is going to give people such a bad impression of cranio sacral therapy that grown men will consider having their back-hair waxed a pleasant alternative to visiting a ‘cranio therapist’.

Bruce will have dropped the ‘sacral’ part because people were having trouble remembering it.

But he will be telling people,

‘Yeah it’s the same as what that guy does.’

YOU.

‘Trained with him in fact!’

Assessment

It may seem back to front but this is one of the first things you need to look at when evaluating a cranio sacral school.

It’s true some teachers are better than others and an inspiring teacher can make the whole process a joyful experience. But in the end what really counts is if, and how, you are assessed on the information you have received.

For example, you could go to very inspiring lectures on, ‘How to fly a plane.’  You could have wonderful demonstrations in the cockpit from your charismatic and polished teacher. You could have very impressive powerpoint presentations on aspects of theory.

You could have exercises in class where you brake up into groups of two and go through the motions of flying a plane, with the occasional pointers from older students.

Man, this would all be great fun.

Can you fly a plane?

No one knows, not you, not your trainer.

You need to be assessed.

Also, it is important to find a school that assesses you on EVERYTHING you are taught.

Random assessment doesn’t work for cranio sacral training, it is what most of us had in school. You are randomly assessed on a small percentage of all the information you have been taught. The idea being that if you know this small percentage you probably know the rest.

Random assessment doesn’t work for cranio sacral therapy because cranio sacral therapy requires competency.

Going back to our flying analogy, if you can take off, fly from A to B, make your landing approach but don’t know how to put the wheels down, would you consider yourself competent to fly
planes?

Thanks, but I think I’ll drive.

Choosing a school that assesses you on everything you are taught means that you know that everyone who graduates from that school is competent.

That makes a big difference if you need to refer someone to another graduate who is interstate or in another country.  You know that they will be competent.

How will you be assessed?

There are different ways to assess competency. The theory behind any particular technique can be assessed on paper.  Whether you have your hands/fingers in the right place can be assessed by observation.

A large part of the practical side of cranio sacral therapy is developing your palpatory skills.  Whether you are executing the technique with the correct amount of intention and attunement must be felt by your assessor.

Will your assessor tune-in with you as you perform the technique you are being assessed in?  Will they do this with every technique your are taught?

Will you know what is expected of you in an assessment?

Learning something new, while challenging and fun, can also be stressful.  The school needs to provide you with details of the following . .

• What you are expected to know.
• When you are expected to know it by.
• How you will be assessed.
• By what criteria you will be deemed competent or not.

With this information you will have a road map that removes unnecessary stress from the journey.

Will you be supported to succeed?

Will you be given ‘directional’ assessment along the way, before the final assessment? Without authoritative support you could practice something incorrectly for months, develop the habit of doing a particular technique in an incorrect way and have an unpleasant shock when you are finally assessed and discover you have to un-learn what you have been practicing.

By authoritative support, I mean a teacher or trainer.
Study groups are fine once there is someone present who can steer you in the right direction. Without that kind of support you run the risk of the whole group practicing in the wrong way.

Advanced students can do this to a point but you need direct feed back from a trainer as you are learning. Will they be at the ’study groups’? If you keep practicing something incorrectly will there be someone to point you in the right direction, long before your assessment so you can be practicing the right thing and be ready for your assessment.

Accreditation

If accreditation important to you, then you need to be clear about who you want the training to be accredited with.

If you send me a stamped addressed envelope with $300 in it, I can accredit you as a ‘John Dalton accredited cranio sacral therapist.’

Doesn’t sound official enough?

Okay how about ‘International Association of Cranio Sacral Therapists Accredited.’

Sound better?

Does it mean anything?

Nope.

So check what the accrediting body represents, if it actually means anything.

Generally ‘in house’ accreditation doesn’t mean much compared to accreditation from and external body. ‘In house’ includes associations comprised solely of graduates from one school.

If the training is accredited with an external body like the government, it’s important to check the small print.

For example, is the training accredited in its own right or is it piggy backing on another qualification? The school may have gone to the trouble of fulfilling the criteria for a diploma of massage, let’s say and are now advertising a diploma of cranio sacral therapy under the same banner.

Unless you ask, you won’t find this out until you receive your diploma and by then it will be too late. You can usually overcome this at the beginning by asking for the training registration number so you can check with the accreditation body.

For a list of cranio sacral schools around the world look here.

 A mentor is a  cranio sacral therapist who is achieving the sort of results that you aspire to achieve.  Having a mentor is crucial to ensuring that you get where you want to go in your cranio sacral training.

As well as being a sounding board and support, your mentor may also be the therapist who assesses you.

Assessment

After quite a bit of trial and error I discovered that the best way to do practical assessments was as follows:  The student would come to see me, with a willing volunteer.  They would then go through various techniques while I monitored what was happening in their patient.

Note:  The volunteer shouldn’t be another cranio sacral student or therapist as their intention will influence the proceedings.  From experience I found that if I asked a student to demonstrate a frontal lift, for example, and the volunteer was a another cranio sacral student or therapist, before the student had even positioned themselves for the lift the volunteer was already lifting their frontal bone with their intention.

The real value of assessment is the feedback you get.
Time and again I found that students would have a good knowledge of the theory and their hands would be in the right place but it was only when I tuned into their patient’s system was I able to give them really useful feedback about what they were doing.

Feedback like. . .
‘You were doing great, then you went past the point and started to push.  Their system stopped but you kept going.’
or
’8 of those fingers are perfect. But that one is too heavy and that one is too light.’
or
‘Your shoulders are too tight, it’s making your arms tense and shaky.’
or
‘You’re looking too hard, let it come to you.’
or
‘You’ve got your intention in this area, which is great, now include this bit and this bit.’

It is important to know that ‘Assessment’ doesn’t mean examination.  An assessment isn’t an ‘exam’.  It is  based on the knowledge that you want to get it right and become competent.  The role of your assessor is to help you to do that.  Assessment should go on throughout the training.  There are two types of practical assessment.

Directional assessment –   This is assessment designed to keep you on the right track.  It is intended to help you avoid getting into bad habits by practicing a technique incorrectly or labouring under an incorrect understanding of a concept.

Competence assessment – This is to assess your competence in a particular technique.  No assistance or helpful tips are given.  This is assessment to see if you can do it on your own.

Now hang on while I get my soap box out.  This is the sort of assessment and feedback EVERYONE learning cranio sacral should get about EVERY technique they learn.

I understand only too well how time consuming this type of assessment is for the assessor.  Nevertheless, if every school adopted this type of full competency assessment and stopped taking the short term, adjunct, quick cash view, cranio sacral therapy would take a massive leap forward around the world in terms of competence and notoriety.  (Soap box put away.)

Mentorship happens in the following ways.

One to One.

This takes the form of bringing a person to practice on.  Your mentor tunes in as you demonstrate a particular technique.  Depending  on whether you are having Directional or  Competence  assessment, your mentor will give you specific feed back about your  contact and intention and/or hints and tips on how to get  better at the particular technique.

Telphone Consultations.

This takes the form of one to one consultation via phone or skype.

How often will I need to see my mentor?

That depends on you and will vary through out the course of your training.  Sometimes you will need to see them more that others.

As a working rule of thumb you can expect to see your mentor once a month for an assessment, either directional or competence.  You will probably have at least one half hour phone conversation with them a month also.

You will find that just knowing they are there and that you can call them if you need to often makes it unnecessary to actually do that.

How much should you pay for mentorship?

Ideally you should pay your mentor approximately 10% more than they charge for their treatment sessions.  So if your mentor charges 100(whatever you currency is)’s for treating an adult then you should pay 110 for a one to one assessment and half that for a 30 minute phone call.

I suggest this because teaching is harder than doing so you are going to have to make it worth their while to teach you when they could be making the same money, more easily, treating people.

Bear in mind this approach to cranio sacral training is not common as yet so while it is developing you may find yourself enrolled with a cranio sacral school and paying their fees and having to pay your mentor. Try not to make your financial situation your mentors problem.

Ultimately what you pay your mentor is something you are going to work out between you and your mentor.

Who is qualified to be a mentor?

That is up to you, the prospective student.  It will be determined by what kind of a cranio sacral therapist you want to become. If you want to have qualifications and letters after your name then that is the sort of mentor you should seek out.  If qualifications don’t matter that much to you then look for a mentor who gets the sorts of results you want to get. Personally I think your mentor should, above all else, inspire you.

Choosing your mentor is your first chance to trust your own judgement in the cranial field.  Go and meet your prospective mentor.  Have a cup of tea with them.  Hang out with them.  See if you are compatible.  Sit in on some of their sessions if they will let you.  Offer to help them out in their practice.  Answer phones, make appointments, that kind of thing.  Go for a directional assessment with them.
To find a mentor near you look at the list of cranio sacral therapists here.

Can I have more than one mentor?

Yes and it is probably better if you do as it will give you different perspectives.  The only caution I would add is to be careful not to play one mentor off against another within yourself as a way of avoiding some of the more difficult aspects of your training.

I have been asked to be a mentor.  What do I do?

Don’t panic. Read through this post to see what it’s all about then look through the training materials here. If there is, in your opinion, a gaping hole in the training materials provided then get in touch, send in what you feel is missing and I will add it.

If you need further information about being a mentor contact me here.

Cranio Sacral Therapy schools around the world.

DVD’s I recommend to students of cranio sacral therapy.

Books I recommend to students of cranio sacral therapy.

Assortment of articles and eBooks I recommend to students of cranio sacral therapy.

Websites I recommend to students of cranio sacral therapy.