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.

April 5 – 2008

Questions and comments for this issue:

+ Report from Al Pelowski about the role cranio is playing in the Boikarabelo Orphans Eco-Village Cranio Project in South Africa.
+ CST and orthodontic work?

Hello,

I was sent a very interesting video recently.
It is of a talk given by neuroanatomist, Jill
Bolte Tatlor.  In the video she describes her
experience of having a stroke and how it changed
the way she viewed the brain, how it works and who
we are.

It was obviously a powerful experience for her
and at times she is quite emotional.  You can see
it here. http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/229
I am very interested to know what you think of it.

I also want to let you know about an update
over at the Wellness Detective Agency, about money and going broke doing
what you love.  It’s not like there are any cranio
sacral therapists going broke . . . but I thought
you might be interested.

http://www.wellness-da.com/detective/do-what-you-love-and-go-broke/

If you’re not subscribed to the Updates already
you can subscribe on that page too.  Audio updates
are in the works and should be out within the next
week.

And finally, I was heartened to see that Dr.
Darlene Ertha gave a talk last month to The
American Holistic Nurses Association.  The title
of her talk was,  ‘Exploring Nature’s Blueprint:
Fractals, Pathways, Meridians, and the Collective
Unconscious.  Bringing It All Together In Hands-On
Healing.’

Quite a lot to fit on a poster, I know.  In her
talk she described how cranio sacral therapy,
among others, made use of universal patterns to
alleviate intractable pain and heal body, mind,
and spirit.

Now that we’re feeling all warm and fuzzy,
let’s get on with the mailbag.

*** BOIKARABELO ORPHANS ECO-VILLAGE ***

Hello John,
An idea for linking the Boikarabelo Orphans Eco-
Village Cranio Project

http://www.boikarabelo.org/

The Boikarabelo orphans village is located about
100km NW of Joburg in the Magaliesburg.  I was
wondering if it might be a good test site for your
idea of getting cranio into the world’s villages.
Just thinking really…

There are 90+ children in a surrounding
‘informal village’ of some 1000 people (refugees,
the displaced and isolated).  All of them are
orphaned or abandoned, most are severely
truamatised (e.g., nearly all the girls have been
raped; maybe half the kids are or were
malnourished; many are burdened with HIV and other
opportunists; and most carry unresolved alarm or
shock survival behaviours–ADHD, anorexia,
learning disorders, autisms–compounded by
toxicity from vaccinations and pollution).

We are fortunate to have 3 student practitioners
living there, and cranio is a crucial part of a
therapeutic mix including homeopathy, nutrition &
chelation, counselling and lots of patience &
love.

Today, Sunday 30 March, there were 8 of us
practitioners working, and we saw about 30 of the
kids, most of whom have had several sessions and
settle into it quickly.  Quite a few end up in
deep sleep so we leave them on the table at one
end and bring on the next at the other end.  The
kids literally queue up for treatment, even if
they are not scheduled for it.

Being held cranially is a big hit out there,
thanks to the regular sessions they get with our
resident practitioners.  When a child is lost in
shock or fighting all the time in alarm we find
that cranio holding works best to re-establish a
secure bond and thus initiate their healing,
gradually bringing in the other modalities.

Some time ago a visiting woman from Europe went
away inspired and then sent the community 20 new
desktop computers.  They are ready to be linked
into a server and used in the school they run on
the premises.

In SA far more people live in ‘informal
settlements’ on the fringe of cities than in
traditional countryside villages.  The challenge
here as well as in Africa as a whole is to make
entirely new homes/communities for millions of
kids with nowhere else to grow.

The Malawi Children’s Village (with which I am
also involved) is one way this is being
approached, and Boikarabelo is another.  I plan to
visit Malawi in the dry, July perhaps.  I’ll
report on MCV after that visit.

Boikarabelo does have more problems but also
more going for it than almost any other village I
can think of in all Africa.  So much goes on
there, births, deaths, new arrivals all the time,
crisis after crisis as you can imagine.  But
despite all the challenges, the aim is not only to
provide a basic home and identity for the kids,
but to give them the very best in life skills and
turn the situation into an educational advantage..

I could go on..and on..what do you think?

Al.

MY COMMENTS:

What do I think?

I think you’re a bloody legend!

I think the therapists working with you are
bloody legends!

I think the people who run the place are bloody
legends!

If ever somewhere needed more cranio sacral
therapists it would be there.  It’s the sort of
place my Open Source Cranio idea is all about.
Getting cranio sacral training information to
where it is desperately needed.

***QUESTION***

Hi John,

Thanks for your reply to my letter regarding
cancer in the New Years Newsletter.
As to what to call you how about the “enlightened
one”?
Your reply to my question made me laugh but if I
had received it a few weeks earlier I would have
cried, can I remind you of your words

“the chances of you giving yourself a major
fright and setting you palpatory skills back years
is very high.

For example, let’s say you go against your
teachers/mentors recommendation and start treating
someone who is in the middle of dealing with
cancer.
And let’s say they have a major episode the day
after you treat them and end up in hospital.

Take a minute and think about how you would
feel.  Can you imagine how difficult it would be
to stay objective about your contribution to their
being in hospital.  Can you imagine how hard it
would be to avoid putting yourself through the
wringer wondering if your intention was too heavy
or too light, how you could have missed what was
coming and so on.”

Well I can tell you how I felt !!, my Aunt had
been given the all clear following Non hodgkinson
and all the horror that the treatments entailed,
bald and full of life she stayed with us for a
week over xmas on the day she was leaving I asked
if she would like to try some cranio (are you
wincing?) her system did not react and as I had
not practiced for some weeks thought it was me so
pushed the intention a bit harder but all she got
was a nice still point and a vision of a being in
a crater looking at the blue sky (that made me
wince!). She phoned me 3 days later to say she had
not been out of bed since she got home she could
not stay awake (but she felt good) I told her to
go to the Drs asap! she had no white cells and was
very close to dying.

So how did I feel! all of the above! my teacher
was on holidays but when I finally contacted her
she believed the cranio probably brought it to the
surface alot faster. My Aunt is doing alot better
they think she is one of the rare ones that get a
reaction to some injection they give post Chemo,
but they also discovered her heart and lungs are
stuffed from the Chemo! I offered her Cranio and
we both laughed (but I don’t think either of us
will go there!)

I have been going through all your archives a
couple at a time as it makes my head hurt! so many
questions!

So I will start with; I read about your case
study, the girl you helped with facial disorders,
my 18yr old son has a protruding lower Jaw they
have done one lot of orthodontic work and are now
waiting until he stops growing to operate on the
lower jaw to pull it back ( a nasty sounding
operation) and then a couple more years of braces
to correct the bite. Do you believe that cranio
could stop the jaw coming forward anymore and even
better bring it back slightly? and my daughter 15
has had two years of braces but because she had to
a have a baby tooth removed that had no adult
tooth to replace it they expect she will have
braces for two more years! Do you believe cranio
can really help in these situations, I have read
in some of the Cranio books to seek out a
orthodontist that works with Cranio but I don’t
think there is such a person in Australia? I asked
my orthodontist and he was very “polite” “what
the?!!!”

Many thanks
God opps John
Karen
Australian

MY COMMENTS:

Hello Karen,
Thanks for sharing your experience about your
Aunt.  It must have been awful for you.  Our
palpatory skill is a wonderful but fragile thing.

I’ve had a few emails from different people
asking about orthodontic work and cranio sacral
therapy and since both your questions are about
that too, I’ll kill the few birds, humanely of
course, with one stone and answer them all
together.

Can cranio sacral therapy really help in these
situations?

Hell, yes.

Let’s start with the basics. Teeth are
basically bone and contrary to common perception,
bones ain’t bone china.  Bone is plastic and wet
and it grows and most importantly responds to the
pressure it is placed under and adapts.

Wolf’s law and all that, don’t you know.

What’s Wolf’s law?

Wolf’s law states that the son of two wolves is
equal to the son of the bears on the other two
hides. . . or . . something . . like . .that.

It basically means that bone will adapt to the
loads it is placed under.

That is how they can dig up someone from a
thousand years ago and from a careful study of the
shape of the bones of their forearm, work out that
the person used to be a charioteer.

The fact they were buried in a chariot helped
but it was the bones, Jim, the bones.

So just because our teeth are sitting in bone
and our bite is essentially made of bone that
doesn’t mean that it is fixed for all eternity.

When you think about, that’s what Orthodontists
are kind of banking on.

From our perspective, you could think of braces
as being like a form of direct technique, carried
out over a numbers months or years.

When I think of our ‘bite’, and this is
probably because I used to be a carpenter, I
always think of the mandible as being like a door
and the temporo mandibular joints as being like
the hinges of the door, with the temporals and the
maxillae making up the doorframe.

Thinking of it like this helps keep all the
different parts in their rightful place.

The mandible is roughly solid.  Yes, I know it
used to be in two parts and in some ways still
behaves as if it is but compared to everything
else involved that still ARE in separate parts, it
helps to think of it as solid. . . like a door.

So if a person’s bite is off it is probably not
the mandible itself but the temporals or the
maxillae.

Because if the doorframe is not straight the
door will keep banging on the frame and never
close properly.

Now let’s look at the two examples you gave.

You write that your son’s lower jaw is
protruding.  The first thing I would ask myself is
why is it doing that? Is the mandible sticking out
or is the face pushed in? or is a bit of both.

I would palpate his whole face and try and get
a sense of what the overall pattern was.

Once you do that you can begin to look at the
hinges and the doorframe.   For example: There
could be a pattern where his temporals are
torsioned anteriorly and inferiorly in a kind of
temporal nose dive and this in turn could have the
knock-on effect of pushing his mandible
anteriorly.

Or both his maxillae could be driven
posteriorly.

If it is in the temporals I would treat it with
indirect technique.

If it is his maxillae I would treat it with a
combination of indirect and then direct technique.
Indirect to follow into the pattern and help it
release then direct because the influence of the
cranial rhythm is weaker in the maxillae and they
can need a little help getting where they want to
go.

If the maxillae are driven posteriorly you will
need to assess the palatines and help them release
too if the pattern goes back that far.  You will
also need to look at how the sphenoid is affected
by this pattern, particularly the pterygoid
plates.

With your daughter, it sounds like they are
trying to even out the gap left by the extraction.

Again, I would palpate her whole face and try
and get a sense of an underlying pattern that
might have caused the situation.

If nothing major presents itself, it may be a
case that her body doesn’t register the situation
in her mouth as being a problem.  This would make
you work a lot more difficult and require a lot
more direct technique.

Assuming that your daughter’s braces are not
fixed, you can work on the teeth individually.
You can take each tooth and ‘unwind’ it.  That in
itself may begin to even out the gaps.

And finally, as a general note about working
with the mouth, the bite and teeth, it’s important
to rely on the fact that our body is NOT
predisposed to have a banging, jarring,
disharmonious bite. It wants to bite right.

All you have to do is help it. Having said that
I have found as a general rule that while bone is
responsive it can take a while for it to grow in
new directions and by a while I mean 2 to 4
months.

So that’s it for this issue.

Cheerio for now.

Till the next time.

Your Mate,

John D.

+ CST and orthodontic work? – April 08

Hi John,

Many thanks
God opps John
Karen
Australian

>>>MY COMMENTS:

Hello Karen,
Thanks for sharing your experience about your
Aunt.  It must have been awful for you.  Our
palpatory skill is a wonderful but fragile thing.

I’ve had a few emails from different people
asking about orthodontic work and cranio sacral
therapy and since both your questions are about
that too, I’ll kill the few birds, humanely of
course, with one stone and answer them all
together.

Can cranio sacral therapy really help in these
situations?

Hell, yes.

Let’s start with the basics. Teeth are
basically bone and contrary to common perception,
bones ain’t bone china.  Bone is plastic and wet
and it grows and most importantly responds to the
pressure it is placed under and adapts.

Wolf’s law and all that, don’t you know.

What’s Wolf’s law?

Wolf’s law states that the son of two wolves is
equal to the son of the bears on the other two
hides. . . or . . something . . like . .that.

It basically means that bone will adapt to the
loads it is placed under.

That is how they can dig up someone from a
thousand years ago and from a careful study of the
shape of the bones of their forearm, work out that
the person used to be a charioteer.

The fact they were buried in a chariot helped
but it was the bones, Jim, the bones.

So just because our teeth are sitting in bone
and our bite is essentially made of bone that
doesn’t mean that it is fixed for all eternity.

When you think about, that’s what Orthodontists
are kind of banking on.

From our perspective, you could think of braces
as being like a form of direct technique, carried
out over a numbers months or years.

When I think of our ‘bite’, and this is
probably because I used to be a carpenter, I
always think of the mandible as being like a door
and the temporo mandibular joints as being like
the hinges of the door, with the temporals and the
maxillae making up the doorframe.

Thinking of it like this helps keep all the
different parts in their rightful place.

The mandible is roughly solid.  Yes, I know it
used to be in two parts and in some ways still
behaves as if it is but compared to everything
else involved that still ARE in separate parts, it
helps to think of it as solid. . . like a door.

So if a person’s bite is off it is probably not
the mandible itself but the temporals or the
maxillae.

Because if the doorframe is not straight the
door will keep banging on the frame and never
close properly.

Now let’s look at the two examples you gave.

You write that your son’s lower jaw is
protruding.  The first thing I would ask myself is
why is it doing that? Is the mandible sticking out
or is the face pushed in? or is a bit of both.

I would palpate his whole face and try and get
a sense of what the overall pattern was.

Once you do that you can begin to look at the
hinges and the doorframe.   For example: There
could be a pattern where his temporals are
torsioned anteriorly and inferiorly in a kind of
temporal nose dive and this in turn could have the
knock-on effect of pushing his mandible
anteriorly.

Or both his maxillae could be driven
posteriorly.

If it is in the temporals I would treat it with
indirect technique.

If it is his maxillae I would treat it with a
combination of indirect and then direct technique.
Indirect to follow into the pattern and help it
release then direct because the influence of the
cranial rhythm is weaker in the maxillae and they
can need a little help getting where they want to
go.

If the maxillae are driven posteriorly you will
need to assess the palatines and help them release
too if the pattern goes back that far.  You will
also need to look at how the sphenoid is affected
by this pattern, particularly the pterygoid
plates.

With your daughter, it sounds like they are
trying to even out the gap left by the extraction.

Again, I would palpate her whole face and try
and get a sense of an underlying pattern that
might have caused the situation.

If nothing major presents itself, it may be a
case that her body doesn’t register the situation
in her mouth as being a problem.  This would make
you work a lot more difficult and require a lot
more direct technique.

Assuming that your daughter’s braces are not
fixed, you can work on the teeth individually.
You can take each tooth and ‘unwind’ it.  That in
itself may begin to even out the gaps.

And finally, as a general note about working
with the mouth, the bite and teeth, it’s important
to rely on the fact that our body is NOT
predisposed to have a banging, jarring,
disharmonious bite. It wants to bite right.

All you have to do is help it. Having said that
I have found as a general rule that while bone is
responsive it can take a while for it to grow in
new directions and by a while I mean 2 to 4
months.

<< 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.

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