Maxillae

Posted by John Dalton on July 2, 2008

+ CST and orthodontic work? - April 08

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.

TT 001.3 - Direct - Indirect Technique

Posted by John Dalton on June 19, 2008

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.