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.

August 2 -2008

Questions and comments for this issue:

+ Report on feasibility study on the effectiveness of cranio sacral therapy on migraine.
+ Open letter from Cranio Suisse®, the Swiss cranio sacral association.
+ Comment from Al Pelowski in response to Joyaa Antares and maxillae.
+ Comment from Cathryn Nitschke in Australia about her Osteopathy training and how it compares to cranio.
+ Question about therapist burnout.
+ Question about talking about emotional issues.

Hello,

Well it’s a positively groaning newsletter this
Time it is so full.  Lots happening in the world
of cranio sacral with a report on migraine and an
interesting initiative from the Swiss cranio
sacral association but more on that later.

I have spent quite a bit of time reworking the
training part of the Open Source Cranio website,
making it a better learning tool.  I have begun to
add my training notes and to lay out a learning
schedule.

One of the new features is a search function
which should make it easier to search the site for
specific topics.

Another new function is the comments feature.
This allows you to leave comments directly on the
site, under specific articles.  You have to click
the comments tab.  So you can comment on the
article and letters in this newsletter directly on
the site if you want.
I encourage you to leave comments or send me an
email letting me know what you think.  The more
feedback I get the better I can make it.

I also encourage you to send me articles that
you think might help someone in a developing
country who is using the material to begin their
cranio sacral learning and I will post them.

I have fixed the problem with the newsletter
subscription block so if you tried to resubscribe
before and it didn’t work it’s working now.

Speaking of learning let me direct you to a
website I came across and intend to use a lot in
teaching.  It is called the Visible body and is an
online 3D anatomy viewer.  You can view the demo
for it here.

http://www.open-source-cranio.com/sacral-training/3d-anatomy/

If you like the look of it you need to go to
their site and register and then you can use the
models yourself.  If you’re a Mac user forget PC
only.  Discrimination rears its ugly head again,
sigh, pout.

Rightio, let’s get on with the mailbag.

***REPORT***

Below is an extract from a press release I
received about a proposed test for the
effectiveness of cranio sacral therapy on
migraine.  They propose to use low-strength static
magnets as the control group.

Double blind studies are not my field of
expertise and is it just me or what, but I think
people would know the difference between a
therapist and a magnet.

Ah well, they’re trying.

————————————————–
Craniosacral therapy for migraine: protocol
development for an exploratory controlled clinical
trial.

Migraine affects approximately 20% of the
population.  Conventional care for migraine is
suboptimal; overuse of medications for the
treatment of episodic migraines is a risk factor
for developing chronic daily headache.

The study of non-pharmaceutical approaches for
prevention of migraine headaches is therefore
warranted. Craniosacral therapy (CST) is a popular
non-pharmacological approach to the treatment or
prevention of migraine headaches for which there
is limited evidence of safety and efficacy.

In this paper, we describe an ongoing feasibility
study to assess the safety and efficacy of CST in
the treatment of migraine, using a rigorous and
innovative randomized controlled study design
involving low-strength static magnets (LSSM) as an
attention control intervention.

Methods: The trial is designed to test the
hypothesis that, compared to those receiving usual
care plus a treatment with low-strength static
magnets (attention-control complementary therapy),
subjects receiving usual medical care plus CST
will demonstrate significant improvement in:
quality-of-life as measured by the Headache Impact
Test (HIT-6); reduced frequency of migraine; and a
perception of clinical benefit. Criteria for
inclusion are either gender, age >11, English or
Spanish speaking, meeting the International
Classification of Headache Disorders (ICHD)
criteria for migraine with or without aura, a
headache frequency of 5 to 15 per month over at
least two years.

After an 8 week baseline phase, eligible subjects
are randomized to either CST or an attention
control intervention, low strength static magnets
(LSSM). To evaluate possible therapist bias,
videotaped encounters are analyzed to assess for
any systematic group differences in interactions
with subjects.

Results: 169 individuals have been screened for
eligibility of which 109 were eligible for the
study. Five did not qualify during the baseline
phase because of inadequate headache frequency.

Nineteen have withdrawn from the study after
giving consent.

Conclusion: This report endorses the feasibility
of undertaking a rigorous randomized clinical
trial of CST for migraine using a standardized CST
protocol and an innovative control protocol
developed for the study.

Subjects are able and willing to complete detailed
headache diaries during an 8-week baseline period,
with few dropouts during the study period,
indicating the acceptability of both
interventions.

Author: John D Mann, Keturah R Faurot, Laurel
Wilkinson, Peter Curtis, Remy R Coeytaux,
Chirayath Suchindran and Susan A Gaylord

Credits/Source: BMC Complementary and Alternative
Medicine 2008, 8:28

Published on: 2008-06-10

You can read the full report here.

http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6882/8/28

***OPEN LETTER FROM CRANIO SUISSE®.***

I was forwarded this open letter from Cranio
Suisse® who have launched an initiative to
encourage communication between different schools
and therapists which, as you know, I am all for.

Their website is not in English so that limits
the initiative immediately but other than that I
think it’s great.

If you want to read their site in English you
can run it through Google translate.

http://translate.google.com

You need to scroll to the bottom of the page and
enter their web address.

http://www.craniosuisse.ch/

————————————————

*International Networking for the Advancement of
Craniosacral Therapy*

Dear collegues,

All the schools and therapists for Craniosacral
Therapy in Switzerland have organized themselves
in a new association – Cranio Suisse®. We are now
number two among the associations for
complementary therapies. The goal of this
organization is to bring together all the
different approaches of Craniosacral Therapy
within Switzerland and to guarantee a good quality
of schools and therapists. Cranio Suisse® is the
official representative of Craniosacral Therapy
towards governmental institutions and health
insurance companies. In short, Cranio Suisse® is
supporting and promoting Craniosacral Therapy
within in the Swiss Health System.

Furthermore the association acts as connecting
link between patients and therapists. You will
find more details under http://www.craniosuisse.ch/

This year Cranio Suisse® established a new *study
group for international contacts and research*. My
task within this group is to establish contacts
with associations/schools all over the world, thus
building the basis for an efficient networking
beneficial to all of us.

I should therefore be very grateful if you could
let me know whether you are interested in such an
exchange of thoughts and knowledge.

We would suggest the following procedure:

*Step 1*: We put together a list of all
associations/schools interested in putting up a
Craniosacral “Knowledge Network”.

*Step 2*: Evaluation of the importance and
positioning of Craniosacral Therapy within the
health system of each country (questionnaire). The
final goal will be to exchange research reports
and study designs or even realize common research
projects to get more and broader evidence based
facts about Craniosacral Therapy.

Are you interested in such a project and if yes,
do you agree with the proposed procedure or do you
have different suggestions?

We are convinced that an exchange of knowledge
like this would create positive synergies for all
of us, whether it be with regard to the handling
of public health aspects for complementary
therapies in general or strengthening the position
of Craniosacral Therapy specifically.

We are looking forward to your feedback. If you
feel that there is some other institution, school
or person who could be interested in the above
project, please let us know.

Thank you for giving our ideas a friendly,
constructive thought.

With best regards

Barbara Liniger

praxis@barbaraliniger.ch

Member of the study group for international
contacts and research of Cranio Suisse®

http://www.craniosuisse.ch/

PS: Between July 8 and August 24 I will not be
able to answer any emails. I will get back to you
in September as soon as possible. Thank you.

Contactaddress:

Barbara Liniger

Praxis für klassische Homöopathie und
craniosacrale Osteopathie

Alpenstrasse 14
6300 Zug

Tel 041 720 03 20

praxis@barbaraliniger.ch
www.barbaraliniger.ch

Barbara Liniger

Praxis für klassische Homöopathie und
craniosacrale Osteopathie

Alpenstrasse 14
6300 Zug

***COMMENT FROM AL PELOWSKI IN RESPONSE TO JOYAA ANTARES AND MAXILLAE***

Joyaa query, comments:

Maxillary hypoplasia, where the maxillae have not
grown properly, as distinguished from impaction,
is a feature of some craniosynostotic syndromes.

We see quite a few babies with that here in
Africa.  I had a query on that yesterday in fact.

In these cases you find hydrocephalus, premature
closure and ridging of the sutures, bulging vault
bones, protruding fontanels, webbing between
fingers and toes, and distorted distal phalanges,
all in varying degrees.  The maxillae can be
unable to hold in the eyes.

I had one case a few years ago where I had to push
an eyeball back in..!  Most of these kids end up
with craniofacial surgery and shunts.  Some of
them can respond to cranio!  But by no means all.
Many die young gagging with oropharynx
restrictions.

As to possible causes and complications I could
speculate at length, but it wouldn’t amount to
much (estrogenic pollution, dioxins, severe
malnourishment in mother during 1st trimester,
etc..).

I would be interested if any of your readers have
come across this and worked with it.
Al in Joburg

***COMMENT FROM CATHRYN IN AUSTRALIA***

Dear John
Thanks for the link. I have just had a quick wizz
through the site and I think what you are doing is
brilliant, worthy and highly commendable. Good on
you.

I first met you maybe around 2002 or 3 when you
were still in Brisbane. I did one of your
introductory CST courses and really enjoyed it. I
believe that the school wound down shortly
thereafter (my memory is not the greatest so
perhaps this is not quite the case). Anyway, I was
keen to look more deeply into CST which led me to
doing Patricia Farnsworth myofascial release/cst
course and then Roger Gilchrist came to Australia
for 4 years to teach biodynamic CST.

I have also studied with Mike Boxhall in England,
who I think is wonderful and have made contact
with Charles Ridley whose writings really inspire
me. Since then I enrolled in osteopathy at RMIT in
Melbourne, thinking this would take me more deeply
into the world of CST. I have just finished my
first semester there and it has been somewhat of a
let down. I really hear you when you talk about
problems with CST training or training of any
hands on healing modality. I find that the push
towards health degrees and measurable outcomes is
taking away from the power of the apprenticeship,
“hands on” model and I lament this.

I had studied at university before, but this was
in the arts faculty in the early 90′s.  The
science faculty as I find it in the late noughties
is a very different world. The lecturers are
generally not very competent or inspiring teachers
and they seem to find students a nuisance rather
than an opportunity. One of them told me I was
only allowed to ask one question per semester and
seeing as I had already used up my quota in the
first week, that was it.

I thought he was joking, but he wasn’t! This was
disappointing because he is a very knowledgeable
anatomist and I wanted to pick his brains, but
obviously this is not meant to be. Some of the
osteo lecturers find my questions challenging and
potentially threatening, especially the ones
firmly entrenched in the biomechanical model.

On the first day of practical osteo classes, we
practiced range of motion on the lower lumbars.
The technique left me with an instant sore back
and I had to self-treat with cranio work for the
next two days to relieve it! I thought, do I
really want to learn and be subjected to this? I
enjoy the philosophy and principles of osteopathy,
however, the prac classes seem pretty basic and
archaic compared to CST. I feel like it is a
backwards step for me. However, I have enjoyed
delving more deeply into the anatomy and
physiology, so my intention is to continue with
the medical sciences part of the course and drop
the osteopathic parts. Did you know that
osteopathy in the cranial field is only briefly
touched upon in 5th year?  All the rest of the
time is spent on HVLA, MET, counterstrain,
myofascial release, etc.

Many of my CST colleagues lament that they never
studied osteopathy and they seem to hold it up as
the holy grail of osteopathy.  This is not my
experience I can now say and I am glad that I
checked it out. I noticed that osteopaths in
Australia all have a pretty similar and extensive
training but in my experience there are some
pretty ordinary osteos around.

I am obviously not a fan of the “rub and crack”
school. And I have found a few gems whom I highly
admire and have as mentors. So this makes me
ponder what makes the difference b/w the
practitioners I adore versus the ones whose
treatments either leave me feeling worse or at
best, like I didn’t even have a treatment. I put
this down to the more subtle realms that CST takes
the time to unpack and explore. Consciousness,
presence, empathy, openness, etc. Such vital
qualities in a health practitioner of any
persuasion in my opinion.

So really what I want to say to you is good on
you. I admire the time and energy you put into
your newsletter and website to expose more people
to CST and encourage a discussion around all
things CST. I think this is vital work to bring
together a sense of community and to share ideas.

I notice the osteos have a very close knit
community and I think there is strength in that. I
love the opportunity to exchange ideas,
information, experiences with other health
practitioners with a biodynamic bent (gentle and
holistic). Also, I think that osteopathy is held
up as something quite exclusive and prestigious in
comparison to CST. They go to great lengths to
align themselves as primary practitioners with a
solid medical training. It seems that in turn, the
medical world rejects them and they are not really
embraced by the ‘natural therapies’ brigade
either. They are positioned in a potential no-
man’s land or on the flip side a potential
powerful middle way.

My greatest wish is to study this ‘stuff’ with a
mentor, one on one. I think anyone can teach
themselves certain things like anatomy and
physiology out of a book, but the influence of
someone who has walked the path before is
invaluable to point out some of the pitfalls, the
shortcuts and which bits of the scenery are worth
lingering on.

I have a chiropractic friend who I have great
discussions with, and he maintains that he could
teach me the ‘guts’ of the chiro 5 year training
in an afternoon and I believe him. This work isn’t
hard, as such, but the universities certainly turn
it into a cerebrally challenging exercise filling
the students heads with reams of facts at the
expense of understanding.

A phrase that speaks so much to me is “lose the
techniques” as I heard from Gangaji. After all the
study, to let it all go, and see what arises, to
follow the heart and the gut and the fingers and
the senses and feelings and to give the mind a
rest.  This is what I love and see as the power of
biodynamic CST.

So in conclusion, I think any monkey can be taught
the techniques, the vital part is how they are put
together in the final package, the quality of the
touch and the presence and care of the
practitioner.

I wish you all the best with this project.
kind regards

Cathryn Nitschke
somewhere between Brisbane, Melbourne and
Adelaide.

MY COMMENTS:

Thank you for all your kind words Cathryn.
What a great letter.  I cannot agree with you more
about the mentors, they are vital.

I think I was lucky because that whole,
‘osteopaths are a more exalted form of cranio
sacral therapist’ thing was nipped in the bud for
me early in my training.

Liz Kalinowska (http://www.craniosacralstudies.co.uk/about/frames.html)
was one of my tutors.  She told me that she
had become an osteopath first because she thought
it would prepare her to become a cranio sacral
therapist.  She spent 7 years becoming an
osteopath.  She told me she felt she had wasted
her time.  If anything she had to unlearn some of
what she was taught.

I have found over the years that it is very
hard to resist the temptation to ‘pop’ something
back into place if you know how.  I am lucky
because I never learned how to do any thrusting or
strong techniques so I don’t know how to ‘pop’
things back into place.   I am forced to sit and
wait and that is one of the reasons why I, and the
people I have trained, get such great results.

***QUESTION***

Hi John

Thank you for the very valuable information shared
by you and other CS therapists.  I’ve been a
little out of circuit lately – life’s little
challenges – so even though you may have not had a
response from me, I’m still keen to remain
connected.

My preference would be more frequent shorter news
rather than the other.
Kindly advise what the donations will be used for.

Any suggestions for therapist burn out? A long
awaited holiday is needed, I know ,and am busy
working toward one.  My forearms are taking strain
and was told that Kinesiology NOT treatment can
help.  I’m pretty good at caring for myself but
what with juggling teaching yoga, CST, VM and my
latest baby, doing readings it has all suddenly
caught up with me.  I keep the yoga, therapy and
readings for separate days giving me enough time
to replenish.  Please throw some light (energy) on
this subject.

Kindly yours

Peni in Cape Town

MY COMMENTS:

Hello Peni,
There are lots of different energetic
considerations when considering burnout but the
one that stands out to me, from what you have
written, is that you are doing A LOT!

It may be nothing to do with any of the
therapies that you are doing individually.  It may
be that you are doing so many plus your new baby.
I’m getting tired just thinking about it.

It sounds like you know what I am going to say
next but I’ll say anyway.  It’s important to find
a way, that works for you, of removing any
residual energy after you treat someone.

For some people this means a full shower for
others it is simply letting water run over their
hands.

Avoid seeing too many people in a week.  I have
found that somewhere between 12 and 18 adults is
about as much as most people can treat with cranio
sacral therapy without burning out very quickly.

Even if you find a way of removing excess
energy after each person and you don’t see too
many people you will still need to take a break
every 3 months for at least 7 days.

On top of all that you need to take a long
break, around 6 months, every 10 years.

It took me 12 years to figure that one out.

What will the donations be used for?

Well mainly to keep me in cigars and wine, oh
yes and also to help me run open source cranio.
It takes a lot of time and I do have to pay for
things like web hosting etc.  I also plan to put
teaching videos on the site and these all cost
money to make.

Primarily the ‘donate’ button is an opportunity
for people to give back.  This is good for me, not
just because of the cigars and wine, but also
because it’s important to be able to receive, me
included.  I have found that if you can’t receive
comfortably then you can’t really give.

***QUESTION***

Dear John,
Thank you for your wonderful newsletters they are
so helpful.  I find your wellness detective agency
idea novel and very useful.

I have a particular patient with chronic fatigue
and Fibromyalgia for 6 years.  She is in a lot of
pain.  The cranio sacral treatment itself is going
reasonably well but I feel she has emotional
issues that make her condition worse.

I have broached exploring the emotional causes of
her condition with her but she becomes very
defensive and then frustrated and then despairing.

Do you have any suggestions on how to approach
these issues with her.

Thanks again.

PM
Perth.

MY COMMENTS:

The secret weapon of cranio sacral therapy is
silence.

Personally, I can talk a lot about the other
stuff.  Why the person might be sick and so on.
I can talk about that stuff so much I wrote a book
about it for crying out loud.

But for some people talking can only make
things worse.  They will usually have been sick
for some time, like your patient, and will usually
have seen quite a few other therapists.  They will
have a number of theories crashing around in their
heads as to why they are ill.  Ironically each new
‘helpful’ perspective you might offer can push
them deeper into confusion rather than helping to
clarify.

That’s when silence really works. Just let them
get on the table and begin your work.  You can
chat with them but don’t initiate it or keep it
going.  Eventually silence descends and in that
silence and the depths of your work, changes will
percolate to the surface from the depths of them.

Over time deep changes will occur and no one
will talk about it.  Sometimes if you are lucky
they will tell you an insight they may have had
and when they do it will usually have a deep ring
of truth to it.

So that’s it for this issue.

Cheerio for now.

Your Mate,

John D.

+ How do you get someone to look at their issues if they don’t want to? – November – 05

Dear John,

I am enjoying your profoundly irreverent letters very much.
I think you are a naughty man.

I have a patient for lower back pain.  She also has many
emotional conflicts and issues within her.  She shows no
interest in addressing these issues.  The opposite in fact.

Here is my question.
Is it possible to invoke someone to address their issues if they
don’t want to?

Kind regards.

N. V.
Singapore.

P.S. Be nice.

>>>MY COMMENTS:

Cute . .

When someone first comes to me for treatment, after the
initial, ‘Hello’, and ‘Take a seat.’ etc.  The first question I ask is,
‘What can I do for you?’
and then I shut up,
and wait.
Whatever their answer is, is what they are asking me to help
them with.

‘No kidding Sherlock.’

That may sound obvious but it’s surprising how many
therapist don’t get it.  From the sounds of it, you might be one
of  them.  [That's me being nice, in case you missed that too.]

Whatever they answer to question, ‘What can I do for you?’

‘I want to sleep better.’
‘I want the headaches to stop.’
‘I want to stop attracting the wrong man/woman.’
‘I want to stop feeling so anxious.’
‘I want to get rid of my fibromyalgia’

It goes to form what I think of as a contract between us.  It
forms the boundaries within which I work and a declaration on
their part of what they want assistance with.

Let’s say someone asks me to help them with a very physical
problem and while treating them, I palpate lots of emotional
disharmonies.  If the emotional disharmonies are NOT causing
the particular physical symptoms I have been asked to help
with, then it would be very bad juju for me to try and start
working on the emotional issues.

First and foremost it’s disrespectful.
It’s like passing someone on the street struggling to carry
a new TV into their house.  They ask me to help them carry
the TV into the house with them.  I do this but once inside the
house I get a dose of ‘Queer eye for the straight guy,’ and take it
upon myself to redecorate the hall, stairs and landing
because, ‘Let’s face it, this person has shocking taste!’

Secondly, it’s more efficient to stick to the contract because it
can always be renegotiated in the future.

How come you are able to palpate the emotional issues in the
first place?

You can only ever see what you are shown.

If you stay within the bounds of the contract, it leaves space
for the person to say to you down the track, ‘I think I would
like you to help me deal with my emotional issues.’

It may sound unlikely but it happens.  It’s another form of
trusting that the person will allow you deeper when they feel
safe.  You’re job is not to invoke them to address their issues
but to provide the safest space you can, allowing them to feel
empowered enough to address their issues, if they’re ready to.

+ Emotional issues – Why are people so dumb? – September 05

Ok Maestro. Read your blurb on your website.

You don’t seem like your standard “Be still
and know that I KNOW,’ sort of cranio person.
Is there a factory somewhere I don’t know about
that churns these folk out?

Anyways, I’ve got a question for ye.
I’ve been seeing people for 4 years now, using
a combination of acupuncture and cranio.

As time goes on I’m seeing the cause of many
physical problems are emotional.

They tell you their life stories when they come
in and you can see how they keep repeating
the same self destructive patterns over and OVER again!
You point it out to them and they just keep doing it?

What gives?
Why don’t they get it?
Believe me I’ve tried everything!

So let’s hear your answer on that one Kemosabe.

K. Orlando. Fl.

>>>MY COMMENTS:

Why DON’T people get it?
Is it because they are dumb?

Well let’s explore that. If the reason people don’t
get stuff is because they are dumb then that would
include you and me.

Wouldn’t it?

Or do you think we are special?

That you and I get stuff quicker than other people?
Maybe it’s just you and the rest of us are dumb?
Okay, so maybe there is something else going on.

It’s called subjectivity.

Let me explain.

This situation happens to about once every couple of
weeks in my practie. I will be talking with a patient
about their condition. I will be in the middle of
saying something that I hadn’t verbalised before and
what I am saying is COOL!

Part of me will be listening and thinking ‘This is
really good, profound, insightful stuff I’m saying.’

Within a few minutes the patient will be looking
at me in an awed sort of way. I can see them
rummaging around internally for the makings of
a nice pedestal to put me on. That’s when my
ALARM BELLS GO OFF.

For me and for them.

While I acknowledge that every now and again
I do say something original, I know it’s not
good for me to get too self admiring about it.

I also, know that the patient is about to disempower
themselves if I don’t do something fast.

At this stage they will usually be in the middle
of telling me how they feel like a screw up of
one kind or another.

The inference being that there are people in the
world who are normal, they are in the majority
and the patient is an anomaly.

I stop them and explain the objective/subjective dynamic.
I make a point of explaining that I can have insight
about their lives because I AM NOT IN THEIR BODY.
I’M NOT LIVING IN THEIR LIFE.

I further the point by telling them that if we
swapped seats and I started telling them about
my life, they could have some very useful insights
about my life. Particularly the things I am not seeing.

Bottom line Tonto, is you have been sitting in the
therapist’s chair too long. You have forgotten what
it is like to be a patient. You have started to
believe your own press and feel like you should
be up there on that pedestal your patients have
been eager to put you on.

WARNING! WARNING! YOU ARE IN DANGER OF
FALLING INTO THE THERAPIST TRAP.

I know because I fell in it a few times myself
in different ways. It is one of those things
you need to be very proactive in not allowing to happen.

You have to nip it in the bud with yourself first
and then with your patients.

No pedestal building allowed.
No special powers implied.
No act together imagined.

So be of good cheer, K of Orlando, it’s not hopeless
but you will need to do something NOW.

I suggest going to a therapist, a cranio sacral
therapist even. Put yourself in the other chair
for a bit.

Take a class. Learn something new.

Do whatever you can to break up the cocoon of
smug superiority you have woven around yourself.

Try and energetically stand beside the patient
as you look at their problem, rather on opposite
sides of it.

Be with them, two people doing the best they can,
sometimes with ignorance and fear
sometimes with grace and beauty.

Dude, somebody hug me.

+ Which technique should I use? – September 05

+ Comment from Al Pelowski, principal tutor with The South
African Institute of Cranial Studies. on sciatica- October 05

Hi John,
Found your web site very useful and your URL easy to remember.
I use it as my virtual business card. I have been treating a man in
his late fifties with sciatica. I have had some success but feel I
could achieve more.

Can you recommend any techniques that you have found
particularly useful for sciatica?
Thanks
J.P.
Brisbane.

>>>MY COMMENTS:

Glad you like the site.
I’m going to answer your question in two parts. Let me start by
saying no one technique is ‘the’ technique for ANYTHING.

Techniques are ways we get a handle on the bigger picture.
And the biggest picture is what you need to be available for.
I am putting it like that because describing it as ‘looking’ for
the biggest picture is way too active, eager, inefficient and INTURSIVE.
You need to ask yourself, what is really going on here?
Why has this person got these particular symptoms?
Why are the symptoms in this configuration?
What’s the root cause of this situation?

Symptoms generally manifest physically, meaning they show up
in the person’s body.  But that doesn’t mean the CAUSE of those
symptoms is exclusively physical.

Often EMOTIONAL issues will express themselves as physical symptoms.
It doesn’t just stop there, often the root cause of what is going
on has a physical component, caused by an emotional component
but the root cause is not emotional it is something DEEPER.

That may sound spooky or kooky to you depending on your slant
but I have seen it time and again, where the root cause was deeper
than physical and emotional issues.

How can that be?

Let’s go through it one layer at a time.
Physical problems.
These problems are characterised by very physical causes and
descriptions,  ‘The tentorium cerebelli is pulled inferiorly here,
causing pressure there . . .etc’.
Regardless of the source of a pattern of a restriction, it will show
up physically.  Becoming accurate in identifying the extent and
complexity of physical restrictions takes a lot of practice and is
a prerequisite for working with the deeper causes.

Emotional issues/causes.
Restrictions in the emotional aspect of the person can have causes
like, a person may need to leave a partner or job or it may be an old
emotional abuse.
Emotional restrictions are more difficult to identify accurately
because it’s very easy to start theorising about the person’s problems
instead of simply receiving the information from the person’s body in
the same way you do with physical patterns.

Core problems
These relate to how the person sees themselves in their lives, their
relationship with themselves, with God, with their idea of God.
A feeling that they’re off track.
And no, you don’t need to know what their track is.
Core problems can feel like fundamental disharmonies within the
person.  They are the hardest to perceive because they are so deep
in the person.
Your ability to see and work with these core issues comes with lots
of practice and humility.
Their revelation occurs in the dynamic between you and the person
and what you have to offer each other.

Are you with me?

It generally works its way through the layers something like this.
A disharmony in a person’s core will affect them emotionally and
in turn affect them physically.
For example someone might think they are fundamentally bad.
This could manifest emotionally as anxiety and paranoia, which
could manifest physically as headaches and chronic fatigue.
The skill comes in being able to assess where the root cause of
the problem is.

Before you go charging off into the great mystery, let me add this.
It can be as easy to go the other way and start looking for deep
emotional and core issues as the root cause of a purely physical
problem.

‘I just twisted my knee Mate!’

Now the second part of my answer is purely physical.
There are lots of different ways of creating sciatica.
It’s a pain, which means there have to be nerves involved.
The pain generally is in the lower back and travels down one
leg or the other, sometimes both.

Have a look at, [in books and with your hands] the lumbar plexus,
the sacral plexus.  How are the nerves on both sides of the spinal
column as they leave the vertebral foramina?

Scan the nerves up as far as the thoraco-lumbar junction.
Remember tight membranes can pull vertebrae together and pinch nerves.
Consider how long the person has been getting the pain?
Getting a sense of when and how the pattern of restriction was formed.
So, look particularly at the dural tube.
How are the membranes running?
Most particularly how is the cerebro spinal fluid moving?
Find ways to help it come into a harmonious flow.
It’s all about flow.

Top

***COMMENT FROM AL PELOWSKI***
- On additional physical causes of sciatica.

John,
Some of the rootlets of the sciatic nerve pass through the psoas
muscle – a noted emotional contractor- – slightly bent over posture,
unable to fully extend hips without pain, affected leg externally rotated.
Another sciatica tip: usually on right side, I-C Valve, Caecum.

Yet other possibilities: Leg length differences, real bony differences,
or more likely due to rotations in the leg from protecting an old sprained
ankle or twisted knee — most commonly external rotation in the foot
where there has been damage to the ankle lateral colateral ligaments
– resulting in compression of the S-I joint and thus irritation of the epineuria.
“from the ankle joint to the knee joint…etc” Remember the tune?

Yo. Ta for newsletter. Much food for reflection
A

>>>MY COMMENTS:

Thanks Al. All very useful places to look for the mechanics of
the physical manifestation of sciatica.

+ Question about talking about emotional issues. – July 08

Dear John,
Thank you for your wonderful newsletters they are
so helpful.  I find your wellness detective agency
idea novel and very useful.

PM
Perth.

>>>MY COMMENTS:

The secret weapon of cranio sacral therapy is
silence.

Personally, I can talk a lot about the other
stuff.  Why the person might be sick and so on.
I can talk about that stuff so much I wrote a book
about it for crying out loud.

But for some people talking can only make
things worse.  They will usually have been sick
for some time, like your patient, and will usually
have seen quite a few other therapists.  They will
have a number of theories crashing around in their
heads as to why they are ill.  Ironically each new
‘helpful’ perspective you might offer can push
them deeper into confusion rather than helping to
clarify.

That’s when silence really works. Just let them
get on the table and begin your work.  You can
chat with them but don’t initiate it or keep it
going.  Eventually silence descends and in that
silence and the depths of your work, changes will
percolate to the surface from the depths of them.

Over time deep changes will occur and no one
will talk about it.  Sometimes if you are lucky
they will tell you an insight they may have had
and when they do it will usually have a deep ring
of truth to it.

<< Back to Basics 1 syllabus

You are in the fruit and veg department of the supermarket. You pull a bag from the roll provided. You are talking to your friend as you try to open the bag. You rub the end of the bag between your thumb and finger. After a couple of attempts you realise that you are trying to open the wrong end of the bag. If you look closely at where you have been trying to open the bag, you will see that your thumb and finger have left an imprint in the bag. You could say there is a pattern of restriction in the bag. If you smoothed out the imprint as best you could, you would still not be able to get the fine creases out of the plastic.

This is similar to the way restriction patterns are formed. The body undergoes a trauma of some kind. Let us say a car accident. The impact of the steering wheel on the body puts a large pattern of trauma in the body. Broken bones, lacerations etc. The body can release much of the pattern of restriction but it may not be able to release the entire pattern (the fine creases in the plastic). The residual pattern of restriction is what causes the symptoms that the person comes to you for help with.

You might wonder why these patterns of restriction are not detected and treated with expensive machinery, like MRI machines. Also how could such small residual patterns of restriction be so devastating?

To get an idea of what goes on in the body think of fascia as being like 20 layers of glad wrap one on top of another with a thin layer of fluid between each layer. When your body is functioning normally each layer glides over the next. If you poked your finger into the middle of those layers the imprint left by your finger would totally compromise the glad wrap’s ability to move one layer over the other. Take the above small analogy and multiply it by 1,000 and you will begin to get an idea of the effect patterns of restriction can have in the body. The machines are good but they are not looking for widespread minute restrictions.

Patterns of restriction are often wide spread but like anything that is creased, some parts are more creased than others. They are called focal points, trauma focuses or energy cysts.

Patterns of trauma are usually complex because the body moves as it is impacted. So in the example above the person would not have a steering wheel shaped pattern of restriction imprinted in the area of their body where they struck the steering wheel. The pattern of restriction will include the way their body moved as it was thrown around in the accident.

If you have ever seen crash simulations using dummies you will know that they move around a lot during the impact.

Also to be considered is the depth the pattern is imprinted in the body.

You have a large bowl of jelly and a ball bearing. You hold the ball bearing 5cms above the surface of the jelly and let it fall. It hardly breaks the surface of the jelly. You retrieve the ball bearing and drop it into the jelly from a height of 1 meter. The ball bearing has now embedded itself into the jelly to quite a depth.

With patterns of restriction the greater the force of the trauma the deeper into the body it is imprinted.

EMOTIONS
Emotional trauma also lodges in the body and can cause restrictions equal in severity to patterns of restriction formed in a purely physical way.

You are six years old. You are walking past a building site. A brick falls off the scaffold and hits you on the shoulder breaking your clavicle. 40 years later you have frozen shoulder.

You are six years old. Your father is angrily telling you that you are stupid. As he does this he taps you on the shoulder with his finger to make the point. 40 years later you have frozen shoulder.

The memory of these events may not be in the conscious mind, but stored in the cells of our bodies. In the course of a Cranio Sacral session these memories can spring into the conscious mind as patterns of restriction are releasing.

TISSUE MEMORY
If you find the notion of ‘Tissue Memory’ difficult to accept, think of it this way; videotape is made of plastic with iron filings stuck on its surface. There is nothing too amazing about that, yet when the videotape is played through the VCR and we watch the film, we laugh and cry and become emotionally engaged. The cells in our bodies are a lot more complex than videotape. They store an incredible amount of information and perform a mind boggling number of tasks every second, it is very plausible that they can also store individual memory.

TRAUMA RELEASE
Patterns of restriction release when the body returns to the position it was in when the trauma was imprinted. For example if a person’s frozen shoulder was caused years before by their arm being violently. Then the pattern of restriction resulting from that trauma will release when the arm is in the exact position it was in when the trauma occurred, in this case bent backwards.

When the body returns to the exact position that the trauma occurred in, a spontaneous release occurs.

It would be practically impossible for the therapist to find the exact body position a particular trauma occurred in based on the person’s memory and external guesswork. Luckily for us we don’t need to work it out because the body remembers. The cranio sacral therapist tunes into the body and allows it to move. With skillful following the body will lead the therapist to the point where the trauma occurred.

The cranio sacral therapist uses the body’s memory of the trauma and follows it knowing that with timely and appropriate assistance it will release it’s own restrictions.

We will go into patterns of restriction in great depth as your training progresses. For now, knowledge of patterns of restriction will give an appreciation of what you have at your fingertips as you practice.

<< Back to Basics 1 syllabus