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.

May 25 – 2008

Questions and comments for this issue:

+ The interweb thingy.
+ Twitter.
+ Book recommendation from Renee in Australia.
+ Comment from Etienne in Belgium.
+ Comment from Joyaa in Australia.
+ Comment from Eva in Australia.
+ Question about contact pressure and effectiveness.
+ Question about intracranial hypertension.

Hello,

Very Important Breaking news: Russia won the
Eurovision song contest.  Personally I think
Israel should have won but you decide for
yourself and let me know.
Russia:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XR5xrU02yo&

Israel:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sw_6gdieBRY

If teaching new mothers how to make nutritious
meals for their new babies sounds like a good
idea to you then have a look here

http://www.indiegogo.com/mouthofbabes

and if you like what you see then make a
contribution and help Rene, who is also a cranio
sacral therapist as you will see below, get the
project off the ground.

I obviously think it is worthwhile having
already put my money where my mouth is.
A-har!! and I didn’t even mean that pun.

I want to ask a question. Now I don’t want you
to get anxious but it’s about the internet.

Are you on it?

While you are thinking about that let me tell
you some things about my practice.

1. EVERYONE who comes to see me comes from the
internet.
2. I don’t do ANY other advertising.
3. Currently my waiting list is 6 weeks long.
4. I charge more than most natural
therapists in Ireland. [It was the same in
Australia]
5. If you search for cranio sacral therapy in
Ireland or Australia on Google my website
will be in the top ten.
6. When I moved to Ireland I was able to set up
my practice from scratch with no drop in
patients or income all because of the way I
use the internet.

I’m not telling you the above to blow my own
trumpet, you don’t want to hear that racket once I
get started, no I’m telling you to highlight how
powerful the internet is.

Now back to my question.  Are you on the
internet?  If not, is that because your practice is
as big as you would like it to be thank you very
much or because the internet is a complex and scary
place?

If you are on the internet, are you getting the
sorts of results you want?

It has been my experience that, with a few
exceptions, most cranio sacral therapists are not
very computer friendly.

Well let me correct that they are friendly to
their computers, if they own one, they just don’t
feel like their computers are very friendly towards
them.

How to create a successful website that actually
gets the sort of people you want to treat to call
you and then get that site to the top of the google
ranking is a big subject and not something I am
going to go into here.

I am thinking of putting together a special
training on the subject so if you’re interested let
me know.  Whether I do it or not will very much be
determined by the level of interest.

Something you can do right now for free is get
yourself on TWITTER.

Twhatter??

Twitter.
Without getting too technical, Twitter is what
is called a ‘micro-blogging’ platform.

And no that’s not a kiddies toilet step.

On Twitter, users post short updates about what
they’re up to.  (Max. 140 characters. So it’s short
and to the point.)

When I first heard about Twitter I didn’t really
get it.

It just seemed like a load of back and forth
‘chat’ between people.  My initial thought was, ‘I
don’t have time for this.’

But not being one to allow good sense to stand
in the way of having a go, I dived in.

Within a week it really started to dawn on me
how deceptively powerful Twitter was.

And you don’t have to be sitting in front of
your computer to use it, you can post from your
cellphone.  That’s one of the things I really like
about it.

Because Twitter posts happen so fast (i.e.
someone could witness an event and instantly post
about it from their phone) it’s becoming a valuable
source for REAL-TIME information.

The typhoon in Burma and the earthquake in China
come to mind immediately.

Here’s a story that illustrates how powerful it
can me.  James Buck, a graduate student in
journalism from the University of California-
Berkeley was arrested last month in Mahalla, Egypt
while covering an anti-government protest.

Thinking quickly, James was able to send a one-
word Twitter update: ‘Arrested.’

The people who were following him on Twitter in
Egypt and the US reacted by contacting the
university and the consulate on his behalf.  Before
long, James was updating Twitter with another one-
word message, ‘Free.’

Twitter is also becoming a powerful ‘crowd
sourcing’ tool.

Someone can post to Twitter and ask ‘What’s the
best digital camera for under $400?’ and in a
matter  of minutes have tons of replies from other
people giving great feedback and advice.

This is one of the ways it can be useful to you
and your practice as the number of people who talk
about their health and emotional life is huge.

You can use twitter to grow your practice by
specifically searching for and connecting with
people in your country, area or city.

You do this by ‘following’ which simply means
letting Twitter know you would like to be informed
whenever the particular person posts a comment.
Most people will reciprocate and in turn ‘follow’
you.

Some of the more popular people on Twitter have
10,000′s of people following them.

Think about that for a minute in relation to
your practice.  You could let 1000′s of people know
if you were moving offices or had a particularly
successful case or were giving a talk.

You can also use Twitter to connect with other
cranio sacral therapists around the world.  This
means that should you need to refer someone to a
therapist in another country or city you will have
someone you know.  I have already been asked for
referrals like this a few times.  As you connect
with more cranio sacral therapists, they too will
refer to you.

Okay so here’s what to do.

Go here http://www.twitter.com and get yourself
an account.  It’s free and quick and takes about 3
minutes.   Make sure you include ‘cranio sacral
therapist’ or  ‘cranio sacral student’ in your bio,
which is also limited to 140 characters.

If you want to get an idea of what sort of
things I twitter about you can look at my Twitter
page here.

http://twitter.com/john_dalton

If you want to ‘follow’ me, and I encourage you to
and any other cranio sacral therapist you can find
on twitter, make sure you click ‘Follow’ under my
photo.

Once you do that you will be notified whenever I
make a Twitter post.  I will ‘Follow’ you back.

If the whole thing makes no sense to you just
try it for a week.  I found it took about that long
for me to get into it and to know what was worth
posting about.

-o-

Now, lots of response to the last newsletter,
so let’s get on with the mailbag.

***COMMENT FROM RENEE IN AUSTRALIA***

Hi John,
I love reading your newsletters whenever you send
them.  I have been reading this book which is
absolutely phenomenal.  And I would just like to
share it with the cranio community:

The Secret Teachings of Plants In The Direct
Perception of Nature by Stephen Harrod Buhner.

It is a really revolutionary book that has been
around for a while so maybe many people already
know about it.  Stephen looks into the energies
coming from our hearts and how our hearts
communicate with every other thing on earth.
Plants is where he starts and speaks about how
aboriginal peoples have been able to learn from
plants themselves what and how they can be used to
heal people through this vibrationary language.  As
the book progresses he speaks of how we can use
this heart awareness to communicate with each other
and to learn the nature of disease and discomfort
within each other.

He calls this depth diagnosis, and reading his
discriptions of his work it sounds just like
cranio.  I just love the language he uses, the
extensive quotes from Goethe and other Earth poets.
I haven’t finished reading the book yet and I wish
I could describe it better, but I highly recommend
it to everyone…

On a different note maybe I have missed some of
your newsletters as well, but I was really excited
reading about the village in SA and your comments
on Open Source Cranio.  I would really love to hear
more about that in your newsletters.  My mother
works in Burma as a teacher trainer for
kindergarden and upwards kids.  I believe
craniosacral therapy could be so helpful in that
environment when the population is under such
stress, repression and poverty.

Thanks again for the great work you are doing.

Renee
Australia.

MY COMMENTS:

Thanks for passing it on Renee.  I haven’t read
the book myself so can’t comment.  From what I do
know of it you may also like Connie Grauds work.

http://www.spiritedmedicine.com/

***COMMENT FROM ETIENNE IN BELGIUM ABOUT JILL BOLTE TATLOR’S VIDEO***

Hi John,
I guess more Dr’s and scientists need a stroke.
Etienne

MY COMMENTS:

That is so naughty – hilarious but very naughty.

***COMMENT FROM JOYAA IN AUSTRALIA***

Hi John & Greetings from Queensland!
Re. Karen & Orthodontics, I thought that I might
add a couple of points?
1. “Underdeveloped maxillae” (that’s the key
phrase) are not uncommon, and are seen a lot in
persistent mouth breathers.
2. More progressive orthodontists tend to use
expanders (sometimes maxillary alone, sometime with
mandibular expanders too).  Breaking the mandible
to try to reduce its size may be going the wrong
way aobut things (as you suggested).
3. There are progressive dentists and good
orthodontists in Oz.  Whereabouts is Karen based?

Love, Joyaa

MY COMMENTS:

Hello Joyaa and thanks for your comments.
I never found much credence in the
underdeveloped maxillae – mouth breather
theory/approach myself.

I haven’t come across an underdeveloped maxillae
yet.  When there is a problem it is because they
are compressed posteriorly or superiorly or
medially or all three.  The compression coming from
trauma of some kind or another.

I’m not a big fan of expanders either because
they are usually too tight and elicit a defensive
response from the maxillae locking them down.

***COMMENT FROM EVA IN AUSTRALIA***

Hello John,

I have a case story that really shows how easy it
can be to work with the teeth and bones they attach
to.

I treated my niece when she was 10 years old. She
had sucked her thumb until the age of 8, so her
front teeth (both upper and lower) were standing
out at a pretty sharp angle.

The orthodontist had of course said she would need
braces.  She had some acute neck, back and pelvic
problems and I only had the possibility to give her
2 sessions with about 2 weeks in between, so the
focus was not on fixing the teeth.  But I worked on
the teeth and face for a bit any way in these two
sessions.

I worked individually with all the teeth as well as
the associated structures in the face (maxillae,
incisors, mandible, temporals, TMJ, vomer,
palatines etc).  The front teeth really needed some
serious unwinding.

I saw her next one year later and her teeth had
nearly completely straightened out. They only
needed a tiny bit more adjustment.

I have since worked with a few other children,
mostly early teens, as well as my own daughter who
is 7 and busy shedding teeth and the new big ones
coming out with not enough space for them, causing
them to come out crooked.

They straighten out very easily, especially while
they are still growing.  I must say I find teeth
very cooperative to work with.

Best regards,

Eva
Central Coast
Australia

***QUESTION***

Hi there. Was searching for someone to ask some
questions to about CST and found you. Thanks. I
have my two levels in CST. I totally love doing it
on clients but feel guilty in a way because of the
fact that they get up after looking at me like I
haven’t done anything for the past hour to them. I
always try to explain that they probably won’t feel
anything but that things are occuring within their
bodies. There is another therapist at my place of
work who has been doing CST for a few years now and
she does her treatments SOOO different. She uses so
much force it is like a massage and I actually was
sore the next day. So when one of her clients came
to me on Monday she left feeling confused because
she told me how different my session was from the
other person’s so although I explained that how I
do it is what I was taught I began to doubt myself
that I wasn’t doing things correctly.

I sometimes have a difficult time feeling the
diaphragm releases happening in clients. Will this
just come with more practice?

Also I don’t know what this is about but when I am
working on the cranium alot of times their heads
will start to move around in circles or back and
forth. Is this releasing or what is happening? I
just try to go with what I feel and don’t second
guess myself.

But I really can’t say I have had anyone feel any
change after a session. Can you give me any advice.
Thanks for your time.
Regards, Lorraine

MY COMMENTS:

Hello Lorraine,
It’s hard for me to answer your question because
I don’t know where you are training or what stage
you are at in your training.   So bear that in mind
as I answer your questions.

With regard to how much pressure to apply, it
shouldn’t feel as strong as a massage.  Sometimes
in the releasing process the therapist may have to
hold against a lot of pressure but that doesn’t
happen too often.

Far be it from me to pass judgement on the other
‘cranio sacral therapist’ in your practice but from
what you have written it sounds like they either
had poor or insufficient training or more likely
they weren’t properly assessed, if at all.

It would probably be wise to avoid sharing
patients and if you do, you would need to make it
very clear to the patients that you both have very
different styles.

Now to the diaphragms.
The transverse diaphragms are not easy to feel
because they are, . . . well. . . big.   Compared
to some of the finer work we can be involved in,
the size of the diaphragms can be daunting and too
big to hold in your intention.

You may find it easier to think of them
individually rather than as a group.

They each have a different quality and the more
familiar you are with the quality of each, the
easier it will be for you to feel releases as they
occur.

If you can’t hold the whole diaphragm in your
intention do it in two halves.  Do one side first
and then the other.  Aim to hold as much of the
diaphragm in your intention as you can as you work
on one side or the other.

Over time you will be able to hold more and more
of the diaphragm in your intention until eventually
you can hold the whole diaphragm.

Heads moving around in circles?
Yes it can happen but if it’s happening for you
with everyone then there’s a good chance that it’s
your stuff.

In fact you can pretty much apply that to
everything you find in ‘everyone’, if you know what
I mean.

No?

What I mean is if you find the same thing going
on in everyone you would need to take a good look
at what is going on for yourself. Chances are it
will be your stuff.

As to people not feeling different after a
session. If they are getting better I wouldn’t be
concerned about it.

I have found that people will only give you a
hard time about the things you expect them to give
you a hard time about.

So if you are concerned that people are going to
feel like you are not doing anything, because they
can’t feel it, then they will probably have that
problem.

On the other hand if you are saying that the
people you are treating are not improving at all,
well that’s a different kettle of much more serious
fish.
It’s serious because people getting better is
kind of the whole point.

You will need specific help with this. You will
need to go to your trainer or mentor and get them
to assess you.

Get them to tune in as you are working. They
should be able to give you specific feedback about
how you are working, what your intention is like
and so on.

Don’t take it personally if they suggest having
some treatment yourself.  It can often sort out
obstacles in training.

***QUESTION***

Hi John,

Liane from Australia. I am a physiotherapist
working in a new position with chronic pain
clients.  Could you please give any experience you
have had with this condition: intracranial
hypertension. This lady has had 2 labours, (2
caesarians with 2 epidurals). Symptomology came on
following childbirth.  She is very overweight,
looks to have a thyroid disorder.

I look forwards to your insights and advice,

Yours sincerely,

Liane

MY COMMENTS:

Hello Liane,
Let direct you to this case history about an
overweight woman with intracranial hypertension I
treated in Brisbane a number of years back.

http://www.open-source-cranio.com/cases/intracranialtension.html

As well as the intracranial membranes you may
also want to look closely at the dural tube around
the lumbro-sacral junction and her pelvis
generally.

The 2 caesareans and epidurals could have left
patterns of trauma that are causing or exacerbating
the intracranial hypertension.

Cheerio for now.

Till the next time.

Your Mate,

John D.

+ 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.