March 23 – 2007
Questions and comments for this issue:

+ Postnatal depression.
+ Trigeminal neuralgia.
+ Bipolar disorder.

Hello,
Just let me put my machete down for a minute so
I can tell you about a new study on healing and
men.
That’s right I said men, manly men.
Are you listening to me Pilgrim?

‘Males typically defined as masculine – strong,
capable of endurance and tough – were seen to have
an improved recovery rate,’ says Professor Glen
Good of the University of Missouri-Columbia.

‘It has long been assumed that men are not as
concerned and don’t take as good of care of their
health, but what we’re seeing here is that the
same ideas that led to their injuries may actually
encourage their recovery.’

So that’s it for me.  Out with the pink loafers
and the angora sweaters and in with the DKNY
combat fatigues and the Gucci backpacks.  It’s
rugged hard living for me from now on.
That’s right I’m drinking tap water and hiking
to the coffee shop.

So let’s saddle up and have a look see at the mailbag.

***QUESTION***

Dear John,
I really enjoy your newsletters.  I have been
getting them for quite a while now but have never
asked you anything before, so here goes.

A woman called me the other day to ask if cranio
could help with postnatal depression.  I said yes
and set up an appointment to see her next week.

I have never treated postnatal depression before
so I read up on it.  Nothing is jumping out as a
possible cranio sacral link.  I will ‘treat what I
find’ when I see her but was just wondered if you
had any experience of it.

Thanking you in advance.

JL
London.

PS. I downloaded your book and it is excellent.
Should be a bestseller.

MY COMMENTS:

Thank you for the kind words.
I have found that postnatal depression is a
condition that responds really well to cranio
sacral.

The root cause is often as a result of the
birth process.  The main causes being one or a
combination of the following – Labor, forceps,
ventouse, caesarean section and epidural.

The birth process can leave the mother’s pelvic
floor full of restrictions.  This in turn
pulls the dural tube inferiorly which in turn
translates into the intracranial membranes and
affects the sphenoid which in turn leads to
depression.

I have seen this pattern in 95% of the women I
have treated for postnatal depression.

It usually resolves pretty quickly.  6 or 7
weeks.  The initial treatments focus on getting
the pelvic floor to come into harmony and release.
Then once that happens it’s a matter of following
that work up the dural tube into the head until
the sphenoid settles.

I have treated women who have suffered with
postnatal depression for up to 10 years.  After
that length of time they are nearly always on
medication and their second or third
psychologist/counsellor.

It is fantastic and at the same time sad that
it takes so little to get rid of the symptoms and
how much heartache that could be avoided if they
had treatment earlier.

***QUESTION***

Dear John,
I am a Cranio Sacral Therapist. I studied with The
Upledger Institute and have been a Therapist for
nearly 2years. I truly am amazed at what this
therapy can achieve.  The reason I am writing to
you is because I have recently been introduced to
Trigeminal Neuralgia which I had never heard of
until now. I just wanted to inquire when you treat
this problem what areas do you treat for success.
I would appreciate any feed back on this you may
give me.
Thank you so very much.
H.I.
Australia.

MY COMMENTS:

To get an understanding of trigeminal neuralgia
you need to study the structure of the trigeminal
nerve.
I’ll run through it briefly here.

The Trigeminal nerve is the largest in diameter
of the cranial nerves.  It is predominantly a
sensory nerve receiving sensory input from the
face and scalp.  It also provides some motor
supply to the mylohyoid and the anterior belly of
the digastric.

The two trigeminal nerves leave the pons and
travel anteriorly for about two centimetres under
the tentorium.  The trigeminal then forms a
ganglion out of which it branches into the 3
divisions.

OPHTHALMIC DIVISION
The ophthalmic division receives sensation from
the eye balls, the lacrimal glands and the skin of
the forehead, eyelid and nose.  It enters the
orbit through the superior orbital fissure.

Just before it enters the superior orbital
fissure, it sends some sensory fibres to the
tentorium.  That’s why pain behind the eyes can be
an indication of tentorial tension.

MAXILLARY DIVISION
This division is entirely sensory and receives
sensation from the skin of the middle portion of
the face, lower eye lid, side of the nose, upper
lip, roof of the mouth, gums and teeth.
The Maxillary branch exits the cranium through
the foramen rotundum which is formed in the
sphenoid.

MANDIBULAR DIVISION
This is the largest of the three branches of
the trigeminal.
It receives sensation from the lower lip, lower
face, inner cheek, tongue, lower teeth and gums
and the temporomandibular joint.
It also has a motor aspect supplying the
temporalis, the masseter, pterygoid, mylohyoid and
the anterior digastric.
It exits the cranium through the foramen ovale
which is also located in the sphenoid.

So that is the rough geography.
If you are treating someone with trigeminal
neuralgia trace the pathway of the trigeminal
nerve with your intention.

Pay particular attention to the areas of
vulnerability which are for the ophthalmic
division,

• the superior orbital fissure.

For the maxillary division,

• the foramen rotundum,
• the maxilla,
• palatine,
• sphenoid
• and zygomae.

And for the mandibular branch,
the foramen ovale,

• the TMJ area.

***QUESTION***

Hi John

It is a long time since I have written to you, but
thanks for all the newsletters – I look forward to
receiving them.

I want to ask your help today. I have some friends
in Cape Town who have a son approx 40 years old
who has suffered from Bi Polar since he was about
15 yrs old.

They have tried every possible treatment, but have
had no success. I would like to advise them about
the condition and ‘Cranio’ and then to advise them
to seek help CranioSacrally

Please advise ASAP

Kind regards

John Rosen

Johannesburg SA

MY COMMENTS:

I treated a woman before I left Brisbane who
had Bipolar for thirty five years.  She had been
institutionalised a couple of times and had been
given shock treatment at the start of the 90′s and
again in 2000.

When she came to see me she was in the process
of weening herself off her medication.  The
pattern of her symptoms was two months of feeling
very high followed by two moths of feeling very
low and so on.  When she came to see me she was in
a low.

Taking her case history was very intense
because she was obviously in a lot of emotional
pain and couldn’t stop crying.  We got through it
and she lay on the table and I assessed her.

It turned out that the root cause of her
symptoms was – physical. Her sphenoid was
restricted.

In the course of taking her case history it had
come out that she was a forceps delivery.  As you
know, the sphenoid isn’t ossified when you are a
new born.  This woman’s right greater wing was
torsioned in relation to the body of the sphenoid.
The right greater wing was also side bending in
relation to the body, meaning the right wing was
much more anterior than the left wing when the
sphenoid was in neutral.

It always feels to me that the patterns of
restriction in the sphenoid act as indicators of
the deeper restrictions in the membranes.  Bone
doesn’t move on it’s own.  Trauma is nearly always
held most strongly in the membranes.

The other thing I’ve found with depression and
the sphenoid is that it’s not the sphenoid that
brings on depression but rather the effect the
pattern of restriction has on the pituitary gland
which is sitting atop the sphenoid in the sellae
turcica.  Particularly as the infundibulum of the
pituitary perforates the diaphragma sellae.

The restriction pattern in this woman’s
sphenoid was like this.  Deep patterns of
restriction held in the tent and surrounding
membranes since birth.  Her pituitary was also
under pressure at its infundibulum.

She saw me for six treatments at the end of
which she was neutral.  Not high, not low.  She
couldn’t remember ever feeling like that for more
than a day or so when she was in transition from
high to low or visa versa.

I was in email contact with her about two
months later and she was still symptom free.

35 years of symptoms sorted out in six weeks.
Who’s glad they’re a cranio sacral therapist!
Hands in the air! Come on, you at the back, hands
in the air!

Not all people with bipolar will respond as
well as this woman.  Not all bipolar is caused by
restrictions in the cranio sacral system.  I would
encourage your friends to get their son assessed
by a good cranio sacral therapist. It will all
help.

So that’s it for this issue.

Cheerio for now John.

Till the next time.

Your Mate,

John D.

April 4 – 2009

Questions and comments for this issue:

+ Special report from Mary Hegarty in Cape Town on autism.
+ Any results with tinnitus?
+ Treating children on Ritalin.
+ Working with the sphenoid.

Hello,
Apparently there are as many creatures on your
body as there are people on Earth. Feel free to
use that one at your next dinner party. Here is
the video to back it up. I wanted to call it,
‘Your Micro-organisms and You.’ but the makers
weren’t that keen.

If you are interested in developing ‘Virtuoso Touch’
have a read of Jesse Arana’s article on palpation.
He is a big fan of John Upledger. If that doesn’t
put you off too much he has some interesting
perspectives and observations.

In fact it was Jesse who let me know about Casa BESU
in Portabelo, Panama. This is an initiative by 4 cranio
sacral therapists to bring cranio sacral treatment and
training to the local community in Portabelo. It is a
great project and fits right in with my vision for
Open Source Cranio.

And while we’re on the subject of inspiring people,
get your tissues ready and have a look at this video of
Nick Vujicic who faces obstacles I can’t even imagine
every day of his life. His message is great,
‘It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish.’

Stanford University has launched a video series from
7 of its faculty members in the fields of neuroscience,
bioengineering, brain imaging and psychology.
I haven’t had a chance to look at them all yet but
the ones I have seen are interesting.

My Masterclass DVD series is coming along nicely.
I have put a 10 minute video compilation of extracts
from it on this page.
You can also sign up for a Review Edition or an advance
copy there too.

Before we get into the mailbag here is a special report
from Mary Hegarty on work she was doing with a boy
diagnosed with autism in Cape Town.

***SPECIAL REPORT FROM MARY HEGARTY IN CAPE TOWN***

Alpha School Case Report: The Boy with the Pencil
August 2007

The week ends with a bang on Friday as we enter the
Alpha School for Learners with Autism! Noise abounds,
footsteps echo off high ceilings and stairwells; pots
and pans clang and clatter in the kitchen; raised voices
reverberate greetings and admonitions, songs and laughter,
tears and tantrums.

Among the 65 days students, who are predominantly boys
between the ages of 5 and 18, most (85%) come from
disadvantaged homes. What all have in common is autism.
The spectrum is pretty wide. Some can language, read,
and count; others do not speak. Some have a
‘high functioning’ label, while others need help
with basics, even the toilet.

Our CST outreach program focuses on children under 12.
Teachers and their aides are a tremendous resource,
generously sharing information about what happens in
the classroom and on the playground when we are not there.

This is R’s story, ‘a lethargic boy with a dislike of
gross motor activity,’ as described in a 2005 psych
report. Back then he was often anxious and tearful
on the school bus, becoming sullen upon arriving at
school. He might scream for up to 20 minutes at a
stretch twice a day. He would hit himself during
tantrums on the floor.

At home, bedtime was problematic. R would often lay
awake for three hours before falling asleep at 11pm.
He could dress and undress and use the toilet. He
was not fond of sharing. He was able to use scissors
and a pencil. He would examine objects obsessively.
I met R in November 2005, when he was 9 years old,
and began working with him in the classroom. While
his teacher read a story, I supported R’s right kidney.

He would not allow contact with two hands. After the
story R wanted to go home, though when I asked
permission he said I could come back to see him.
Soon after the 2006 school year began, R’s teacher
said that his tantrums had stopped and he was
showing a marked improvement.

I met with his parents in February and explained CST
to them. They were keen for R to continue in the
program. By this time, R was allowing more contact
for longer periods during CST sessions. I could hold
his liver and kidney areas with no fuss, though he
continued to be less enthusiastic about cranial
contact when I tried to hold his frontal bone,
sphenoid and parietals.

Early in March 2006, R came to school very charged.
That day he refused treatment, saying ‘GO AWAY!
Not today!’ Not to be deterred, I sat beside him
briefly, offering verbal support without physical
contact. I promised to return in a week’s time.

The next few days would bring a devastating loss to
R and his family. On the evening of R’s 10th birthday
his dad was struck by a taxi and killed instantly
while riding his bike home from work.

The following Friday, R did not want me or CST, but
his teacher insisted. A classmate supportively held
R’s hand and accompanied us to the OT room. There R
leaned against me and stared blankly at the colourful
posters hanging on the wall. Moving onto a big red
physio ball, I gathered him into my lap, rocking
gently. My hands made a sandwich of his mid-thoracic
spine and his heart/solar plexus.

After 20 minutes, we joined his classmates on the
playground. He sank onto the picnic bench, leaned
against me and cried. Another 20 minutes passed
and R gazed skyward, lifted his arms and became very
agitated. We walked back to the classroom, where he
began to settle.

We enjoyed a couple of good sessions before the
winter holidays, but by the time Term 3 began,
R’s tantrums had begun again. Concerned, his
classroom teacher, the school psychologist and
I paid a home visit to the humble cinderblock
cottage bordering the airport, where we listened
for two hours to his mom’s non-stop story. It was
clear that the entire family was in crisis.
I was just a volunteer practitioner working with
one family member. That would have to be enough.
Since that home visit, I created a routine when
working with R. I announce my arrival at school
to R and ask his permission to return in a while.

For the next year and a half, on good days I would
sit beside R and watch him draw (he’s becoming
quite the artist!). If I’m lucky he allows contact
somewhere on his back for a brief period, and in
rare circumstances on the cranial vault. I ask
about his family. On a not-so-good day, R tells me
to go away! On those days I sit beside him without
touching… but I DO NOT GO AWAY!!!

When R’s class was invited to join in an art
program at a nearby school, R refused to participate,
even though he loves to draw. In his collapsed world,
venturing into unknown waters is too threatening.

On a rainy Friday in August 2007, I arrived on time
to see R’s classmates filing into the media room to
watch a video. R had stayed behind in the classroom
to draw on his own. His teacher said R did not sleep
the night before. I pulled up a chair and remarked
that he must be exhausted. It was just the two of us,
the room was quiet. R wore a track suit made with
slippery fabric, and I decided to try massaging his
back, neck, shoulders and arms. No protest. For the
next 35 minutes, bent over his desk, R surrendered to
cranio sacral therapy… cranium, spine, sacrum.
At one point he relaxed the grip on his best friend,
the pencil, melting into the moment. The silence
was exquisite. When I left I whispered a promise to
return next week. I’ll be there!

The following is a poem I wrote this year inspired by R…

*Kwansaba: Curious Boy with the Pencil
Curious Boy grips the pencil too tight
his silent friend during dark feral nights
these days nights last all day long
taxi smashed bicycle… dada’s dead and gone
guns shoot outside, mummy’s on her knees
pencil draws blue sky, happy birds &bees
bad lines rubbed out before anybody sees

Mary Hegarty
24 January 2009

*KwanSaba is a cross-cultural poetic form dedicated
to Kwanzaa. Each poem addresses one of the seven
principles of Kwanzaa: Umoja (unity); Kujichagulia
(self-determination); Ujima (collective responsibility);
Ujamaa (cooperative economics); Nia (purpose);
Kuumba (creativity); and Imani (faith), and consists
of seven lines of seven words each. Every word used
contains no more than seven letters.

MY COMMENTS:

Great report Mary. As always I am so impressed
with the work you and your fellow therapists are
doing in South Africa. Well done.

***FORUM QUESTION***

Has anyone had any long term success treating
Tinnitus? I treated a long term sufferer and it
was gone within 20 minutes but came back that
afternoon, two further sessions have shown no relief.
Karen
Australia

MY COMMENTS:

Hello Karen,
I have had good success treating tinnitus and its
big brother menieres disease. Here is a case history
of a woman I treated with menieres in Brisbane in 1997.

Not all cases of tinnitus will respond to cranio
sacral work but I have found that it is easy enough
to identify these cases in the initial assessment.

A common thing I have found in people with tinnitus
is their membrane systems are very tight. They often
feel to me like their membrane system is a half size
too small for their body.

This can be throughout the whole membrane system or
just in specific parts of it.

Why this causes the tinnitus has to do with the
sensitivity of the ear drums to vibration. Let me
explain. If you were standing in the corner of a
room whispering and I was standing in the opposite
corner trying to listen, the 3 little bones in my
ear – ossicles – that connect to my eardrum would be
moving a couple of microns.

Remember a sheet of writing paper is 100 microns
thick so a movement of a couple of microns is tiny.

When a membrane system is very tight it can feel
like an over-tightened guitar string that is
reverberating.
This minute vibration is what causes the occicles
to vibrate minutely and this tiny movement is what
causes the noise – tinnitus.

I have found that as the membrane system begins
to ease the tinnitus diminishes.

Because you got a positive result the first time
you treated the person it means the tinnitus is
being caused by restrictions in the person’s
system. I suggest you go through your case
history notes to see what you worked on in that
first session.

Something you did will have caused the symptoms
to diminish. It is possibly something small you
didn’t register as being part of the primary
lesion. It may not fit your idea of what is wrong.

For example, you may have done an ear pull
in the first session and felt a good release. In the
subsequent 2 treatments you may have done ear pulls
also.
What you may have forgotten is that you did
some work on the sacrum in that initial session
but because there was an improvement in symptoms
and you got such a significant release with the
ear pull, you may have neglected the sacrum work.

Of course I’m not saying that is what happened.
I am offering it as a possibility.

***QUESTION***

Hi John,
I recently treated a teenager with ADHD who has been
on Ritalin since about age 6. While I’ve treated kids
with variations on the condition before, this is the
first time I’ve come across a system influenced by
Ritalin. It felt to me like a massive dose of caffeine,
but it seemed to reverberate outside as well as inside
the system, which is a new experience for me. It felt
like treating two systems at once. Any comments or
experiences with Ritalin to report?
Keep up the great work.
Joseph McGuire
Ireland

MY COMMENTS:

Hello Joseph,
I’ve had quite a bit of experience with kids on
Ritalin and the many other drugs that are prescribed
for ‘difficult’ kids. Here is a case history of
one such child I treated in Brisbane in 2004.

Ritalin has a particularly strong effect on the
system because it is, well, a really strong drug.
If it was administered intravenously it would have
the same ‘hit’ as cocaine.

That’s not just folksy hearsay, Ritalin actually
has the same pharmacological profile as cocaine.

So when you make contact with a system that has been
distorted with Ritalin for a long time you can feel
all sorts of strange resonances, counter currents,
compensations, rhythm echos and the sort of feeling
you were describing.

The way to work with it is the same as working
with any drug. You treat as much as you can see
through the haze the drug causes in the person’s
system.
When the symptoms improve and under the guidance
of the prescribing Doctor, the medication is reduced.

With less medication, more of the restriciton
pattern will reveal itself. You continue treatment-
symptoms improve – medication is further reduced
and so on.
Eventually there is no medication and no symptoms.

Happy days.

If you want to read more about the effects of
Ritalin there is a good little article reproduced
from ‘The Observer’ on the South African Institute
of Cranial Studies website here.

***QUESTION***

Dear John!
I hope you don’t mind me asking you a question,
concerning cranio-sacral. I just had a young female
patient here, for cranio, she had a spine-operation
6 months ago. And as I tried the lateral strain, the
whole structures became somewhat swirly and blurry…
and I had no idea what to do – haven’t felt this before
(ok, some swirls are ok, but this was totally blurry…
it felt as if the whole head swam in my hands)… so I
just tried to hold on, until it got a bit calmer.
Have you ever experienced something like this?
What is your opinion, what to do in a case like this?

Lots of greetings,
Iva
Croatia

MY COMMENTS:

Hello Iva,
I am happy to answer your questions and I’m glad to
see cranio sacral is flourishing in Croatia.

Based on what you have written about trying the
lateral strain, I am going to assume you were working
with the woman’s sphenoid when this ‘blurry-ness’
happened.

This could be for a number of reasons. Firstly
you were working with the sphenoid. William Sutherland,
the grand daddy of our work, was fascinated with
the sphenoid and considered it to be the ‘master cog’
in one of his his mechanical models of cranial bone
motion.

I can understand why he was so into it as I have
found the sphenoid to have a very strong energetic
signature and can have a significant effect on the
whole cranium and the rest of the body.

The first time I experienced this I was working
someone in a standard kind of treatment situation.
Quiet room, eyes closed. We were about half way
through the session. I had been at the person’s
head for about 10 minutes and focusing on the
sphenoid for about 5.

Suddenly it felt like the sphenoid just lit up.
The superior surface reminded me of a console on a
space ship or something like that, with colored
flashing lights turning on and off in sequence.

I had to open my eyes to check the person’s head
wasn’t glowing. It wasn’t. They were lying with
their eyes closed, deeply relaxed – they may have
even been asleep.

Inside their head everything was gang busters.
It felt like there was a brass band going off
in there.
As I observed the ‘lights’ on the sphenoid I
began to get the feeling that there was an order
and a pattern to the way they were flashing
and moving.
Them it began to dawn on me that there was a
progression to what was happening almost like some
kind of program running.

It went on like this for about 5 minutes and
then as abruptly as it started, it just stopped.
All the lights went out and the sphenoid settled
back into a very smooth and solid rhythm.

When the person returned the following week they
reported a significant improvement in their
symptoms.

I have had similar kinds of experiences with
lots of different peoples sphenoids since.

Being a science fiction fan it’s no surprise
that my brain translated what I was feeling in that
person’s sphenoid in terms of space ship consoles
and flashing lights.
In your case, it sounds like, your brain
translated what you were feeling as ‘blurry-ness’
and that swimming feeling in your hands.

The significant thing is that something important
was happening in the woman’s system. Over time
you may find that you experience the same kind of
thing with more people.

In my experience bodies are capable of the most
amazing and from our perspective, shocking, things.
I have been treating people for 15 years and I am
still coming across new responses.

The responses may be new but the feeling of being
taken by surprise is the same. Over time I have
learned to become familiar with that feeling of
being shocked and surprised by a new response.
From what you have written it sounds like you
are on the way to doing that too.

You said you held on until it ‘got a bit calmer’
I suggest you held on until YOU got a bit calmer.
Because that is what I have found works best in
dealing with new responses, not getting pulled
into them.
If you can get a bit of distance from what is
happening you can see that the persons body is
taking advantage of your support and is getting
on with it. It just happens to be in a way that
you haven’t seen before.

Lastly I would wonder how the spinal surgery fits
into all this? Was it involved in the sphenoid
resettling you described? Was trauma from the
surgery working itself out and you were feeling this
from the sphenoid or was the sphenoid involved more
directly?
I have come accross a few cases of trauma arising
from the positions people were put in or rough
handling during surgery that had nothing to do
with the actual surgery itself.

So that’s it for this issue.

Till the next time.

Your Mate,

John D.

+ How does opposed motion relate to flexion/extension? – October 05

Hey JD,
Enjoying your Q and A’s.
Here’s my Q.
How does opposed motion relate to
flexion/extension?

Thanks
B.F. London.

>>>MY COMMENTS:

Glad you’re enjoying the NL, B.F.
I’m guessing you do a lot of text messaging on
your ph.
Here’s my C’s.

When you first learned cranio sacral, you were
probably told how the cranio sacral system moves
in flexion and extension.   ‘In flexion, the
parietals flex and extend around a medial axis
running along the sagittal suture.’ and so on . .

That’s called the similar motion model.  The
main characteristic of which is that everything
moves symmetrically around the midline of the
body.

What you will have found in practice is that
some people just don’t flex and extend in
symmetrical way.

The fact is that no person fits into the
theoretical models of flexion and extension all
the time.  Some never.  No person’s head moves in
the same way from one day to the next.

It is important to learn flexion and extension
in the beginning so that you can refine your
palpatory skills to really be able to perceive
flexion and extension in all its nuances.

With the opposite motion model flexion and
extension are felt asymmetrically.  When one
parietal is moving into flexion the other one will
be going into extension.  This creates an
asymmetrical peddling motion within the whole
cranium.

The frontal bone will move anterior and
inferior on one side (flexion) while the other
side moves superior and posterior (extension).

The squamous portion of the occiput will flare
and move inferior and slightly posterior as it
tucks under (flexion) on one side while the other
side is narrowing and moving superiorly
(extension).

The sphenoid torsions around its body.  One
greater wing will nose dive  (flexion) while the
other side will be arching superiorly.

It’s probably easier to get a mental visual of
it all if you think of the membranous balloon
lining the cranium, filling on one side while it
empties on the other.  This will help you make
sense of what the bones are doing.

Trying to figure out every bone movement in the
opposed motion model will do your head in.

Not recommended.

Get the idea of the way the membranes move and
the bones will follow.

You’ve probably felt this motion already and
may have put it down to your inability to feel
flexion extension correctly.

Well you were right, there is a motion like
that and it’s called opposed motion.

Some days our system will move in similar
motion flexion and extension and on other days it
will have this opposed motion feeling.

Hope that was of H.

+ What I feel with my hands, am I making it up? – September 05

Mr Dalton.
I feel I am at a crossroads in my craniosacral
training. I have been studying CST for six months.

I have listened carefully to my trainers.
I have read books on CST. I understand the fluid
mechanics of what is happening, in theory.

When I tune into the system I begin to feel things.

Then I begin to wonder am I feeling the rhythm
because I expect to feel it. I wonder if I am
not imagining the whole thing. What I feel with
my hands is so tenuous that I could very well
be making it up.

My trainers say that the feeling will become
clearer with time and practice.

It has been six months now. While I can feel more
than I could at the beginning it is nowhere
as clear as I expected.

I understand that with your experience and in
your position you have a strong vested interest
in ‘believing’ in what you do.

I would appreciate it if you could answer me as
honestly as possible.

Do we make it up?

Regards.

M.S.

Somerset.

>>>MY COMMENTS

Let me tell you right now, it’s not going
to get any easier.. . .

What you are looking for is a kind of certainty.

Where you put your hands on someone’s body and
it lights up like a Christmas tree and you can
see EVERYTHING, every restriction pattern,
every cause.

And the road to health for that person looking
like a well lit highway.

And all this without that awful squirmy feeling
like you are groping around in the dark not really
sure of anything.

I feel for you, but it’s never going to
happen. There is something about this work that
always keeps you at the limit of yourself.

I’ll explain.

When you started to learn six months ago and you
heard about flexion and extension, it probably
all made sense.

Then you put your hands on someone and you tried
to feel it and all you could feel was NOTHING!

And it felt awful.

You trusted your trainers and you persevered.

As time passed you learned new things like feeling
lesion patterns in the sphenoid or some such
and when you tried to feel them, all you could
feel was NOTHING!

And it felt awful.

You looked forward to the day when you wouldn’t
feel that awful feeling.

You didn’t notice two important things.

1) Your palpatory skill was improving and
changing. You were actually feeling more. When
you were struggling to feel whether the sphenoid
had a flexion or extension lesion, you failed to
notice that you were feeling flexion and extension
with relative ease.

2) The awful feeling wasn’t changing. It was the
same awful feeling six month ago that you are
feeling now.

As good as your palpatory skills get,
as good as your diagnostic skills get,
as good as you perceptive skills get,
you will still have that voice in the back of
your head wondering, ‘Am I making this up?’

Outstanding cranio sacral therapists haven’t
eradicated uncertainty, they have mastered it.

It’s not like you get it sorted and never have
to deal with it again. It’s something that goes
on every time you treat someone. It’s one of the
most difficult aspects of cranio sacral work.

I know all this because I went/go through it myself
and I have seen ALL the people I have trained go
through it in one way or another.

Here’s what I suggest: put the question on hold for
another six months. Make a deal with yourself that
for the next six months you are not going to ask
yourself that question. For the next six months
you are just going to take it that what you are
feeling is true. It’s not forever, its just for six
months.

I’m not talking about kidding yourself.
You need to understand what you are trying to do.
You haven’t been conditioned to think in the way
that you’re trying to think when you do cranial work.

Your neuronal pathways are formed in a different way.

Continually asking yourself if you are making it
up won’t allow new neuronal pathways to form.

We are not MRI machines. This is science, but not as we
know it, Jim.

Asking if we are making it up is a question from
another approach.

Because we are not machines we have the capacity
to go far beyond our own expectations and pull miracles
out of the bag. It also means we have the capacity to
have an off day and get it wrong.

To answer your very specific question.

Do we make it up?

Sometimes.

Mostly in the beginning of training.

With experience, 1-2 years minimum, you can begin to
discern when you are making it up? You can spot it
and in time it too becomes another thing to note,
along with the multitude of other things you are
registering as you work.

‘The rhythm is changing, I wonder what that means?

The patient is feeling sadness, I wonder what that
means? Now they are angry, I wonder what that means?
I just made that bit up, I wonder what that means?
Now they are about to release this bit, I wonder what
that means? The sadness is still there. .’ and so on.

Have a good look at what I’ve written. Talk it out with
people who know you and care about you. Cranio sacral
therapy may not be the thing for you. It doesn’t suit
everyone. There are lots of modalities that offer
much more of the certainty you are looking for.

Having said that, I encourage you to persevere.
The rewards far outweigh the difficulties.

And the weird thing is as you become familiar with
and master uncertainty, it permeates your whole life
and it becomes more . . well . . fluid.

+ CST and orthodontic work? – April 08

Hi John,

Many thanks
God opps John
Karen
Australian

>>>MY COMMENTS:

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

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

Can cranio sacral therapy really help in these
situations?

Hell, yes.

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

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

What’s Wolf’s law?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Or both his maxillae could be driven
posteriorly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

+ What do I mean by Intention? – December 06

Hello,
It turns out imaginary friends are good for
kids.  Well not bad at any rate.  Apparently kids
can use them as a practice ground for
relationships.

“There is an amount of control over a
relationship with an imaginary friend that you
don’t have with a real friend.” says Stephanie
Carlson, a psychologist at the University of
Washington.

Something I didn’t realise was that a lot of
imaginary friends are actually enemies.  But
that’s good too.

“Children who have imaginary enemies are better
able to take on the idea that other people have
opinions and desires than you.”

In addition, naughty friends test parents
reactions, and come in handy as an ever-trusty
scapegoat, when kids misbehave themselves.

So next time parents tell you that their child
has imaginary friends it’s not necessarily a bad
thing.

If you were one of the many people who wrote to
me to let me know that the link to the back issues
of this newsletter didn’t work, I just want to
tell you that it wasn’t my fault.

The link I typed in worked but Timmy changed
it.

No I didn’t.

Yes he did.  He tells lies too.  Big fibber.
Not me, him.

Whatev-er.

Anyhu, on with the mailbag.

***QUESTION***

Dear Mr Dalton,
I receive your newsletters gratefully and with interest. I have also
read your book and found it excellent, both for myself and my patients.
In a number of your responses to questions you have referred to
‘Intention’.
I have heard and read about intention from different sources
but I am curious to know what it means to you.
Can you explain exactly what you mean by intention and how it is used.
Kind regards.
EM
Melbourne.

>>>MY COMMENTS:

I’ve had a few letters like yours over the months so I’m going to
address it in detail.

To explain how intention works we need to take a little trip through
quantum physics.  Let’s take your common or garden subatomic particle.

The thing about subatomic particles is they need heat to move.
The more heat, the more they move. So if you remove all the heat
there should be no movement.

Or so you would think.

What physicists have found is that even at absolute zero,
that’s really cold to you and me, there is still some movement.
The subatomic particles keep passing little parcels of energy back
and forth between themselves.

So your empty space is not so completely empty after all. It turns
out it is full of energy. Physicists call it the ‘Zero point field.’
The idea is that if the universe were cooled down to absolute zero
and all particle movement was frozen out, this energy would still remain.

This is not your normal quantum physics stuff, with train ‘A’
traveling at a certain speed and someone throwing a ball out
the window and depending on where you are standing and
so on and so forth and what’s on telly tonight anyway, yawn.

No, this is not just theoretical. There are scientists, like Dr Hal Puthoff,
working to find ways of harnessing this energy right now.
To give you an idea of how much energy we are talking about.
If you and I were standing one metre apart there would be enough
energy in the ‘empty space’ between us to boil all the oceans on the planet.

Not that you’d want to. Enough to make a cup of tea would be
fine for me but you get the idea.

This energy is common to ALL particles which means they are ALL at it.
Passing energy parcels back and forth to each other and because of it
they are ALL connected. That’s why the physicists call it a field.
It means ALL subatomic particles are connected in a HUGE field
that connects EVERYTHING together.

Together now ‘We are the world.’ Everybody! ‘We are the children. . .’

Suit yourself.

This, everything being connected idea, is no news to most of the
older philosophies. I’m told a lot of Buddhists go to quantum
physics symposiums just so they can sit in the front row with
a smug, ‘I told you so.’ look on their faces.

What is exciting about now is that our science is finally getting
around to the view that all is one and one is all.

The other thing to know about subatomic particles is that they
don’t exist as a thing, as such. They exist as a potential of a thing.
Kind of like a neurotic friend I used to have, who, when introducing
himself to women he was interested in, would say ‘Hi my name is
Mark and if you don’t like me. . . .I’ll change.’

Subatomic particles have the potential to be many different things
but are none and all of these things simultaneously. They only
become one specific thing when something particular happens.

And that particular thing is usually wearing a white coat. Yes,
you’ve guessed it, it’s our old friend the observer. As soon as the
observer shows up and takes a measurement or makes an
observation the subatomic particle becomes a specific.

That the presence of the observer affects the outcome has been
known since the beginning of quantum physics. Niels Bohr,
one of the granddaddies of quantum physics, would frequently
throw a tantrum if Albert Einstein ever came in to observe his experiments.

That was a quantum physics joke.

Observing the experiment . . . . never mind.

What has been happening lately is the physicists have been asking
the next questions, questions like. . .
If subatomic particles only exist as potential till we show up,
are we in fact creating what they become?
If we are creating what they are, does that mean we create our
own reality?
If we are creating our reality can we influence that creation?
How does consciousness affect matter?
Bloody good questions, if you ask me and I’ll buy the next round of drinks.

And here’s Fritz Albert Popp from Germany, he has figured out
that DNA in its structure, is essentially a crystal and, like a quartz
crystal, for example, produces a highly coherent signal or field.
This DNA emission is known as a biophoton. Put another way,
it is light produced within the cell.

There is a direct link between the light the cell produces and the
activity of the matter in the cell. Not only that but the light or
field of each cell is in communication with every other cell in
the organism. This means the whole organism KNOWS what every
cell is doing and every cell KNOWS what every other cell KNOWS
at the same time.
Freaky, No?

Now how does all this quantum mumbo jumbo amount to a hill
of beans when it comes to intention?

Well, quite a bit actually. First of all it adds a whole new level
to the reciprocal nature of the system. Not only are all structures,
big and small, connected through the fascia, everything is also
connected at a subatomic level through the zero point field,
and all the energy in it, and also through the interconnected
biophoton fields of each cell in the body.

All that stuff could be going on all the time and you would never
be the wiser. It becomes incredibly powerful when you know you
can influence it with your consciousness.

Put simply, it means that what you think about has a direct
influence on what you are thinking about.

It means that when you have your hands on a person’s ankles
and you are thinking about their sphenoid, for example, you
are actually CONNECTED to that person’s sphenoid.
It’s not just in your imagination, it is REAL.

If you feel like their sphenoid is restricted it’s because you’re
feeling it through the fascia AND through the interconnected
biophoton fields of the cells AND through the zero point field.

It means that if you feel the person’s sphenoid needs support
as it goes into a restriction pattern and you think of holding it
into the lesion pattern your thought ACTUALLY holds it into the
lesion pattern as sure as if you had your hands inside the persons
head and were holding the sphenoid in your hands.

It means that your intention is capable of doing whatever you
THINK of. Not only is it as adaptable as your thinking it also has
access to unlimited power to accomplish whatever you are
working to achieve.

The only limitation on what you can do with your intention
is the limitation you think is on your intention.

Think about that,
. . . but don’t sprain anything.

Cheerio for now.

Till the next time.

Your Mate,

John D.