Student and Therapist Newsletter Archive
   - Bone

+ Is bone 'set'? - November 06

Hello John,
I got your book last week and found it incredible!
What a velvet hammer. Those innocent little questions at the end of each chapter really got me.
Very well done.
I am recommending it to all my patients.
Now here is my question. If a pattern of restriction has ossified in the cranium, is that it? Is it set for good or is it worth treating?
Best wishes.
SP
Arizona.

>>>MY COMMENTS:

Most of our experience of bone is of dead bone.
The sort of stuff that looks like bone china - dry, brittle, fragile. As cranio sacral therapists we are involved in communication with the body. It's therefore most effective to communicate with bone as it is, which is alive.
Live bone has some qualities which are not immediately apparent.

For example, live bone is WET. It's full of blood.

Also, it behaves like PLASTIC. Meaning it responds to the pressure put upon it. Wolf's law and all that. Consider the mastoid processes of your temporal bones. You didn't have them when you were born. They were pulled out by the sternocleidomastoid muscle as you were learning to hold your head erect.

Bone is not stone; it is renewing itself all the time. You can use this knowledge to help it renew itself in a new direction.
There's a good example of this in one of my case histories.
http://www.cranio.ie/cases/craniofacial.html

Here's another thing, bone doesn't become restricted in isolation. This is particularly relevant in the cranium. If a bone is restricted, 99 times out of 100, it's because there is something pulling it into a restricted state, often membrane. The bone doesn't become restricted in isolation. Always look for the pattern of restriction.

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