Cranio Sacral Therapy - Student and Therapist Newsletter Archive

Hi John,
Just a quick question on your last issue about the face. I didn't get the box on the balloon thing for the face. It sounded good but I just didn't get it. The movement of the facial bones is something I had given up on being able to verbalize.
I can feel it but couldn't describe it to save my life. I do know if I could get my left brain involved it would good.
Any (other) ideas?
Saludos
F.K.
Berkeley, CA.

>>>MY COMMENTS:

Man, your letter made me laugh. I immediately had this mental image of you having to describe the movement of the facial bones to save your life.
There you are with a gun to your head and the villain whispering menacingly in your ear, 'Just tell me the way the vomer moves in flexion and no one needs to get hurt.'

What a hoot.

Far be it from me to get in the way of you living to a ripe old age so I'll do my best to get you out of danger.

Let me explain why you may be having trouble. We all have a predominance in the sense that we receive information through. The common descriptors for this are visual, auditory and kinaesthetic. Smell and taste are included under kinaesthetic.

Visual people will receive information by seeing. Auditory people will receive information by hearing and kinaesthetic people will receive
information by feeling.

Our predominance shows itself in the way we communicate.
   A visual person will say, 'I SEE what you mean.'
   An auditory person will say, 'It SOUNDS like you understand.'
   And a kinaesthetic person will say, 'I FEEL like you both missed the point.'
   Learning styles is a large field and well worth knowing about so you can adapt your language to you improve your communication.   If you know what
type of person you are talking to, visual, auditory or kinaesthetic, you can adjust your language to the way they will best receive what you are saying.

You can find out more about it here.
http://www.vaknlp.com/
http://www.businessballs.com/vaklearningstylestest.htm
http://www.grapplearts.com/Learning-Styles-in-Grappling.htm

So I hope you see what I mean and you are now feeling like you will be able to really hear me on this facial bone thing. (That should cover all my bases.

I am guessing you are predominantly kinaesthetic. So my description of the cranium and face being like a balloon with a box stuck on the front didn't really hit the mark with you because it is a visual metaphor.

Here's the good news.
Once you know about these learning styles you can translate one style into another or more importantly into your own style.

So in this case I suggest you get a balloon and inflate it but not too much. Then draw a face on it. Then pull it into extension and squash it into
flexion. Do it a few times until you can really feel it. Then get a little box and tape it to the balloon. Then make the balloon go through flexion and extension a few more times. Watch the way the box moves as you do this.

Taking my visual metaphor and turning it into something you can actually feel should make it instantly understandable to you.

You can translate anything you are having difficulty learning into your own learning style.
Kinaesthetic people can make models of everything.
Visual people can translate everything to pictures, graphs and diagrams. Auditory people can translate everything to sound, musical if possible.

Another really powerful thing that kinaesthetic people can do is include smell and taste wherever possible and practical. These are very powerful senses and will really lock it in.

You are right about getting your left brain involved. It is very important.
One last tip, stay away from medically inquisitive villains that carry guns - it will end in tears. Probably obvious but someone had to say it.

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***QUESTION***

Hi John

This is John Rosen from S A here

Hope we can do better at CST than we have been at cricket !

Incidentally John I am 66 yrs old, have been a chartered accountant most of my life, studied Reflexology in 2004/5 (now trying to build a practice part-time) and have just completed the 8th part of CST with Al Pelowski. Had no idea about CST before I started, but just love it

John, can u give me your opinion about treating some conditions not incl in your Jan newsletter. These are
Ischaemia
Crohn's disease
Alzheimers
Parkinson's

What I want to know is whether or not u would treat these as well as your reasons for treating or not

Also how do you answer a prospective patient with confidence as to whether one can help them or not - u say in your newsletter " I can tell u over the phone whether I think I can help U or not"

Is it correct to say that the CSS is a core system of the body & as fascia is continuous throughout the body, it can affect & be affected by other body systems. If that is so, it should be possible to treat virtually every condition, with the proviso that, as u say "when it comes to health there are no guarantees"

Do u have a list of cautions or no no's & if so why are they no no's

Looking forward to your reply

Regards

John

>>>MY COMMENTS:

Glad to hear you're enjoying your cranio work so much. I must admit, I'm a bit ageist when it comes to people learning cranio sacral.
Younger people are at a distinct disadvantage.
Mainly because their empathy relies heavily on their imagination.
Simply through lack of life experience, they have to imagine what it must have been like for the patient to live through a particular experience.
At worst, younger people just don't get it.

I vividly remember a group conversation among students in which a twenty year old student was talking about one of the people he had been practicing on at home. This person was overweight and wanted to get thinner. The young student was exasperatedly recounting to the group how he dealt with it.
'I just told her not to eat so much!'
He couldn't understand why his forty plus year old classmates were falling off their chairs in shocked laughter.

I've found that people who have lived a bit, bring a certain extra quality to their work as therapists. I find the challenge age brings is I run the risk of becoming jaded, cynical, thinking I know everything, becoming rigid and out of touch with the world my patients are living in. I'm guessing I'm not on my own in this.

But enough idle banter, on with your very good questions.

Ischaemia
I haven't treated it in isolation, meaning I haven't had someone come and ask me to help them get over ischaemia.
It's usually part of a bigger symptom picture and in my experience particularly with older people. Often it's made worse by the cocktail of drugs the person is on. If the person is not on too many hardcore drugs, then yes, it generally improves.

Crohn's disease
I've had good success with crohn's. I've found that the root cause often relates to the person feeling like they are coming apart at the seams.
Energetically it feels like the blueprint has started to get a little fuzzy. If the energetic blueprint is a magnet and cells are like iron filings, then the magnet has pulled back from the iron filings a little and they don't know where to go.
The whole abdomen is usually fragile and needs to be approached VERY carefully.

Alzheimer's
Parkinson's
I haven't had anyone come to see me for either of these. I've had some people come who were concerned that they might get it because their parents had it but other than that, no.
Perhaps someone who has had experience with treating either of these two will write to me and I will pass it on to you.

As to what I will treat and what I won't: I will treat anyone, for anything, if they ask me. By that I mean if someone asks me to help them with something, I will trust the fact that some part of them is recognising something in me that it sees can assist them.

Once I've assessed the person, I will explain to them what it looks like they are asking of their body and how much of an ask I think that is.
So if someone asks me to help them overcome a particular condition and their body is communicating a very different story, then when I'm talking with the person I'll include that bit of information in what I say.
And no, I don't mean I'll say it to them directly. 'Hey Dude your body, like, totally disagrees with you. You're screwed!'

It's usually more like. 'I was only able to see so much when I assessed your system. From experience it looks like it may take a little while for your body to reveal more of what is going on. Let's see how you go for 3 or 4 sessions and we'll talk about it again.'

Conversely, if someone asks me to help them do something that I think is a big ask of their system but their body is all for it then I would include that in what I had to say to them.

How do I tell people confidently over the phone whether I can help them or not? As they say in L.A., tangentalize with me for a moment.

There are a few things that I've found cranio sacral is not the best to help with. Here are some examples.
If someone is in the middle of a viral infection, they are better off to deal with it with whatever they normally do, allopathic or natural and then come and see me for whatever after effects they have left.
Yes, you can ease fevers and that sort of thing but I've found that difficult to organise in practice unless you make house calls. You also run the risk of contracting the virus yourself or acting as a carrier to your other patients.So
it's a personal judgement call on that one.

If someone has had environmental poisoning, lead, mercury or that sort of thing, I've found that cranio, on it's own, is not enough to help. The person may need to go to someone who specialises in helping to extract these poisons from their body.

I have, over the years, developed the ability to sense if a person is not really serious about getting better.

How?
Well, it can be characterised by the person insisting on definite guarantees that I will be able to help. This, in the face of me saying I can't give them any guarantees. Also, they often have an issue about what I charge or about being assessed. or they are way too inclined to put me on a pedestal over the phone.
'Read your web page. You're the man!'
It may seem like something positive but I've found that people who put other people on pedestals generally carry an axe. The axe is for destroying the pedestal later on and the person on it usually gets hacked up in the process.

Other than the above, I'd need to put my hands on the person to get a better sense of whether I thought I could help or not. Knowing that allows me to confidently say on the phone, 'From what you've told me it sounds like I can help you. There is only so much I can tell over the phone. I can give you a better idea when you come for an assessment.'

In terms of cautions or no's no's . . .
Don't drink Guinness and wine within an hour of each other. That, not mixing the grape and the grain thing is actually true!
Also roller blading when you're drunk is not a good idea.
and definitely don't drink Guinness and wine and then try and roller blade. That's just messy.

On the off chance that you are alluding to contraindications. . . When you are first learning cranio sacral there are people who are contraindicated. You may have received a list of conditions to avoid.

The risk of you doing any real damage to the person is infintesimal, but the risk of you giving yourself a bad fright is very high. When you are just beginning, your palpatory skill is very fragile and needs nurturing. A bad fright can destroy it.

The overriding main contraindication, and this one remains throughout your career, is if you feel uneasy or afraid you shouldn't proceed. The fear is your systems way of letting you know that all is not well and you are in over your head.

When you complete your training no one is contraindicated. Some people will require you to work VERY carefully. If you are unsure about a patient ask someone who is more experienced about them or get them to assess the patient for you.

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***QUESTION***

Dear John,
Thank you so much for your newsletters. The way you describe things adds an additional perspective.
Do you have any suggestions for getting more people to practice on. I am half way through my training and have worked on everyone I know.
I also want to get more experience with people who are actually in need of treatment. Everyone in my immediate circle is, by and large, reasonably healthy.
Appreciate any suggestions you might have.
Kind Regards.
M.L.
Texas.

>>>MY COMMENTS:

'Give-it-away, give-it-away, give-it-away, give-it-away-now.' to quote the bard.

or was it the Red Hot Chilli Peppers.

No matter, the message is the same.
Before I go on I want to make it very clear that the suggestions I'm going to make are for someone wanting to get more people to practice on.

NOT, I repeat NOT, for a therapist trying to build their practice. That's a different kettle of fish with different considerations.

Having said that, off we go.
The first thing you need to do is check what the position is legally in your state with regard to students practicing on the general public. From the little I know about this, it is slightly different in each state. Your CST trainers should be able to help you with this or at least point you in the right direction.

When you are learning, the more people you get your hands on, the better. At this stage it doesn't matter how much, if at all, you charge.
It's not the priority. When you're qualified and your practice is big, then you need to look at this in more detail.

I have found that people generally don't get better if they don't pay but that's one of those fish in that other kettle I mentioned earlier.

Here are some suggestions for finding people to practice on.

Your life.
This may seem obvious but I've found that people who are drawn to cranial work are generally not very extraverted. We don't want to feel like we're imposing. We like nothing better than sitting quietly in a room with our eyes closed for hours on end. Sales people we ain't! Self promotion doesn't come naturally.

Think of it like this, every time you talk to another person is an opportunity to talk about cranio sacral therapy. I don't mean you need to
'hard sell' everyone you meet. It's more a matter of seeing opportunities when they arise.

Always carry your business cards. If you don't have any, get some, they're free.

When you're talking to someone about cranio sacral, make sure to tell them you're a student. I don't recommend you put 'student' on your business card though. Put your name and then cranio sacral therapy. So in my case it would be, 'John Dalton, Cranio Sacral Therapy.' Those cards will be in circulation long after you qualify.

If you're talking to someone and they're interested, for God's sake, don't leave it to them to set up an appointment.

You do it.

Do it there and then.

Write it on the back of the card you just gave them.

Think about the clubs and associations you belong to. Have you let those people know what you are studying?

Healing fairs.
These are the sort of events where people pay a door price and can 'sample' the different modalities at the fair. You get your hands on lots of people. Don't do full treatments on each person. Spend no more than 15 minutes on each one. Aim for making an appointment with them there and then to follow up with a longer treatment.

Make sure your signage say something like
'Cranio Sacral Assessment $20 - Free today.'
If you don't say something like that then people will have a problem paying for your follow up treatments, if you intend to charge.

Sounds great! Where do I find these fairs?

Look in your local phone book or on the internet for healing centers in your area. Then ring them up and ask them if they run fairs.
Other places to look are your local health food shops, New Age shops and your local newspapers and publications.

Advertise
I'm usually against flyers but in this case they usually work. State your case. 'I am a cranio sacral student looking for people to practice on . . . etc.' Put your flyers up wherever, people you want to practice on, go. Health food shops, Bookshops, your favourite coffee shop. You could also consider any free listings in local publications.

Institutions
You need to handle the following suggestions carefully. They all involve institutions with carers of one kind or another. General guideline is gain the carers trust first and the practice will follow.

Volunteer to help with whatever they need help with first. Once the staff get to know you, the opportunities for practise will arise naturally.

Here are some suggestions to get you started.
Old folks/retirement homes.
Refugee Associations.
Autistic schools.
Homeless shelters.

Find a pro
Consider approaching an existing practitioner.
Find a really good one. Ask them if you can assist them. Even sitting in the same room with a good practitioner when they are working will help you improve.

Become your own Wellness Detective