Shifting Our Focus with Cranial Sacral Bodyworkby Ursula Popp
Acupuncturist, Counselor, Cranio-Sacral Therapist and Instructor
"Finding health should be the physician’s objective. Anyone can find disease."
~ Andrew Still
In 1850, Andrew Still introduced a revolutionary paradigm with the science of Osteopathy by declaring that the doctor was not to focus on disease but rather, on health. The fact that, over 150 years later the idea of finding health versus treating pathologies has yet to find a stronghold within most fields of western health care, belies its inherent merit and power. By shifting as a health care professional the focus away from the things that are labeled wrong, broken, or undesirable, we release ourselves from the burdensome need to fix and in turn empower our clients to connect with their fundamental state of health. This article explores Dr. Still’s directive, as it has become one of the most powerful and important paradigms in cranial-sacral bodywork, which is an offspring of osteopathy.
Before going any further, it will be helpful to consider an understanding of disease. All sickness is a sort of homesickness. When we are away from home, we feel ill, ill at ease, dis-eased. We experience a deep longing for the ease and comfort that comes with being at home. Yes, a home can be messy, dirty and in need of attention. But it is still home where we are most comfortable and relaxed. And to take care of the home scene, we need to be there. Problems arise when we fall out of touch with our home and find ourselves, in a sense, homeless. When we avoid going home we don’t know what is going on there and burglars and pests take over easily. The same is true with our physical home – the body. It can be ill, painful, and in distress, but it is still our body. When we start avoiding being present in our bodies, then disease can take over and spread. Once we find our way back home by becoming present in our body, we can take care of it, and allow its innate wisdom and health to come forth.
Too often, however, we find it hard to be home. For example, we do everything to avoid feeling physical pain – a common way we disconnect from our bodies. Consider the number of painkillers used every day in the attempt to block out pain. Let me give you an example of disconnecting from my own body. A couple of months ago my back went out. I was in a great deal of pain so I stopped moving that part of my body; in fact, I stopped moving my whole right side, until a massage therapist pointed this out to me. It was very helpful for me to see how automatically I had disconnected from my pain. Once I put my attention back into the painful area, and started to do the movements that were possible, I was on my way to healing.
Cranio-sacral therapists are trained to focus on health rather than on disease, and stop attempting to fix the clients by taking their pain away – attempts that generally provide only temporary relief, anyway. Instead of pulling from their bag of techniques for the right fix-it tool, they start listening to the expression of life and health within each and every client. Through their educated touch they help their clients become present in the places in their body that are healthy, where they feel good, strong and comfortable. Once both practitioner and client are aligned with those healthy parts it is easier to come home and be present to painful, dysfunctional parts and give them the attention they need. When both, the cranial practitioner and the client are present in those parts, the inherent “inner wisdom” of the client can come forth, thus helping the healthy systems in the body inform the dysfunctional parts about how to work more effectively. This is a holistic process that involves body, mind, and spirit – the entirety of the person, and provides healing on all levels.
Cranial-sacral work lends itself most powerfully to helping clients recognize that they are healthy and beautiful, despite the problems and discomfort they experience. The first and most important tool of any cranial-sacral therapist is their hands (which are an extension of the heart) with which they listen to the body of the client and to the story it tells. The focus of this listening is the fluids of the body, particularly the cerebral spinal fluid. This fluid is understood to be the most physical expression of a person’s soul, a person’s essence, which, as described by the founder of cranial work, William Sutherland, transports life force throughout the body.
The cerebral spinal fluid has a fluctuation throughout the body that is present long before birth and continues for a while after the heart has stopped beating at death. When the cranial practitioner works with this fluid by listening to its fluctuation, the client’s brainwave slows down and drops into alpha wave. In this state, the ego’s controlling and protective nature subsides and a deeper inner wisdom – the wisdom of the soul – comes forth. This wisdom knows what is not working in our bodies, minds, psyche, and in our lives. It also knows what is needed to reestablish health. In areas of pain and disease, the life force is bound up, does not flow, and therefore is also not available in other parts of the body.
With the presence of a skilled practitioner, the cerebral spinal fluid, in which life force is transported throughout the body, moves naturally towards this bound up energy, or inertia. The stuck energy gets loosened up by the force of the fluid, reintegrated into the flow, and thus made available for the whole body again. In this way, not only does the presenting issue go away, but also the person feels more energetic and restored throughout. Instead of labeling and dismissing dysfunctional parts, we learn to understand them as an expression of life. Once they are listened to and feel heard, they relax and move toward more flexibility, increased choices, and ultimately greater health.
While this may sound very esoteric, it is actually quite simple because aligning with health is the most healing approach there is. Let’s look at how this applies in practice. For example, take the case of a client who comes in and complains of ongoing headaches. The cranial practitioner might take the person’s head in his or her hands, and become very present and still with the client, listening to what is happening in the whole of the client. Next the practitioner starts listening to the ebb and flow of the cerebral spinal fluid, listening, feeling for the healthy, unique way it moves through this particular client. The practitioner forms a strong alliance with this healthy flow as a baseline for the whole treatment, attempting to stay in contact with it at all times.
Once the client drops into a slower brainwave pattern, the ego relaxes and the inherent deep wisdom of the client can be heard. The client’s body recognizes that he or she is being seen and received as healthy. And, just as in a conversation with a friend who sees our strength and beauty, we might reveal our secrets and what is close to our heart, so too, the body begins to reveal its story. The practitioner might then notice bound up energy, inertia, in a specific part of the body. This energy might be bound up due to a physical or emotional trauma. The practitioner might be drawn to the masseter, a major muscle involved in chewing (and in teeth grinding). While the masseter is gently listened to it naturally relaxes, realizing that there is much more to it than tension.
The practitioner then may move to the mandible itself. She/he might even feel sadness welling up in herself that she realizes is not her own, while holding this mandible. So she/he stays there, gently listening and feeling to whatever might come up. After a while, like after a good cry, the sadness subsides; the mandible starts moving more freely in alignment with the healthy flow of the fluid. The client might have feelings or images arise, too, during the treatment and might recall particular experiences, but this is not essential to the healing. After the masseter and the mandible released, the practitioner will let him or herself be drawn to other areas of the body, continuing to stay deeply connected to the healthy flow of the cerebrospinal fluid while looking for the original pattern setter (which in this example might be in the pelvic area) for the headache that brought the client in. The headache most likely will have subsided, but not for a clever technique but for the body’s inherent intelligence to move home, move to ease and relaxation.
In the scenario above, the cranial practitioner is following what is referred to as an inherent treatment plan – a “plan” that is received through listening deeply to the client’s body as opposed to a plan based on predetermined protocol. This kind of treatment is highly personal, always original, and far more effective and enduring than any protocol ever learned. The practitioner identifies with the unconditional health expressed through the cerebrospinal fluid of the client and not with symptoms or pathologies. All this can happen without a word exchanged between the practitioner and the client (although the process can be supported by therapeutic dialogue). Gentle, intelligent, listening touch increases the client’s sense of health and helps him or her consciously recognize the place of familiarity, healing, and home. What a wonderful journey it is to find our way back home and our way back to being fully present within our bodies and our lives! What a privilege to assist clients on their way home and join into their celebration of beauty, strength and health!
Copyright Ursula Popp, 2005
Ursula Popp, L.Ac., VCST, RC specializes in creating opportunities for healing in her private practice and in her classroom. She has extensive training in cranio-sacral therapy, aupuncture, psychology and various spiritual traditions. She has created her own, unique advanced training program in cranio-sacral therapy and beyond, and has been teaching internationally for over 20 years. She is an NCBTMB provider. She can be reached by email and visited on her website at ursulapopp.com.