CranioSacral Therapy, is a light-touch manipulative approach that has been effective with poorly understood dysfunction, chronic pain, lowered vitality and recurring infections.

The CranioSacral system influences many body functions. An imbalance in this system can adversely affect the brain and spinal cord that can result in sensory, motor and intellectual dysfunction.  Because each of us produces our own different reactions to trauma, stress and loss of healing capacity, we each present our own unique  combination of ailments, pains and dysfunction. Because CranioSacral Therapy helps clear the way for our self-healing mechanisms to be more effective, its scope is very wide indeed.

The History of CranioSacral Therapy

While the existence of the cardiovascular and respiratory rhythms is not disputed today, a  debate concerning their reality raged in medical communities around the globe for centuries. The history of the CranioSacral system's discovery is still recent.

In the early I900's, as an osteopathic student, Dr William G Sutherland saw that the bones of the skull were designed to provide for movement in relationship to each other. For more than  20 years he performed experiments on himself with helmet-like devices designed to impose variable and controlled pressures on different parts of his head. His wife recorded personality  changes he displayed in response to different pressure applications. He described head pains, problems with co-ordination, etc., related to the varied pressures. Based on his experiments,  he developed a system of examination and treatment for the bones of the skull that became known as Cranial Osteopathy.

In 1970, during surgery on a patient's neck, osteopathic physician and surgeon Dr John  Upledger observed that the dura mater, outer layer of meningeal membrane visibly moved in out at about 10 cycles per minute. He concluded pressure inside membrane  sac was fluctuating rhythmically.>

Two years later Dr Upledger attended a seminar that explained Dr Sutherland's ideas and  taught some of his evaluation and treatment techniques. Coupling his scientific background with a tactile sensitivity, he incorporated and refined Dr Sutherland's techniques with success.
In 1985 he established The Upledger Institute, a clinical and educational resource centre in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.

For 20 years Dr John Upledger has been the chief proponent of using the CranioSacral system to evaluate and treat medical problems associated with pain and dysfunction.

CranioSacral Therapy

The therapist's light, hands-on approach assists the hydraulic forces inherent in the CranioSacral system to improve the internal environment.

Some common difficulties that CranioSacral Therapy may help are chronic pain, reduced mobility, stiff joints, low energy, headaches and migraines, jaw (temporomandibular joint)  problems, neuralgia (including trigeminal), learning difficulties such as dyslexia and dyscaldia, menstrual and menopausal problems, and clumsiness. In new-borns, infants and children, colic,  hyperactivity, feeding and sleeping problems and faulty development are often helped by CranioSacral Therapy. Routine evaluation of new-borns often reveals and permits the easy  release of subtle strains and restrictions that may, if left, lead to chronic dysfunction later in life. This applies not only where birth has been difficult, but also with normal deliveries.