LIVE WELL: What does craniosacral therapy feel like?

Craniosacral therapy (CST) has been popping up on my radar quite a bit lately.

A co-worker asked me about it, a fellow yoga teacher I know is studying it, and there’s a CST therapist who works out of the yoga studio where I teach. What I find most compelling though, is my mom’s experience. Her naturopath recommended CST to her after an extended period of head problems, and she began regular sessions last summer. She rapidly became an enthusiastic supporter of the healing modality, raving about it and planting a seed in my mind’s soil.

In the hands-on modality, a therapist will "listen" to the cerebral spinal fluid of a patient's body with his or her hands, gauge the health and rhythm of the flow, and help it to become unblocked.

CST is an alternative medicine therapy, and I realize some might be suspicious right off the bat about anything that isn’t traditional medicine.

I like to err on the side of keeping a very open mind, doing research and trying it on myself. And even after all that, if it still doesn’t resonate with me, it might with somebody else.
I sat down with my mom’s therapist, Richard Challenner, for a chat and a short sample session.

What is it?

CST gets its name from the main parts of the central nervous system: the brain and spinal cord. A fluid called the cerebral spinal fluid is the substance that ebbs and flows up and down the spinal cord and fills the brain. This is the fluid a craniosacral therapist works with. The hands of the practitioner are not doing anything but feeling this fluid, and listening to how it’s flowing through the patient.

I thought CST was a brand new technique, but its roots go back to osteopath William Sutherland, who first published his ideas on cranial osteopathy in the 1930s. He believed the bones that make up the cranium can, and do, move. Although most physicians still believe the bones of the skull are immovable by the end of adolescense, Sutherland's ideas gained wider acceptance through the 1940s.

Dr. John E. Upledger expanded Sutherland's ideas in the 1970s and 1980s. Upledger's team took on studies that they believed proved the theories of cranial bone movement and a cranial rhythm -- both ideas are still a matter of debate in the scientific community.

The Upledger Institute became the main evangelists for a new therapy, now called craniosacral therapy, that has since been learned by massage therapists and other body workers such as Challenner.

The cerebral and spinal fluid has a tidal rhythm, Challenner said, and it expands the skull and causes those small bones to move. He listens to that tidal rhythm and in a healthy patient, it flows strongly and the skull expands and contracts as it’s supposed to. This fluid also flows down into the hips and the sacral area expands as well, he said. A healthy body has a smooth, steady and strong tidal rhythm that therapists call the “breath of life.”

However, there can be holding patterns in our bodies, often called blockages by body workers. They can inhibit that smooth flow, causing the area to be dry. This is where CST comes in.

The therapist will place his or her hands on the body, often beginning at the head, and feel for the subtle movement of that cerebral spinal fluid. This is where you, as the patient, have to trust in the therapist’s intuition and ability to get quiet enough to feel the pulse and state of your body. Challenner compares it to Chinese practitioners who feel for the pulse in a patient’s wrist to determine their state of health.

Challenner and other CST workers believe the body has an innate wisdom. It knows what perfect health is supposed to be, and has known that perfect pattern since the moment of conception. The whole living as a human thing gets in the way.

“Whatever we start doing at birth to form ourselves, puts a pattern over that perfect pattern,” he said.
We go through our lives, acquiring thoughts and habits that layer unnatural and unhealthy patterns on top of the perfect pattern. We experience trauma and abuse. We eat and drink harmful substances and think hurtful thoughts, and our body takes it all in, never forgetting anything. Everything that happens to us is stored in the body, he said.

Fortunately, that perfect pattern is always etherically there. The body knows and can ideally access it, he said, but the body always does what it’s told. And what it’s told is always coming from the human living in that body, who might not be willing or able to listen to that natural wisdom.

CST gives the patient permission to let go of those unhealthy patterns and move back into perfect health, the theory goes. It helps the body reestablish a connection to that perfect pattern. As humans, we don’t release the habits or fears or traumas. We think we can bypass them, but the body always remembers. It holds onto the fears. And with enough time, all of that “junk” can eventually affect your health.

What the therapist does:

It is a hands-on therapy, but it isn’t massage. If it’s conducted in an office environment, most likely the room will  look like a room where you’d get a massage. You won’t have to take any clothing off, except perhaps belts, jewelry and anything that might hinder the therapist.

The treatment might begin at your head or elsewhere, depending on what the therapist intuits. He or she will first feel for the rhythm of that cerebral spinal fluid by placing their hands very lightly on you. Then begins the work of influencing the fluid and allowing the body to release and realign. There might be a lot of work done in the sacral area, where the pelvic bones are often out of alignment, which can affect the knees and the feet. The therapist listens, not in an aural way, but with a medical intuitiveness, and tries to facilitate the body’s healing process. It’s very subtle work.

Challenner describes his work as just being present with that person on the table, and creating a dynamic system where the suggestion and intention of health can affect the other just by that presence. It’s almost like remote viewing, where the therapist can take a kinesthetic view of the client’s whole system and help the body recover its own natural state of health.

What’s it feel like?

I lay down on the table with a bolster under my knees to keep my low back feeling happy. He situated himself in a chair right behind my head.

He asked if it was OK to touch my head, and placed his fingertips very lightly on the sides of my head. He stayed there for quite some time, and the pressure abated and increased occasionally. He moved his hands to my forehead for a bit, then asked if it was OK to slide his arms underneath my shoulder blades, with his palms face up. I felt my upper body lift slightly up and down for another period of time as his hands increased and decreased pressure.

Afterward he said the changes in pressure were made with the expansion and contraction of my tidal rhythm.
Sometimes patients can feel shifts in the alignment of their bodies, Challenner said, and sometimes not. I was of the "not" variety, as I didn’t really feel anything other than very relaxed as I lay there. I actually practiced Savasana, the yoga posture we always end classes with. It’s also known as final relaxation or corpse posture. You lay there, still, quiet and let the body absorb the work of the postures. I lay there and let myself absorb the work of Challenner and my own body’s innate knowing. My mom says she “tries to think of nice things,” as she lays there.

When the session ended, he asked me to slowly rise, roll onto my side and then stand and just feel myself in my body. He said he felt some small, lateral shifts in my head as we went along.

I began to really feel the affects as I drove away. I felt lighter and a bit buzzy and spacey, in a good way. Mostly, I felt a little happier and had an overall sense of better well-being. It lasted for the next couple of hours. My brain felt clearer, with less noisy thoughts buzzing around, and I felt calmer.

My mom reports feeling more energized and grounded after her last treatment. Another friend reports her CST experience was “subtle but incredible.”

In regards to side-effects or after-effects, he said patients mostly report feeling calm, relaxed and peaceful after their sessions. Sometimes they can feel a change in body alignment, but even if they can’t feel those changes, he said, the body is nonetheless quietly making those small adjustments to bring itself back into its own natural pattern of balance. He recommends not having any other bodywork done for 48-72 hours so as to allow the body to settle into its new state. Hydration is also important, as you’ll often hear from most bodywork practitioners.

Who is it for?

Anybody can benefit from a treatment. Challenner has worked with people with PTSD, hyperactive teenagers, and those with sleep disorders, headaches, autoimmune diseases and trauma of all kinds. It can also alleviate chronic fatigue, motor-coordination impairments, chronic neck and back pain, scoliosis, central nervous system disorders, TMJ, stress and tension-related problems and orthopedic problems. The frequency of treatments is up to the patient and therapist. Cost varies for the typically one-hour long sessions. A quick search online turned up a range from $75-$130.

If you're interested, Richard Challenner can be reached at 213-7066. The School of Inner Health in Manitou Springs teaches people the technique and can offer more information: www.schoolofinnerhealth.org.