Cranial Intelligence

At the deepest level of our physiology, all living tissues and fluids expand and contract with the 'breath of life'. Through gentle touch, the skilled practitioner can interact with these subtle rhythms to address physical aches and pains, acute or chronic disease, emotional or psychological disturbances, or simply to promote enduring health and vitality.

This new and important textbook demystifies the biodynamic approach to craniosacral therapy and shows how and why it can be so effective at bringing about a natural realignment towards optimal health. The authors describe how to 'listen' and respond appropriately to each client's system, how to create a safe space for working with different kinds of trauma, and how to address specific states of imbalance to support deep-felt and lasting change. Throughout the book, experiential exercises encourage the reader to practice their newly-acquired skills, and refine their knowledge of human anatomy and physiology. A final chapter on practice development covers issues pertinent to practitioners trying to set up and maintain a successful practice.

This intensely practical textbook will transform the practice of craniosacral therapists, and contains much that bodyworkers of all kinds will find useful.

Vorwort
Demystifying the biodynamic approach to craniosacral therapy

Autorentext

Ged Sumner and Steve Haines

Inhalt
Acknowledgements. Foreword by Franklyn Sills. Preface. 1. Relational Touch. 1.1. The Relational Field. The phenomenon of contact. Attachment, neuroscience and relational touch. The influence of another pressure. Awareness Exercise: Touching ourselves. Treatment Exercise: Where do we touch from? 1.2. What is Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy? Overview. A brief history of cranial work. Biodynamics. Clinical Highlight: Cultivating patience and being present. Breath of Life. 1.3. Key Skills 1: How to come into relational touch. Expanding your perceptual field. Awareness Exercise: Exploring space and perceptual fields. Awareness Exercise: State of Balanced Awareness. Treatment Exercise: How much space do you need? Using Self Other Field to help create space. A ritual of contact. Making contact from a State of Balanced Awareness. The inherent treatment plan reveals itself. Becker's 3 stage process. Differentiating tissues, fluids and potency. Treatment Exercise: Differentiating tissues, fluid and potency via sacrum and occiput. Awareness Exercise: Feeling tissues and fluids. Biotensegrity and tissues. Fluid form. Awareness Exercise: The fluid electric body. Stillness. Clinical Highlight: Cultivating Stillness. Clinical Highlight: What happens when we feel nothing? Summary of Chapter 1. 2. The Midline. 2.1. Embryo, midline phenomena and original health. Embryo. Midline and the Early Embryo. Awareness Exercise: Fluid midline versus primal midline - moving between the neural cavity and the vertebral bodies. Treatment Exercise: Primal midline with client sitting. Original health. Treatment Exercise: Fluid midline from feet and shoulders. 2.2. Key Skills 2: States of Balance. States of Balance. Treatment Exercise: State of Balance via a spinal segment. How to support a state of balance. Orienting to tides. Treatment Exercise: Primal midline and long tide. Clinical Highlight: Sacrum and Occiput Holds. 2.3. The Spine. The spine overview. Treatment Exercise: Fluid midline from the occiput and sacrum - side position. Awareness Exercise: Surface anatomy of the axial skeleton. Each vertebra is potentially significant when treating the spine. Facilitation of vertebral segments. Clinical Highlight: Two handed contact on the spine. Clinical Highlight: Treat the spine more often. Summary of Chapter 2. 3. Resources and Overwhelm. 3.1. Resources. 3.2. A first look at trauma. 3.3. Dissociation. 3.4. Activation. Summary of Chapter 3. 4. Stillness and Potency. 4.1. Long tide. Cellular potency. Awareness Exercise: Cellular Intelligence. Awareness Exercise: Hierarchy of Levels. The uncarved block of wood. Awareness Exercise: Long Tide. 4.2. Dynamic Stillness. 4.3. Biodynamic Potencies. The underlying force of life. The potency field of the body. Awareness Exercise: Connecting to your potency field. 4.4. Spirit and cranial work. Know your own model. 'A higher power'. The soul. 'It's all energy'. Science and research. 4.5. Perception and Consciousness. Phenomena and perception. Consciousness. Perceiving the whole body. Summary of Chapter 4. 5. Whole Body Dynamics. 5.1. Reciprocal Tension Membrane. The Core Link. Bone and Membrane. 5.2. Arrangements of fascia in the body. The Transversal. Awareness Exercise: Reciprocal tension in the respiratory diaphragm. Respiratory diaphragm. Treatment Exercise: Relating to the respiratory diaphragm as the natural fulcrum for the connective tissue field. Pelvic Diaphragm. Thoracic Inlet. Other transverse diaphragms. Awareness Exercise: Feeling your deep fascia. The Longitudinal. The falx. The dural tube. The spinal ligaments. The sock of ligaments around the sacrum. Muscle sheaths. Treatment Exercise: Fascial drag and glide from the feet. Spirals and diagonals. Membranes, cavities and bags. 5.3. The Fascial Matrix. Fascia anatomy. Awareness Exercise: The living matrix. Cells talking to cells via the living matrix. Summary of Chapter 5. 6. Craniopelvic Resonance. 6.1. The Vault. 6.2. The Pelvis. 6.3. Feeling Craniopelvic Resonance. Summary of Chapter 6. 7. Birth. 7.1. Birth. Birth Overview. Cranial base patterns. Treatment Exercise: the head as a fluid membrane bag. Treatment Exercise: Supporting space at the SBJ. Sphenoid anatomy. Adult sphenoid. Sphenobasilar junction SBJ. Whole body shapes. Attachment. Pacing and containment. Clinical Highlight: Contact at the SBJ. 7.2. Intraosseous patterns. Overview. Common patterns within the major cranial bones. General approaches to intraosseous patterns. 7.3. Ignition. Prenatal ignitions. Birth ignition. Awareness Exercise: Three ignitions. Ignition in treatment. Potency ignition spaces. Summary of Chapter 7. 8. Visceral Intelligence. 8.1. Organs Overview. Introduction. Principles of working with organs. The gut as a tube. Awareness Exercise: The gut as a tube. Cavities and membranes. Thoracic cavity. Abdominal cavity and the diaphragm. Pelvic cavity. Awareness Exercise: Feeling the cavities. Membranes. Awareness Exercise: The cavities and the diaphragm. Trea...