CRANIOSACRAL THERAPY EDUCATIONAL TRUST

"Allow physiological function within to manifest its unerring potency rather than apply a blind force from without."
- Dr William G. Sutherland

Aims of the Training:

• to provide a deep appreciation of the Breath of Life and the "primary respiratory system"
• to provide an in-depth understanding of the healing principles of the system with the ability to appropriately apply this understanding in a therapeutic context
• to cultivate clearly defined palpation and treatment skills that support the health of the patient and relate with care and competency to disease processes
• to develop trust in the instinctual, perceptual and spiritual capabilities of the student
• to graduate skilled, safe and therapeutically effective Craniosacral Therapy practitioners.

Seminar One - Five Days

Preparing the Ground - presence and palpatory awareness

• History of the work
• The 'craniosacral concept'
• The primary respiratory system
• Palpation and perception
• Palpating health
• Establishing a clear relational field
• Practitioner fulcrums and negotiating contact
• Practitioner neutral
• Therapeutic presence
• Practitioner neutral and a wide perceptual field
• Craniosacral touch
• Craniosacral concept and the primary respiratory system
• The unfolding nature of the Breath of Life
• The Breath of Life and the three tides
• Shifting perceptual fields
• Perception of the tides: the cranial rhythmic impulse, the mid-tide, the long tide
• The five core aspects of the 'primary respiratory mechanism'
• Palpation of the longitudinal fluctuation of cerebrospinal fluid
• Resources, stillness and stillpoint
• Introduction to resources and trauma
• Introduction to tissue expressions of primary respiratory motion
• Clinical connections

Seminar Two - Four Days

Life and Motion - tissue, fluids and potency

• Introduction to embryology and the blueprint for health
• Tuning in to the 'primal midline'
• The transmutation of the Breath of Life
• The holographic paradigm
• Tissues and motility
• Palpating expressions of health within tissues and fluids
• Palpation of longitudinal fluctuation of fluid via stations of listening: feet, legs, pelvis, ribs and shoulders
• Creating safety during practice sessions
• Surface anatomy of cranial sutures
• Exploration of specific tissue mobility and motility - temporal, frontal, parietal, occipital bones and sacrum
• Introduction to natural and inertial fulcrums
• Introduction to principles of working with shock and trauma – the work of Peter Levine and Babette Rothschild
• Contacting resources in the body and the process of 'shuttling'
• Long tide exercise
• Clinical connections and applications

Seminar Three - Four Days

Entering the Heart of Healing - facilitating states of balance

• Perceiving the unit of function of tissues, fluid and potency
• Introduction to the inherent treatment plan
• The 'wholistic shift' or 'patient neutral' and return to originality
• Understanding and perceiving biodynamic and biokinetic forces
• Understanding and perceiving natural and inertial fulcrums
• Perceiving patterns of experience
• Palpating inertial fulcrums and the health of the patient
• Membranous-articular strains
• The direction of priority in inertial patterns
• Understanding and perceiving the role of balance and stillness in the healing process
• Healing principles - introduction to 'states of balance'
• Clinical skills for the cranial vault
• Dr. Rollin Becker's work: the state of balance and 'three step healing process'
• Palpating the three step healing process:
  (1) Tissues and fluids seek a state of balance
  (2) Perceiving expressions of health within states of balance
  (3) Perceiving tissue and fluid reorganisation
• Trauma and overwhelm, resources and health
• 'CV4' - theory and practice
• Clinical connections and applications

Seminar Four - Four Days

Augmentation Skills - engaging the story of the body

• Embryological development and primary respiratory motion of the reciprocal tension membrane system
• Learning to initiate 'conversations' with tissues, fluids and potency
• The principle of traction as an augmentation skill
• Traction and the reciprocal tension membranes
• States of balance and the 'point of balanced membranous tension'
• The principle of disengagement as an augmentation skill
• Disengagement or decompression within cranial sutures and joints
• Following the inherent treatment plan
• The mind-body continuum
• Stillpoints revisited
• 'EV4' from the sacrum
• Trauma skills - states of overwhelm and freezing
• Fluid fields - reciprocal tension fluid and reciprocal tension potency
• Perceiving lateral fluctuations of fluid and potency
• Lateral fluctuation fluid skills for diagnosis and treatment
• The state of fluid balanced tension
• Clinical connections and applications

Seminar Five - Five Days (residential)

The Whole in the Part - the spheno-basilar junction and beyond

• Fluids, fields and fulcrums
• Inviting fluids and potency towards sites of inertia - V-spreads
• The embryology of the cranial base
• Introduction to birth dynamics
• The significance of the cranial base
• Anatomy and physiology of the spheno-basilar junction (SBJ)
• Classical cranial base dynamics
• The inertial patterns of the SBJ
• Physiological strain patterns of the SBJ
• Non-physiological strain patterns of the SBJ
• Whole body SBJ connections
• Shock and trauma, resources and health; fight or flight response, principles of trauma treatment and developing verbal skills
• Case history taking
• The occipito-atlantal junction
• Encouraging space at the foramen magnum and states of balance in the sub-occipital region
• Palpating sacral dynamics
• The sacroiliac joints and lumbo-sacral junction
• Therapeutic skills at the sacroiliac and lumbo-sacral joints
• Clinical connections and applications

Seminar Six - Five Days

Support and Balance - spinal dynamics and the primal midline

• Differentiating tissues, fluids and potency within their unit of function
• The notochord and midline organising principles
• The significance of the primal and fluid midlines
• The stillness of the midline
• Dural tube dynamics
• Dural tube evaluation via fluids and dural glide
• Inviting space and traction at the dural tube
• Vertebral dynamics and embryological sclerotomes
• Working with embryological triads of the spine
• Palpation of vertebral dynamics - motility and mobility
• Assessing inertial fulcrums of the spine
• Vertebral dynamics and encouraging states of balance
• Therapeutic skills at the cervical, thoracic and lumbar spine
• Facilitated segments
• Somato-visceral and viscero-somatic patterns
• The embryological fluid fields of the spine
• Uncoiling the 'snake'
• Inherent treatment plan - orienting to the automatic shifting of potency and priorities within the patient
• Clinical connections and applications

Seminar Seven - Four Days

Return to Wholeness - whole body dynamics and the inherent treatment plan

• The unity of the body
• Connective tissues and connective tissue dynamics
• Latest fascial research
• The role of fascia in retaining tissue memory
• Trauma and emotional 'coupling'
• Fascial glide
• Palpating inertial fulcrums throughout the body
• Transverse diaphragms and their relationship to the reciprocal tension membrane system
• Introduction to visceral dynamics
• The embryological unfoldment and dynamics of the heart, lungs and gut tube
• Trauma and force vectors
• Force vector entrapments
• Biodynamic and biokinetic forces reviewed
• Joint dynamics
• Palpating and relating to joint dynamics in the appendicular skeleton
• Treatment skills review
• Listening and responding to the inherent treatment plan
• Clinical connections and applications

Seminar Eight - Four Days

The Seat of the Soul - fluid, potency and the central nervous system

• Venous sinuses and fluid dynamics
• Freeing the outlets to cranial fluid drainage
• The jugular foramen and cranial nerves
• Inertial fulcrums within the venous sinus system
• The dynamics and embryological unfoldment of the central nervous system (CNS)
• CNS motility
• Relating to inertial fulcrums involving the cerebral cortex
• Brainstem, the stress response and CNS facilitation
• Dynamics of the brainstem and cerebellum
• The dynamics and motility of the ventricles
• The third ventricle and ignition of the fluid system
• Primary ignition processes at conception
• The 'tour of the minnow'
• The limbic system
• Neuro-endocrine considerations
• The pituitary and pineal glands
• Clinical connections and applications

Seminar Nine - Four Days

Nourishment and Expression - the temporo-mandibular joint and its connections

• The hyoid bone and its interconnections
• Dynamics and assessment of the temporo-mandibular joint (TMJ)
• Clinical approaches to sternocleidomastoid and lateral pterygoid muscles
• Clinical approaches to unilateral and bilateral TMJ issues
• The principle of compression and disengagement at the TMJ
• TMJ ligaments - specific dynamics and inertial patterns
• TMJ issues in relationship to the hard palate
• TMJ and whole body harmonics
• Dental work issues
• Specific releases of fronto-sphenoidal and spheno-petrous patterns
• Following the inherent treatment plan - orienting to the long tide and automatic shifting of potency
• Introduction to the face and hard palate
• Tuning in to facial relationships, the bony orbit and eye
• Cranial nerves supplying the eye
• Practical assessments
• Clinical connections and applications

Seminar Ten - Four Days

Reflections of the Self - the face and the hard palate

• The fronto-nasal-maxillary relationships
• The nasal bones, lacrimals and medial orbit
• The falx cerebri, frontal bone and ethmoidal notch
• Dynamics of the ethmoid bone
• The olfactory nerve
• The spheno-maxillary complex
• Disengagement of spheno-vomer-maxillary compression
• Disengagement of spheno-palatine-maxillary compression
• Hard palate dynamics
• Patterns of the maxillae and vomer
• Polyvagal theory and the 'triune nervous system' - the work of Stephen Porges
• Practical assessments
• Embryological development of the face and throat
• The embryological fluid fields of the face and throat
• Specific patterns of the palatine and zygomatic bones
• Clinical connections and applications, plus review

Seminar Eleven - Five Days

Out Into the World - pregnancy, birth, and completion

• Introduction to pre-natal dynamics
• Tuning in to the "inner embryo" and perfect health
• Pregnancy and birth
• The infant's skull
• Birth trauma and its effects
• Birth patterns and intraosseous strains
• Tuning in to the "inner baby"
• Treatment of babies and children
• The secondary ignition process at birth; the 3rd ventricle, umbilicus and coccyx
• General pelvic dynamics
• Pelvic patterns
• Grounding - the Breath of Life and its unfoldments
• Following the inherent treatment plan - deepening into dynamic stillness and rhythmic balanced interchange
• Practice management
• Review of organisational skills and healing principles
• Completion.