What is Craniosacral Therapy?
What is Craniosacral Therapy?
Two notions are integral to craniosacral therapy. Humans are rhythmic. Breathing patterns, hormonal cycles and circadian rhythms strongly influence our health. Neurological rhythms in children can predict language development. Even our relationships are rhythmic — the hearts of couples beat together (cardiac synchrony).
The body has an orientation towards wholeness, an inherent ability to heal itself. The release of natural opioids to reduce pain (a process regulated by the nervous system) demonstrates this. Yet the body’s innate orientation towards health runs deeper than any single mechanism.
These two ideas — that the body is rhythmic, and that it knows how to heal — lie at the heart of the practice.
Deep listening and trust are integral to the work — trust that what has been carried alone can, in the presence of another, begin to be felt. I support people to access sensations and feelings that reside at the edge of their awareness. These feelings are akin to imprints from the past that left traces in our body which continue to influence how we live and how we are.
Exploring these imprints by developing interoception is integral to the work. By refining our awareness of our body’s internal state we are more likely to feel grounded. Recognising when we dissociate — and what it feels like — is the first step towards reversing it.
Craniosacral therapy is suitable for adults of all ages and children. People come to Groundswell for support with a range of conditions including trauma, anxiety, chronic pain (back, neck, pelvic floor, TMJ, tinnitus) and sleep issues.
Agency & the Autonomic Nervous System
Work by leading scientists (Bessel van der Kolk, Ruth Lanius, among others) has shown that sensory-based modalities which regulate the autonomic nervous system (ANS) from the ‘bottom-up’ can be transformative. Reversing defence cascades and enabling people to expand their window of tolerance is possible through attuned, hands-on support.
That support can enable a person to know what it feels like to live in the yellow zone — regulated, present, responsive — instead of the red, blue or purple zones shown in the picture below. Being in the yellow zone means we have the ability to ‘stand back’ from the immediacy of experience. We have more space around our thoughts and emotions, hence we have more freedom in choosing how we respond to life events.
How we breathe is a direct expression of our ANS — the slower and deeper the breath, the less demand there is on the nervous system. I support people to become more aware of their breathing pattern and its relationship to their ANS. That awareness can yield enormous benefits for our health and for our sense of agency.
What to Expect
Sessions take place at my practice in Blackford, South Edinburgh. You remain fully clothed throughout, lying supine on a treatment table, receiving light holds on the spine, head, torso and limbs. The touch is slow and attuned — recent neuroscience suggests this quality of contact activates nerve fibres associated with reduced heart rate and lower stress hormones, supporting the nervous system to settle.