What is Cranial Osteopathy?
It is an exceptionally gentle yet extremely powerful form of treatment increasingly recognised for the depth of its influence, the comprehensive range of its therapeutic effects and its ability to resolve issues that are not helped by other means. It is a profound healing process which can release the deeply held patterns of pain or dysfunction- both physical and psychological which accumulate throughout life as a result of injury, illness, vaccinations and emotional trauma and become held into the body tissues, leading to ill-health.
The Cranial Osteopathy process involves two main aspects. It is primarily concerned with enhancing the underlying vitality-the Breath of Life within the nervous system, creating and maintaining health and wellbeing in all aspects of our lives. Secondly, it is concerned with releasing any restrictions to the free distribution of this vitality throughout the body. Cranial Osteopathy is a special understanding of the central nervous system and its inter-relationship with the body as a whole.
Cranial Osteopathy is no different from any other aspect of Osteopathy and those that use the technique are just applying principles in another way. The key to applying Osteopathic principles in the cranial sacral system is - like anywhere else in the body - the ability to palpate living tissues. Healthy tissues move. If they feel rigid, tense, inert, stuck, twisted or congested, this is almost always a sign of a dysfunction and the aim of the Osteopathic treatment, where-ever it is applied, is to restore motion to those tissues.
The treatment is gentle but highly effective at creating a reaction and at times there can be quite “severe” side effects. These are temporary whilst the patient goes through a “healing crisis” but it surprises the patient because for the gentle approach it feels unexpected: one cannot underestimate the body’s response to helping it recover! Mostly the reaction is a worsening of the symptoms the patient presented with, but other symptoms can come about through the knock-on effect of releasing a part of the body that was holding another in misalignment. These can range from flu like symptoms, loose stools, headache, nausea, bruising, tenderness, high emotions and more localized pain.
Cranial techniques have replaced the traditional ‘clicking’ maneuvers of Osteopathy in Michelle’s work, although she continues to use the joint articulations, massage and stretching techniques. Patients started to report improvements with general health and sleep, and in areas of their body that she had never touched, along with an improved state of relaxation with improvement to their state of mood and immune function.
With Cranial Sacral Osteopathy, the practitioner can palpate the invisible tissues of the body to detect retained injury within the nervous system, retained emotional trauma, energy and misalignment, which all contribute to the imbalance of the Four quadrants of health - physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. The most extraordinary part of an examination is when a physical problem manifested by an emotional trauma (or vice versa) is detected. The body appears not to respond differently to trauma whether for a physical or emotional reason. What astounds Michelle more is the ability to feel this and work with it, in order to aid the body to release it and establish normality and balance again.
Osteopathy is an incredibly effective, safe way to evaluate a patient, make an assessment and not only diagnose the cause of suffering but to apply techniques to promote a healing response.
Michelle uses cranial osteopathy to help treat areas of the body that require much lighter touch, such as the head, neck or face pain and conditions that are not amenable to robust interventions, such as post-surgical pain, symptoms that occur after traumas such as road traffic accidents or concussion and emotional trauma, and is finding that she uses this very gentle and noninvasive treatment with every patient in her practice on a daily basis.
Your health blueprint or your health philosophy is a plan that can be followed to achieve something. It consists of your thoughts, feelings and actions in the area of health. If you want to create health, it is imperative that you believe you are the steering wheel of your life and when symptoms occur these are the warning lights on the dashboard alerting you not to continue the same journey. It is about taking responsibility, ownership of your own body and health needs, and if you want to create health, it is imperative to be totally and truly committed.
The definition of insanity Einstein said is “Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome”. If you don’t believe this then you must inherently believe you have little or no control over your life and therefore your health.
Examples of ways of taking responsibility are listed below and detailed throughout the book, but as a whole, one needs to be open to gaining an awareness of the causative and maintaining factors to your pain and suffering, as well as gaining an understanding of the condition. This is where your Osteopath or health provider can help you understand your condition.
Practical ways that you could take responsibility for, and thus reduce, your pain/suffering:
· Eating anti Inflammatory foods
· Supplementing your diet with products such as collagen, vitamins, minerals and tissue salts
· Detox
· Applying cold and hot packs
· Rest and relaxation
· Stretching
· Gentle movement / activity
· Graded exercise
· Pacing activity
· Compression bandages / strapping
· Self-massage
· Positive affirmations
· Using the placebo effect
· Mindfulness
· Deep Diaphragm breathing
· TENS machine
· Distraction techniques and fun
· Pain aversion technique
· Disassociation technique
· Yoga
· Pilates
· Hypnosis
· Meditation
· Therapies such as Acupuncture, Osteopathy, Physiotherapy, Reiki, Radiance Technique
· Psychotherapy and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
· Biomechanical Therapy
· Following the ‘recipe’ to the letter, rather than adapting it to suit yourself
· Be compliant and consistent
· Focus on opportunities rather than obstacles and expect to feel better, healthier and happier
· Practice optimism, gratitude and taking action
· 30-day mental diet
· Bach flower remedies
· Crystals such as Jade yoni egg
· Love one another
· Kindness towards others
· Choose a state of either acceptance, enjoyment or enthusiasm