What is Craniosacral Therapy?

Craniosacral Therapy is a "hands-on" body therapy, with the practitioner making light, sustained contact through the client's clothing. The gentle touch of cranial work helps the body to feel more relaxed and the mind to become more peaceful.

Craniosacral Therapy utilises the 'natural intelligence' of the body that expresses itself through subtle motions to help integrate the body & mind and to improve health. Attuning the body to these motions and helping them to express with more freedom and balance helps the body’s natural capacity for self-repair. In time, profound changes and insights are possible as the body and mind learn to work in this way.

In a typical Craniosacral session, you will usually lie (or sometimes sit) fully-clothed on a treatment couch. Contact is made with the practitioner's hands, carefully and with negotiation so that you will feel at ease with what is happening. Common places of contact include the feet, shoulders and head, or under the spine and pelvis. This is always at your discretion and the practitioner will check you are ok before making contact.

Once contact has been made, the practitioner will use their hands to listen to how your body is responding to the session. As well as using touch, the practitioner will check-in verbally to ask how the session is going for you. This may mean talking about sensations, thoughts or feelings that come to your awareness or any changes that are being noticed in the body. The amount of verbal communication varies from session to session and is a valuable way to help integrate the body and mind.

Visualisations are sometimes used in session time along with meditation style exercises that can also be developed between sessions to assist the process. In time, the client can learn to apply these exercises in daily life with cranial work becoming a personal practice.

“Craniosacral”, comes from “Cranio” meaning cranium/head, and “sacral” meaning sacrum, the tail bone of the spine. The terms “cranial work” or just “cranial” are often used for ease. Craniosacral Therapy evolved from Cranial Osteopathy with the basic idea that subtle, motions in the body (particularly in the head, spine and pelvis) are related to our health. There are several styles of cranial work, each with their own influences including Biomechanics, Psychotherapy, Spirituality and Neuroscience.