More About How I Work With Cranial Osteopathy

I often say that cranial osteopathy is not a spectator sport. From an outsiders perspective it looks like you just have your hands placed lightly on someone’s body. As the patient on the receiving end you might feel a sense of things within your body shifting or a change in your breathing. You might suddenly feel very relaxed or you might not feel like much is going on at all. Patient’s often ask me ‘What do you feel’? 

It’s a question I feel I could spend hours answering! For me this light touch is a form of very deep listening. So what I can feel is determined by what your body wants to say. I might be able to feel straightforward tightness and tensions in the anatomical structures- joints, muscles or fascia etc where you banged your head or clenched your jaw. Some of these physical injuries might be recent whilst some might have happened years ago, seemingly forgotten by your mind. Or I might get a sense of where you hold your stress, grief or anxiety. On a deeper level your body might be expressing that you are feeling frustrated by something in life, overwhelmed or a bit disconnected. 

The body is very clever, it creates ways of dealing with and adapting to all kinds of situations in life to enable us to get through them. This might be from having to stand up 

In front of colleagues to make a presentation or  to dealing with a horrible car crash. What I can feel is how your body has adapted to coping with these significant situations. Often the traumatic episode has now passed but the body is still stuck in a pattern of compensation. With gentle, light touch I can work with your body to see if it’s time let go of that patten and try a different way of functioning.

light touch and ‘listening’ can be a very useful tool when working with the body