Can you explain what a Biodynamic Cranial Approach is?
The Biodynamic Cranial approach evolved from within the field of Osteopathy and is sometimes now commonly known as Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy. It is a unique clinical philosophy that recognizes every human being as a single unity of Soul and Body, or, as some might say, Body, Mind and Spirit. And this unity that each person is acquires a whole history of events, experiences and emotions, going all the way back to beginning at conception and coming forward to the present moment.
Some of these occurrences can be distressful and painful but they're temporary and a person is able to handle them well and simply go on. Others however can lead to varying types of blockages and patterns within a person that they may not be consciously aware of. These can create chronic obstruction to the flow of Health and its potency (or energy) and they become a direct link to the pain, disease and distress a person may be experiencing. Manual Medicine Practitioners trained in a Biodynamic Cranial Osteopathic, or Craniosacral Approach use their hands as both diagnostic and therapeutic instruments. They listen to and feel into the various tissues and fluids and subtle rhythms of the body in order to assist the healing capacity within a person to bring its corrective forces to areas in need of attention and integration. As such, this is a natural Health-focused model rather than a disease-focused model.
Can you elaborate more on how this approach and therapy is beneficial for those in palliative and hospice care and at the end-of-life?
Change of course is the one constant we all experience. Some changes may accompany chronic and progressive disease processes where recovery, as we normally think of it, is not going to be possible. The person's reserve, so to speak, is progressively being depleted, and sometimes rapidly for those at the end-of-life.
As long as a person is alive - even up to the very last moments - there is, what we term from an Osteopathic perspective, Health, and this Health is still flowing within the tissues and fluids. The overall impact of the potency of Health may be fading but it's still present and active. So the practitioner tunes into this still living movement of Health that can enable a person to surrender, Body & Soul, to this movement. It is an act of Grace allowing for a more peaceful accomodation to the changes that one is experiencing. The dying process then becomes an act of Healing. In conventional biomedicine the body is defined as the physiology of health. This is a very secular perspective. Health is rarely seen as an expression of a person's relationship to spirituality.
From this Biodynamic Osteopathic perspective Health is seen as unconditional and ever present. Health is not seen as the absence of a disease process or as being absent during the dying process.
Who founded Osteopathy?
Dr. Andrew Taylor Still is often referred to as the "Founder" of Osteopathy but I believe it is more accurate to say that he was the "Revealer" of Osteopathy.
Dr. Still was trained in the 1850s under the tutelage of his father who was a physician and a Methodist minister-missionary but Still seriously questioned both God and the medicine of his day when several of his family members died from spinal menningitis. Devastated, he went on a search to discover and develop a new system of healing. In the end he came to a realization that, as he says, God was not a guessing God but a God of Truth. He came to believe that the body of man was God's drugstore and that it had in it the Wisdom necessary for Peace, Happiness and Health.
On June 22, 1874 in Baldwin, Kansas Dr. Still had an epiphany. He describes a prophetic vision where he was shot “not in the heart, but in the dome of reason.” In an instant, like a burst of sunshine, he relates, the whole Truth dawned upon his mind. He called this new science "Osteopathy." A very spiritual man, who overcame several life challenges, Dr. Still always lived very close to nature and he taught that Osteopathy is the expression of the natural world. Being a philosophy as well as a sacred science, it is a holistic form of hands-on medicine which recognizes that Spirit, Soul and Body are a whole. It supports the wholeness of the person, not sacrificing the whole to treat just a part.
Who might particularly benefit?
Individuals struggling with:
- Serious disease conditions, including those having a terminal diagnosis or being in Palliative or Hospice Care and in the end-of-life care
- Emotional and psychological stress factors that are affecting health
- An inner sense of suffering
- An inner experience of shock
- Psychological
- Emotional
- Physical
- A sense of spiritual distress
What is the purpose of hands-on Biodynamic treatment?
The aim of a Biodynamic Cranial Approach to Healing is to bring the body to a neutral point, a state where the autonomic nervous system is in balance and a person can experience a sense of unity and harmony. Free of tensions and restrictions the body and its tissues are able to react to therapeutic influences and forces. This approach enables a person to reach a point where body, spirit and soul are in unity and where holistic healing is possible.
What are "hands-on" sessions like?
During hands-on sessions you will feel what may best be described as a light to medium touch and an embrace of various bodily areas as well as occasional massage movements. These areas may be anyplace from your head to your feet. You may feel my hands shifting as I palpate and flow with the deep rhythms within you. You may or may not experience subtle shifts in your body or in your awareness as well as sudden more noticeable and dramatic shifts and movements. None of this should be painful or alarming. It is simply the release and surrender of various stuck patterns. I may also use a vibrating instrument that is tuned to a harmonic vibration at various areas to aid in this process.
Do you take insurance? I do not take insurance or fill out insurance papers.
