Fiona is finishing up her certification as a craniosacral therapist. She has completed three 3-day trainings from a teacher named Karma. To be certified, Fiona needs to do a number of sessions and write up the results. I volunteered to receive a few sessions. Fiona has given me five craniosacral sessions in the last three months.
Definitions:
Craniosacral is a technique where the therapist is guided by, and assists, the cranial motion coming from the recipient's body. The therapist places her hands very gently on the patient; not the full weight of her hands but about the weight of a nickel. Her hands cover a joint, feeling the bones on either side of the joint, in order to detect motion at that joint's hinge. Before any therapy is done, the therapist must sense how the body is moving on its own.
Cranial Motion is the very slow motion of the body. You can't see cranial motion because the motion is very small and weak. But a patient practitioner can feel it. It feels like a boat floating in calm water near the dock. If you had one hand on the boat and one on the dock, at first you would think they are together. But soon your hands would note the subtle differences-the boat is moving in relation to the dock.
Normal cranial motionis when the body is moving in a normal rhythm; say, every twenty seconds flexing, then for twenty seconds extending. When the therapist finds a joint in normal cranial motion, she knows nothing needs to be done here.
Pathological cranial motion is when a joint flexes more than it extends, or it flexes away from neutral but stops there.
Craniosacral Therapy is simply to assist the joint in the pathological direction. This assistance uses no more force than the weight of a nickel. Then she patiently waits.
Stillpoint is the duration of time in which the recipient's body is not cranially moving. In a minute, more or less, the body responds to her assistance, perhaps first with a muscle twitch, then by resuming cranial motion back toward neutral.
Though I don't teach craniosacral, Fiona has attended some of my muscle therapy classes where I refer to cranial motion. Fiona probably considered me a competent craniosacral practitioner, so she was anxious to share her concerns with me.
I worry that I don't get it, Fiona told me after each of the first three sessions. I just don't feel what the craniosacral teachers tell me I should be feeling. Is it me? I don't feel the wave. Am I just dumb? Or are they teaching a bunch of unnecessary complexities that don't really help people heal? Is the way I'm doing it healing? And what is healing, anyway?
These are good questions, I told her. I said that her sessions feel very much like the sessions of her teacher, Karma. I had received one session from Karma only a couple of months prior to Fiona's, so I had a good basis of comparison. I said I felt similar results to those of her teacher-peacefulness, happy floating, ease of mind. She thanked me for the feedback but the next time I'd see her, she'd have the same worries.
How does craniosacral work? Since 1930 craniosacral has been presented as a hydraulic model. Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) is created in the ventricles of the brain. The cranial bones squish the fluid, which is pumped under pressure to all parts of the spinal column, to account for motions that can be felt as far as the sacrum. Hence the name, cranial-to-sacrum. Later practitioners noticed that cranial motion can be felt in the feet as easily as the sacrum. How does the motion get to the feet? The fluid is pumped through microtubules in the connective tissue, is the standard answer. This is the model I was given when I took my craniosacral training in 1995.
But the hydraulic model is inadequate, a word Spinoza uses to say, it does not explain the results. I have operated many hydraulic machines including backhoes and zoom-boom forklifts. I have worked on many hydraulic systems including brake master and slave cylinders and Datsun 280z clutches. Here are a few reasons why the hydraulic model cannot explain cranial motion:
CSF is water based. Water can never be allowed in a hydraulic system because it compresses. If even a teaspoon of water gets into your brake lines, they dramatically fail.
micro-tubules of connective tissue would never do as hydraulic lines. a) they are flexible, b) there are multiple paths, c) there would be too much heat from the constant friction, d) the system is not sealed but new fluid is always being secreted in and old fluid is filtering out.
the human body has no master cylinder. There is nothing like a stainless steel cylinder with a steel plunger in the brain. It's all soft. Any pressure in the ventricles would press equally outward into the brain.
If the head were designed as a pressure pump, it would be obvious, like a heart. You'd see circular muscles around the head to squeeze it into a smaller volume, or a big hinge somewhere. Whether the bones of the skull articulate is still a matter of debate.
cranial motion would be weaker or nonexistent at the feet, since the fluid must travel through miles of flexible tubules to reach the feet, but in fact therapists can feel the motion at the feet just as easily and strongly as at the head.
Cranial motion simply cannot be caused or explained by hydraulic fluid under pressure.
Since I learned craniosacral sixteen years ago, the technique has come under scrutiny. A nonprofit organization called Quackwatch warns consumers to steer clear, citing evidence that there is no physical model. But even without a physical model, craniosacral is still taught today.
If you ask a large number of massage therapists today what craniosacral is (as I have), most will say it is energy work. Energy work is a broad category of therapies that involve the aura, the chakras, chi, ki, prana, the spirit, the soul, or other intangible influences. Current scientific methods cannot detect or measure any of these energies. Nor does science care to try. Science views energy work sort of like fortune telling. It's just so silly, in their view, there is no point in trying to prove it wrong. Craniosacral today is mostly taught as an intangible, unmeasurable, undetectable influence.
The benefit of an intangible model to craniosacral therapist is that they are now left alone. While craniosacral operated under a physical model, it counted as something that needed proof. But when craniosacral is presented as energy work, it avoids the peer-review that a physical model would have to undergo.
Perhaps this situation is well enough and I should leave it alone. But Fiona's complaints rekindle my own concerns. In her classes, Karma teaches that craniosacral is an energy technique. To do it, the giver vibrates her chakras in a specific way. Soon the recipient's chakras resonate in the same way. An hour of this is very healing. That's the model. I have received a session from Karma and I can testify that it feels really good. And I have spoken with many others who have learned and received from her, who all hold Karma in very high esteem. What's wrong with Fiona?
As I explained in part one of this series, Spinoza taught us that physical phenomena may adequately explained only by other physical phenomena. Teachers who say craniosacral's effects are caused by undetectable, unmeasurable influences, can make no claims that measurable changes occur to the body. In fact, when I received from Karma, she never said my body changed, but my energy. I think Karma would be fine with the idea that what she does has effects that are undetectable and unmeasurable. She does not see craniosacral as something that affects the bones and joints and fluids of the body. And so she is congruent with the model she believes in. Spinoza would approve of her practice....with one slight modification. If the energies manipulated have no weight, mass, or any other measurable qualities, then it is unnecessary for physical hands to touch a physical body. Nor waving the hands above the body, or any other instruments that can be seen, felt, heard, smelled, or measured. Hands are physical quantities. The hands' touches have measurable force and direction and duration. Therefore, practitioners who explain craniosacral as work with undetectable influences, would be true to their word by doing their work without touching the body.
I bet Karma can do her style of energy-craniosacral without her hands. I bet if you asked her why she uses her hands, she'd say it is for the benefit of the recipient, who would be freaked out if she didn't. Also the recipient would wonder why he had to pay for something that the giver didn't actually do. This sounds like it is in the client's best interest but it also promotes beliefs that are not accurate.
(Spinoza and I will examine the difference between energy healing and physical healing in the next essay in this series.)
Karma's way is not a problem. The reason craniosacral is listed on Quackwatch is the claim of changing the body. It's the therapists who claim craniosacral realigns the bones, balances the joints, restores circulation of fluids, restores nerve conduction, and other physical effects. Spinoza and Quackwatch agree that physical effects demand physical explanations.
Just because the hydraulic model did not work out, does not mean that no physical model is adequate. We just need a better physical model. I am one who believes the bones do move; that we therapists are actually feeling measurable movement that originates in the recipient's body. I could be wrong about that. Still, let's trudge on.
An All-Physical Model of Cranial Motion
Before I tell you my idea for a physical model, I'd like to remind you of a game you might have played as a kid, called the ouiji board. It had only two parts: a hard board like a chess board, which had the alphabet printed on its face, and a hard disc with a cutout in the center. You also kept a pencil and paper nearby. Players asked the board a question, then together they put their hands on the hard disc, expecting it to spell out an answer. The disc began to slowly move around the board... When the disc moved over a letter and stopped there, you wrote down the letter that was circled by the disc. Anticipation grew as letters spelled out sentences. The sentences were surprising because they seemed to contain knowledge that none of the players were aware of.
How did it work? None of the players were deliberately controlling the disc. Is it powered by an invisible being or a ghost? Note the models proposed are unmeasurable and undetectable.
Could it be that the players' brains move the players' hands without their minds being aware of this? Brains do move hands. Brains send electrochemical signals down the motor nerves, and these contract and relax various muscles in the arms and hands. Brains move hands. Brains know where to stop the hands over the letters, because brains sense the photons coming in through the eyes and coordinate this estimated position with muscle firing. Spinoza reminds us that minds are not aware of what the brains are doing. Or more accurately, minds have their own sequence of events, and brains have their own sequence of events, and all you can say is, they both have the same number of events in their sequences. Minds are not aware of sensory nerves arriving from muscles, nor of motor nerve signals going out to muscles. To the mind, all that is machine language, which it does not speak.
Now let's return to cranial motion.
A fellow lies on the soft massage table. The craniosacral practitioner walks around to the foot-end of the table and gently cups her hands under his heels. (You could try this at home and I bet you would feel it). She closes her eyes in order to amplify the sensations in her hands. She takes a deep breath and relaxes, so she can discern her own fidgeting from his gentle motions. Soon enough she can feel both of his feet twisting ever so gently outward, or duck-footed, in unison. Then she feels the feet turning pigeon-toed for a time. She feels this normal inward-outward pattern for a minute, and thinks to herself, normal cranial motion. But a minute later she realizes the two legs are not quite synchronized. She realizes his left leg's rhythm turns further outwardly, and less far inwardly. Then she feels his left leg turn outwardly then stop. Pathological cranial motion, she thinks. She opens her eyes, looks down at his feet. His right foot is definitely turned further duck-ward than his right foot.
Could this difference in position be caused by his brain? Could his brain be firing the gemelli and obturator muscles more on his left? Yes, very likely.
Muscles are the new model for cranial motion.
It wouldn't be difficult to measure. Experimenters would need a few things; an EEG machine capable of discerning small differences in motor signal traveling from the brain to the muscle, and ways to measure joint angle and muscle contraction force-little protractors and spring scales. It would be easiest to detect with a very big strong muscle pair like the knee flexors and extensors of a hurdler. If she were floating in water and sleeping, or in antigravity at the International Space Station, you might even see the motion with the naked eye. I predict that the angle detectors will prove each knee slightly bend and slightly extend in rhythms that make nice sine-wave graphs. And that corresponding variance will be found in the muscle contraction forces on the little springs, and in signals sent to the muscles down the motor nerves. This will prove cranial motion is purposely sent by the brain and enacted by the muscles.
But why?
Why would the brain vary muscle contraction in regular patterns? I can think of two good reasons. The most obvious is to circulate fluids. Another reason might be to keep an up-to-date map of all the angles of all the joints in the body, even during sleep, so that if it needed to fight or flee, it would be able to quickly and accurately leap up, kick, punch and run. This function would increase survival of animals, which means we should be able to trace normal cranial muscle motion in other primates, other mammals, and perhaps in birds and reptiles--anyone with a brain, muscles, and joints could be tested.
Testing might also clear up pathological cranial motion. Experiments could measure differences on the left and right sides, and differences in antagonist muscle pairs (flexors and extensors). Perhaps the right leg moves further in flexion. Why? Either the brain actually sends more signal to the right hamstrings (my bet) or the signal is the same but the muscles act differently. The next two paragraphs explore both options.
If it is muscle that causes pathological motion, why would it do so? Perhaps its annulospiral receptors are functioning poorly. These proprioceptors compare signal coming from the brain with actual contraction in the muscle, and report the difference back to the brain. The brain needs this information to keep the body safe, for example, by calculating how much signal will be needed to safely walk up and down stairs. Perhaps the increased contraction in the flexors is because of over-exaggerating annulospiral receptors in the flexors, or because of underreporting annulospiral receptors in the extensors. To prove this model, we'll need the EMGs not only on the motor nerves but also on the sensory nerves from annulospiral receptors headed up toward the brain. We'll need to see how accurately the annulospiral receptors are correlating the downward signals with the joint angle and the muscle tension. Treatment might include pressing on these muscle receptors.
If it is the brain that causes pathological motion, why would it do so? Perhaps it is simply displaying its guarding map. Guarding is when the brain increases its signal to a muscle, and the muscle contracts day and night, in order to protect something. Any region that reports pain or endangered joints to the brain, the brain will necessarily react by guarding the nearby muscles. Muscle guarding increases survival of species, for example, by allowing someone with a sprained ankle to amble back to safety. Muscle guarding is seen in all animals. My bet is that pathological cranial motion is simply the increased contraction of muscles the brain judges to require guarding. In this case it is not the muscle that needs help, but the brain needs help to change its guarding map. This is accomplished with a safe practitioner, holding the joint safely in a position that is not triggering any danger proprioception, for long enough for the brain to recalculate what is now the safest setting for the muscle. When the brain does change its calculation, the practitioner feels this as motion, return toward neutral balance.
I could be wrong. Spinoza inspired me to invent a physical model for physical movement. If all this research finds no correlation of motor signals with cranial motion, that's okay. Spinoza will urge someone else to come up with a better physical model. We are certain there exists a physically measurable explanation.
Now that I have a physical model I can believe in, I find several very welcome consequences. Recipients feel more satisfied with their measurable results. I feel more satisfied with the measurable physical results. I feel more confident having an all-physical model for explaining what I am doing. Recipients feel more comfortable and safe having an understandable, all-physical model being applied to their bodies.
If you're with me this far, would you help me in changing the term "cranial motion" to one I have just coined for this article; brainial motion:
Brainial motion is the slight, but measurable variance in motor signals the brain sends to the muscles. This variance causes the muscles to slightly contract more and less, which makes all the joints of the body slightly open and close.
Normal brainial motion is a rhythmic variance in flexors and extensors.
Pathological brainial motion is when the brain has been triggered to guard a particular region of the body. Pathological brainial motion provides a diagnostic tool. The direction of motion implicates a particular muscle that is contracting more than its neighbors.
Branial therapy is simple; helping the joint move in the same direction of the guarding, shortens the contracting muscle. In the shortened position, the annulospiral receptors report the safest signals back to the brain. The brain is then most likely to change the signal to contract less.
Three weeks ago Fiona attended an upper level craniosacral class from Karma's teacher, Dr. Randy. He had flown from another state to teach here. The following Friday Fiona and I met for another session, and she looked confident and relaxed. Unlike previous sessions, she did not need to talk before we started. That made me curious and I asked how her class went.
I went up to Dr. Randy during the first break, she said,and told him my concern--that I don't feel what I am supposed to feel, according to his book. He said to ignore the book! He wrote it twelve years ago and he doesn't do it that way anymore himself. I was mad! At first, anyway. I told him I do not feel the wave, but instead I see these stories with me and the recipient always going places. He said that is fine. Now he teaches that it's all about being present with people.
I nodded and smiled. When she worked on me that day, I felt that she was more present. His class helped her. Fiona was even more present in last Friday's session.
Dr. Randy erased Fiona's anxieties. How? By removing the inadequate model. The oddest thing is, he didn't replace it with a new model. He taught that all you have to do is be present with the recipient. And having received her treatments, I can vouch that it does feel better than when she was struggling with inadequate models. I would go back to her.
Fiona told me that at the end of Randy's class, the other students asked when he would be coming back. Why do I need to come back, he asked. He must have felt that, now that he told them presence was all they needed to know, there was nothing more to teach. Fiona agreed. She seems content without a model. As long as she makes no claims about physical results, she is safe from the complaints of Quackwatch.
Conclusion:
Therapists advertising a nonphysical model are most truthful when they use nonphysical means to apply their nonphysical influences to the nonphysical attributes of the person. Therapists advertising bodywork are most truthful when they work within an all-physical model. Strangely enough, some therapists can get by with no model.
Patrick Moore, L.M.T., B.A. (math) is a teacher, curriculum developer, novelist, poet, photographer, inventor, lifecoach, and massage therapist
In 2001 Patrick rediscovered a technique that is now called, "Melting Muscles," which you can see at http://meltingmuscles.com Specializing in the brain-muscle connection, he continues to develop fresh technique, publish new perspectives, and maintain a small healing practice in Tucson.
As an NCBTMB educator, he offers 43 innovative workshops for credit.
His articles have appeared in Massage & Bodywork magazine and Massage Therapy Journal.
Patrick has been receiving training from Stephen Bruno since 1996.
Married to author Traci Moore
In his spare time Patrick reads Presocratics, Plato, Cicero, Euclid, Augustine, Boethius, Gerbert of Aurillac, Aquinas, Copernicus, Bruno, Spinoza, Franklin, Poe, and Wells.
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