Craniosacral Therapy

Excerpts from the entry on Craniosacral Therapy in Relieving Pain Naturally by Dr. Sylvia Goldfarb and Roberta W. Waddell. For full entries on all 37 conditions and 27 treatments, order the book.

The craniosacral system includes the bones of your skull, face, and mouth, which make up the cranium, and extends down to the sacrum at the bottom of your spine. It consists of a sac filled with cerebrospinal fluid that moves via hydraulic pressure stemming from pulsating ventricles to the brain, and surrounds, nourishes, and protects the brain and spinal cord. Just as your cardiovascular system has a rhythm that medical practitioners can feel or listen to throughout your body, so can practitioners of craniosacral therapy monitor the craniosacral rhythm. Using expert palpation, primarily of the eight bones that make up the skull, which are constantly moving, they can locate the source of an obstruction or stress. Since your bones are in constant motion (although you are not conscious of it), as this cerebrospinal fluid gets pumped through your body, a practitioner can detect any minute variations in the bones’ movement and can perform techniques to free up the flow of the fluid if any blockage restricting the craniosacral rhythm is found.

Also in this entry:

• The History of Craniosacral Therapy
• How Craniosacral Therapy Works
• Painful Conditions that Respond Well to Therapy
• Advantages of Craniosacral Therapy
• How Craniosacral Therapy Is Used
• Cautions
• Clinical Studies

See below for full list of all conditions and treatments in the book. Or, download a complete Condition entry or Treatment entry for free.