Hello, you are most likely to be a prospective student, with either a package of skills and experience already under your belt, and looking for more breadth and depth to your work; or you are less experienced and are checking out ‘cranial’ as a possibility to explore and learn.
Good luck! Researching craniosacral and myofascial can be quite confusing. This therapy blends both of those apprroaches. As a modality, it is both difficult to capture neatly in words, and is also often misunderstood or represented poorly. I hope that I have something useful to offer you in this article.
There is a comparative teaching emphasis on anatomy, the fascia, the cranial rhythm, palpation, discussion time and utilising other therapies. You will appreciate seeing a separate real sphenoid bone, it’s a lot easier than trying to learn from a book or webpage. I certainly appreciate being able to present specimens of all the cranial bones, a gift from the estate of a Melbourne ENT specialist, Dr Jack Refshauge, for students to look and learn from.
You will learn to get comfortable and confident with prolonged-contact palpation. Palpation here means to touch and assess, search and think with your fingers (from the Latin term ‘palpare’ – to caress).
You are usually seated during treatment, which makes practising CFT easier on the therapist’s own body than standing to rub, push and stretch the client.
You will learn to employ subtle traction and/or pressure forces interactively, modifying your technique according to the feedback you are assessing.
Receiving treatments is also an excellent way to augment learning, but remember it is always experienced through the prism of your own body. Someone else would have a different experience.
Craniosacral Therapy
Craniofascial is broadly similar to craniosacral. Read a comparison here. CFT is very different to conventional bodywork such as massage in several ways, not just the invaluable focus on the cranium and fascia, but also the treatment principles used to achieve release and balance. Some experienced practitioners are suprised at the subtlety of assessment and the effectiveness of therapy.
The most basic physical issue in restoring health is the release of mobility restrictions. For this reason Biomechanical first neatly describes this approach compared to say Biodynamic Craniosacral. The treatment principles and specific techniques used in Craniofascial all aim to restore normal tone, mobility and balance to the body. Often client symptoms abate well before that underlying balance is sustained.
One distinctive feature of CFT is the option to use ‘Indirect technique’ or exaggeration. The opposite of conventional approaches, this is revelatory for many therapists, engaging with the body in a way where it responds three-dimensionally and ‘does the work’ in a way that does not happen with direct technique.
Direct technique seeks to reduce the body distortion present. ie If a body part is up and left, compared to its ‘correct’ position, then the therapist’s forces will be down and right, the exact opposite of the distortion, mechanically aiming to directly reduce the assymetry. Indirect technique is the converse of direct. Here the distortion is gradually supported and gently exaggerated, until the compensating tissue tension that surrounds it is temporarily balanced.
At that point of temporary balance, this ‘equal resistance’ method using interactive indirect technique can lead to dramatic responses such as twitching with some clients. In this scenario, gentle persistence by the therapist not only releases the specific restriction that is being targeted, but also has a more regional or even global effect. Sometimes there is a series of releases as the body acclimatises and responds, often at a distance to where the hands are placed.
The Cranial Rhythm
Using the cranial rhythm in practice is like the therapist passing through a ‘sensitivity gate’. If the therapist is sensitive enough to palpate and sense the cranial rhythm, then they are sensitive enough to also feel and react to other subtle tension patterns and the unwinding of fascia.
Support and relax your own body first, ignore any client respiratory movements or cardiac pulses, then tune in to the subtle movements conveyed through your hands and fingers. After a few seconds of settling in, ask yourself: What am I feeling? Is this expansion or contraction of the client’s cranial rhythm? With practice, this process allows a quick ‘change of gears’ in finding the cranial rhythm zone.
The rate of the CRI has been researched with authors reporting wildly varying results between 3.7 and 14 cycles per minute. The Australian Craniofascial Therapy School teaches a ‘normal’ rate of around 4.5 cpm and emphasises its use and ongoing research.
There is no pre-requisite for enrolling in a Level One introductory CFT workshop, although a familiarity with touching bodies and taking control, in the role as the therapist directing treatment, is helpful. The anatomic and medical terminology that is used also assumes certain knowledge. Adequate time for questions to decode words and explain assumptions is available.
Now that you have read what Craniofascial Therapy may have to offer you, I’ll explain why I teach it.
It comes directly out of my clinical experience of what works and what doesn’t. Long before I taught, the process of becoming a therapist was self-directed and involved searching for the ‘wheat amongst the chaff’ of the many physical therapy options on offer.
Some modalities seemed good but didn’t really deliver for me when the transition from enthusiastic classroom to real-life, paying client in my clinic space was made. Craniofascial not only made this transition but quickly became invaluable, the ‘missing element’ in my multi-disciplinary repertoire. NB: I have great regard for Visceral Manipulation, have undertaken some training, but do not practise it currently.
After many workshops with several teachers, a great deal of ongoing private study and research, growing clinical experience thanks to the clients I have treated thus far, and being a teaching assistant in many workshops that I organised for another interstate teacher, an opportunity to teach arose in 1992, more through circumstance than design. Teaching has enhanced my understanding, provided many rewards and challenges and encouraged me to publicise and explain this amazing therapy.