How long will my session last?
Adult treatments will usually last for just less than an hour. Sometimes, however, a lot happens in a short time and you may need to rest for the rest of the session without treatment. You may feel that you need some time after the session to allow yourself to return to the outside world gently.
I often suggest that clients go for a walk or sit quietly for a while before getting into a car.
Children’s sessions are much shorter, anything between a quarter and half an hour.
How many sessions will I need?
This depends very much on the reason you are coming to the practice. Long standing conditions sometimes take a while to respond. You may also remember or reconnect to other situations that you would like to explore in the sessions. Usually we will start by meeting every ten days or so then you will get a feeling of what suits you and your life style (and budget) and we create a program to suit your needs.
Sometimes during the series of sessions you may come to a point of resistance to the process and need a break for a while.
What happens in a session?
We will start by talking about the reasons you have come to Craniosacral Therapy and what you would like to change as a result of the treatments.
I will ask you about your medical history: Accidents, illnesses and operations etc. and also about the things that give you joy in your life or that mean a lot to you. Craniosacral Therapy is about health not just illness.
During the Craniosacral Therapy session you lie fully clothed on a comfortable treatment couch, or you may prefer to sit.
I will make a light contact with my hands on your body, usually under your head (the cranium in “Craniosacral Therapy”) or at the base of your spine (the sacrum).
Then I will “listen” with my hands to the story your body is telling.
Is it just about heads?
Craniosacral Therapy is a therapy for you whole body, for your emotions, preoccupations and anxieties, a way of considering the “time of your life”.
Usually I will make contact with your body at your head, (the cranium), or the base of your spine (the sacrum). Between the two your central nervous system reaches all through the body, the fascia wraps everything in a gliding coat that responds to all that happens and your life is being lived.
How do I know if Craniosacral Therapy is right for me?
Craniosacral Therapy is appropriate for people of all ages from new born babies to the old, infirm or seriously ill.
It is not a substitute for other medical treatment and I do not diagnose. I am concerned with helping your body to find the health and balance, which, believe it or not, is present even in apparently dire circumstances. This doesn’t mean that you will necessarily become instantly “fixed” but that we can find the heart of peace in the circumstances of the moment.
How do I know if you are the right therapist for me?
This is a hard question to answer.
Since the therapeutic relationship is one of trust and confidence you are welcome to talk to me before you start. I am happy to speak to you on the phone before you book to hear what you want the sessions to achieve for you or for your child and to give you a chance to learn a bit about who I am and how I work before you commit yourself.
How does the treatment work?
The more I practice this work, the less I feel I know about the reason it has such a profound effect.
I do feel that the opportunity to really relax and let go is very rare in our busy lives. The undemanding contact of the therapist’s hands, not asking the body to change, but listening deeply to the unfolding of patterns, helps you to get in touch with your own sense of well being and health.
Since many of our illnesses, such as tinnitus, high blood pressure, insomnia, irritability, anxiety, digestive upsets, back ache and other pain may arise as the result of long term stress, working with the body to releases that stress can help to settle many of the aches and pains and discomforts of your life.
The Greeks have more than one word for time. Cronos is the linear time that gets us to work punctually or enables us to catch a train, but in a Craniosacral Therapy session both you and I have the opportunity to experience what the Greeks called Kairos: the right time, or time out of time, sacred time. Perhaps it is the “Time of your life” and an opportunity to heal within that sacred field of time and space.
Is Craniosacral Therapy an alternative to conventional medical practice?
The simple answer is no.
Complementary Therapies are just that. They aim to “complete” the process which may begin or move on to other forms of treatment.
(Not complIment, which would mean we just spent our time saying nice things to each other.)
The question of effective health care reminds me of the story of the three blind men who met an elephant. The first one encountered the elephant’s trunk, “aha” he said, “the elephant is exactly like a rope.”
“No, no,” exclaimed the second blind man, bumping up against the leg of the elephant, “an elephant is like a tree.”
“You are both wrong,” said the third, meeting the side of the elephant, ” an elephant is just like a wall.”
They were none of them wrong, but neither did any of them have the whole picture.
Craniosacral Therapy does not diagnose illness or claim to “cure” it in the sense that the current medical model tries to do and nothing that I say is intended to discourage you from consulting a medical practitioner or to disrupt your relationship with your doctor.
For example, it may be that you have broken your leg, the fracture has healed, but still you feel out of touch with the leg, perhaps the shock of the circumstances of the injury are still with you, or the distress of having to have surgery. Perhaps you have been saving the injured leg for so long that the other side of your body is fed up with taking the strain. Craniosacral therapy can bring the whole body back to balance and help to readjust the aftermath of the this and other traumas, but it is someone else’s job to set the leg and put the plaster on.
How do you know that Craniosacral Therapy works?
There is a lot of pressure on complementary therapists at the moment to “prove” the effectiveness of the therapy. Perhaps this is because “health” has been predicted to be the next boom industry after the digital one and a lot of vested interests are involved.
The advertising standards authority has ruled that Craniosacral Therapists may not mention any situations or conditions where the therapy might be effective, even if we have years of experience with clients reporting such effectiveness. They are currently insisting that only randomised control trials are able to “prove” that the therapies work, but the model of randomised control trials is not particularly relevant to a therapy that is about the health of the whole person and the dynamic of the Therapeutic Hour.
For more on research click here
Mostly clients come to me because they have personal recommendations from family or friends. They come back because they feel they gain some benefit.
I am very happy to talk to you about your particular situation, without any obligation at all and you can decide what you think for yourself. Please contact me if you would like to have a conversation about what you need.
How much does a session cost?
Please get in touch with me for the current prices. See contact page. I do charge for missed appointments and cancellation within twenty four hours.