Cran­ioSacral Ther­a­py (CST) is a light-touch approach that can cre­ate dra­mat­ic improve­ments in your life. It releas­es ten­sions deep in the body to relieve pain and dys­func­tion, and improve whole-body health and per­for­mance. Few body struc­tures have more influ­ence over your health and well-being than your cen­tral ner­vous sys­tem. And few body sys­tems have more impact on your cen­tral ner­vous sys­tem than the cran­iosacral system—the soft tis­sues and flu­id that pro­tect your brain and spinal cord. You endure stress­es and strains, and your body absorbs them. But your body can only han­dle so much ten­sion before the tis­sues begin to tight­en, and poten­tial­ly affect the brain and spinal cord. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, this can com­pro­mise the func­tion of the cen­tral ner­vous sys­tem and near­ly every oth­er sys­tem in your body. CST releas­es those ten­sions to allow the entire body to relax and self-cor­rect. Using a gen­tle touch, start­ing with about the weight of a nick­el, prac­ti­tion­ers eval­u­ate you for strain pat­terns. Then they use dis­tinc­tive light-touch tech­niques to release any restric­tions they find. By free­ing the cen­tral ner­vous sys­tem to per­form at its best, CST has been shown to nat­u­ral­ly reduce pain and stress, strength­en your resis­tance to dis­ease and enhance your health and well-being. It can ben­e­fit peo­ple suf­fer­ing from migraines and headaches, chron­ic neck and back pain, TMJ and many oth­er ten­sion-relat­ed dis­or­ders. And because it’s so gen­tle, CST has been shown to be effec­tive for all ages, from new­borns to elders.

CST was pio­neered and devel­oped by osteo­path­ic physi­cian John E. Upledger. Dr. Upledger served from 1975–1983 as a clin­i­cal researcher and Pro­fes­sor of Bio­me­chan­ics at the Col­lege of Osteo­path­ic Med­i­cine at Michi­gan State University.

A per­son can expe­ri­ence an event — acci­dent, dis­ease, stress­ful sit­u­a­tion or emo­tion­al­ly dev­as­tat­ing expe­ri­ence — that seems to have been “han­dled” or healed; how­ev­er, it is quite com­mon for unex­pressed emo­tions sur­round­ing that ini­tial event to get locked into areas of the body. They then become major con­tribut­ing fac­tors in latent chron­ic con­di­tions, often pre­sent­ing as mys­tery pain or syn­dromes that will not abate. Soma­toE­mo­tion­al Release (SER) is a way of using mean­ing­ful, inten­tioned touch to assist the body in express­ing and releas­ing those emo­tions, which in turn can allow a per­son to find the relief that has long elud­ed them. The con­cept behind SER is derived from Cran­ioSacral Ther­a­py, a light-touch tech­nique devel­oped in the 1970s by osteo­path­ic physi­cian John E. Upledger.

‘Vis­cera’ relates to the inter­nal organs of the body, such as the liv­er, kid­neys and intestines. Vis­cer­al Manip­u­la­tion, or VM, is a gen­tle man­u­al ther­a­py that aids your body’s abil­i­ty to release restric­tions and unhealthy com­pen­sa­tions that cause pain and dys­func­tion. VM does not focus sole­ly on the site of pain or dys­func­tion, but eval­u­ates the entire body to find the source of the prob­lem. The VM ther­a­pist feels for the altered or decreased motion with­in the vis­cera, as well as restric­tive pat­terns through­out the body and then applies VM tech­niques. The treat­ment is a gen­tle com­pres­sion, mobi­liza­tion and elon­ga­tion of the soft tis­sues. As the source of the prob­lem is released, the symp­toms will start to decrease, and the body’s abil­i­ty to adapt and restore itself to health will be re-established.

VM ther­a­py was devel­oped by Jean-Pierre Bar­ral, an Osteopath and Reg­is­tered Phys­i­cal Ther­a­pist from France. He began teach­ing this type of man­u­al ther­a­py in the Unit­ed States in 1985.

Neur­al Manip­u­la­tion (NM) is a pre­cise man­u­al ther­a­py that facil­i­tates the free move­ment of the nerves in their sur­round­ings; that is, in rela­tion to adja­cent mus­cles and in nar­row pas­sages through fas­cia, organs and bones. A nerve only func­tions opti­mal­ly when it is able to move freely in its sur­round­ing tis­sues. The key in NM is to find the most sig­nif­i­cant area of reduced mobil­i­ty and focus on facil­i­tat­ing neur­al glide. Per­form­ing a mobi­liza­tion on the nerve fix­a­tion frees the nerve and helps restore prop­er sig­nal­ing to the com­pro­mised struc­tures it inner­vates, there­by improv­ing the func­tion of those struc­tures, such as mus­cle, organ or fascia.

Neur­al Manip­u­la­tion was devel­oped through the clin­i­cal work of French Osteopath and Phys­i­cal Ther­a­pist Jean-Pierre Bar­ral with the col­lab­o­ra­tion of French Osteopath Alain Croibier.

Trig­ger Point Release ther­a­py is an approach for work­ing with deep and often uncon­scious­ly-held pain and ten­sion pat­terns in the body. Trig­ger points are areas of mus­cle fiber that have con­tract­ed into a knot and are unable to release. In effect, the mus­cle fibers are stuck in “on” mode and don’t know how to “switch off.” Trig­ger points are con­trac­tion knots and are dif­fer­ent from knots cre­at­ed by scar tis­sue, adhe­sion or fibrot­ic and short­ened fas­cia. Any type of phys­i­cal, emo­tion­al or chem­i­cal stress (eg., med­ica­tions) may pre­dis­pose, cause and then per­pet­u­ate the for­ma­tion of trig­ger points. These points can often involve symp­toms like referred pain, which is expe­ri­enced at a dis­tance from the point itself. Oth­er symp­toms may include ten­der­ness, numb­ness, tin­gling, burn­ing, aching and fatigue. To deac­ti­vate a point, a ther­a­pist can apply sus­tained pres­sure to the con­tract­ed area until the mus­cle responds by soft­en­ing. Ben­e­fits include relief from chron­ic pain, increased flex­i­bil­i­ty, improved cir­cu­la­tion, an increased range of motion and reduced stiff­ness and mus­cle tension.

I am a Rei­ki Mas­ter Prac­ti­tion­er. Depend­ing on the sit­u­a­tion, I can either inte­grate Rei­ki into mas­sage and body­work ses­sions, or pro­vide a “Rei­ki-only” ses­sion upon request. I am also trained to teach Rei­ki so that peo­ple can learn to per­form it on them­selves or others.

Rei­ki is a heal­ing sys­tem with roots in Tibetan Bud­dhism. It is a pow­er­ful, non-inva­sive tech­nique for restor­ing and bal­anc­ing the body’s nat­ur­al ener­gy flow. Rei­ki treat­ments con­sist of a lay­ing-on of hands in order to con­duct uni­ver­sal life force (qi) to the per­son receiv­ing treat­ment. A Rei­ki treat­ment can focus briefly on a spe­cif­ic area of the body that is expe­ri­enc­ing stress or pain, or may be applied in a longer ses­sion through­out the full body. Rei­ki can be per­formed effec­tive­ly on its own, but also works syn­er­gis­ti­cal­ly with oth­er types of heal­ing modal­i­ties like mas­sage and is an excel­lent com­pli­ment to them. Ben­e­fits can include relief from pain, stress and anx­i­ety, pro­mo­tion of deep relax­ation, and an accel­er­a­tion of the body’s own heal­ing process.