What is Cranial Osteopathy?

Some of our osteopaths practice Cranial Osteopathy, which is a refined and subtle type of osteopathic treatment, that uses very gentle manipulative pressure to encourage the release of stresses throughout the body, including the head. It is a specialised diagnostic and treatment approach following on from the discoveries of American Osteopath Dr William Garner Sutherland in 1898, who observed that the various bones of the cranium (skull) fitted together in a way that permitted (small) motion.

Subsequent study found that not only was motion present within the skull, but that slow rhythmic motions (independent of breathing and heart-rate) also existed elsewhere in the body. Nowadays "Cranial Osteopathy" is practiced all over the body, but the name remains, in homage to Sutherland's original discovery. This motion has known many names over the 100-odd years since, including Cranial Rhythmic Impulse, Inherent Motility, and the Involuntary Mechanism, although today it is most commonly referred to as the Primary Respiratory Mechanism (PRM).

The PRM consists of very slow motion. The slowest regularly observed rhythm has a cycle of approximately 100 seconds. Motion present includes Traube Herring Mayer (THM) vasomotor waves and independent metabolic motion. Using involuntary motion in the tissues, osteopaths can feel whether a person is working in the best way and if they are in an optimum state of health, or whether there is something preventing healthy movement of the tissue from occurring.

Cranial osteopaths diagnose and treat various characteristics of the motion observed using a finely-tuned sense of touch. ‘Visceral’ techniques are used in the management of conditions affecting internal organs. These involve gentle and rhythmical stretching of the visceral areas.
Patients often report an improvement in general well being, energy levels, sleep patterns and also in areas of symptoms other than those that bought them to the Osteopath in the first place. Not all osteopaths are trained in Cranial Osteopathy and it takes many years to become skilled. This treatment approach is gentle and highly appropriate for babies, children as well as adults.

Cranial Osteopathy in the treatment of Infants and Child Birth

A baby's passage through the birth canal is a difficult process and nature ensures that the bones of the skull are pliable enough to overlap to enable this to happen. Sometimes the bones do not return to their normal positions after delivery. This can happen if the labour is unusually long or short, if there is a large baby passing through a small pelvis, if a baby has a large head or if intervention is necessary for example a forceps delivery or ventouse extraction. A Caesarian birth may involve trauma to the baby who is stuck in the mother's pelvis. Alternatively, problems can occur in utero if there is insufficient amniotic fluid.

How will my baby tell me they need an Osteopath?

A baby will often communicate there is a problem by being unsettled, irritable or wakeful. Symptoms in a newborn baby to be aware of are:
•    colic
•    excessive wind
•    continuous crying
•    difficulty feeding or a preference to feed from one breast
•    sleeping difficulties
•    stiffness of the neck muscles
•    favouring the head to one side
•    a misshapen head

Cranial Osteopathy can be useful in treating a wide range of symptoms and conditions in children including the following:
•    ear infections and glue ear
•    back and neck pain
•    growing pains
•    headaches
•    behavioural problems
•    hyperactivity
•    speech problems
•    asthma
•    dental problems
•    co-ordination problems
•    developmental delay

Cranial Diagnosis requires an acutely trained sense of touch coupled with a fine discrimination as to the dysfunctions present in need of correction, and this can only be learned by years of study and training under skilled instruction. Please ensure you see a AOA registered osteopath.

What is the Biodynamic Model?

American Osteopath Dr James Jealous successfully combined Sutherland's "Cranial Osteopathy" with German embryologist Dr Erich Blechschmidt's "Biokinetics and Biodynamics of Human Differentiation" to form an approach to osteopathy that he called "Biodyamics of Osteopathy in the Cranial Field."
Where traditional Cranial Osteopathy had concerned itself with tissue lesions preventing full expression of the motion of the PRM, the Biodynamic Model was interested in the movement itself. Blechschmidt's work had established a correlation between subtle movements and metabolic fields in the developing human embryo, and Jealous began to investigate the effect of these movements on metabolic activity in adults. Jealous found that not only were developmental movements of the embryo and primary respiration (PRM) in the developed human one and the same, but that there appeared to be a correlation between primary respiration and the potency of self-repair (health) itself.

Thus a cranial osteopath working biodynamically is not concerned with tissue lesions, but with the direct apprehension and optimisation of the faculties of self-repair and self-correction.

An Osteopath working with the Biodynamic Model seeks first and foremost to understand Health as a verb.