Core Process Craniosacral Training
Core process craniosacral integrates concepts and skills from craniosacral biodynamics and core process psychotherapy, offering an approach to craniosacral therapy more akin to body oriented psychotherapy than to osteopathy. In core process craniosacral, biodynamic is understood from the post-Reichian perspective of Gerda Boyeson, rather than the embryological theory of Erich Blechsmidt favoured by osteopaths
Core process craniosacral acknowledges the client’s core self and the way in which the self forms and reforms a physical body with its musculature, tensions, postures and attitudes to protect, nurture and express itself. Core process craniosacral aims to establish a safe relationship with the client and invite change from within rather than imposing from outside. In this, the work is more akin to psychotherapy than osteopathy and the work is client led rather than directed by the therapist.
Module 1 Listening
This is the principal module in this series and the prerequisite for further study. The module is taught as if it’s all you’ll ever need and there really is no obligation to learn more. The skills you’ll learn can be integrated into existing therapy practice or used alone. The module can be repeated because: it’s constantly adapting and developing in the light of experience and in response to participants; it’s presented as a way to rest and resource as much as to learn.
The American osteopath, Rollin Becker, says that stillness is the key to healing the body-mind, as stillness liberates the potency contained within the breath of life. This thirty-hour course teaches therapeutic stillness within the context of craniosacral biodynamics. This is a practical course taught with the intention that participants carry away skills that can be integrated into their current therapy or bodywork practice.
This course teaches the fundamental concepts of craniosacral biodynamics with special attention on working with the emotional body, using a contemporary understanding of Reich’s body segments.
Generally, body-oriented approaches to psychotherapy use physical or psychological exercises to bring unconscious material (held as tensions in the body) to the surface where it can be consciously processed through some form of spoken dialogue. Apart from some notable and important exceptions, core process craniosacral offers a way of integrating unresolved experiences held in the body without the need for verbal processing. In this respect, we find some common ground with EMDR.
This course explores how we hold and organise unresolved experiences using the transverse structures of the body (thoracic inlet, respiratory diaphragm, pelvic bowl, etc.) The craniosacral techniques taught are those we can use to bring respectful attention to these structures and invite softening without demand.
Throughout the course we’ll search for a movement towards holism – not as an idea but as a shift in perception. This shift reveals the stillness within our own and within our patient’s being. Out this stillness the intentions of the healing process can manifest.
Module 2 The rivers of life
Andrew Taylor Still, the founder of osteopathy, always reminded his students, “to remove with gentleness all perceived mechanical obstructions to the free-flowing rivers of life (blood, lymph, and cerebrospinal fluid). Nature would then do the rest.”
In this module we’ll learn to apply the subtle listening skills learned in Module 1, bringing a gentle touch to bones, membranes, sinuses and the rivers of life. The module teaches a stand alone protocol as well as techniques to integrate into other modes of therapeutic practice.
Module 3 From trauma to love
Core process craniosacral is a form of bodywork freed from the complexity and ambitions of its osteopathic origins, and guided by the psychotherapeutic appreciation of the therapeutic relationship as the key to healing.
It’s said that the quickest way to recover from trauma is slowly. Core process craniosacral is the embodiment of slow, in that the pace of the treatment is set by the patient and is free from any expectation or ambition on the part of the therapist.
In core process craniosacral, we refer to resilience as potency, an intelligent expression of our life force, constantly responding to internal and external challenges. Traumatisation occurs when potency is overwhelmed. In this workshop, we will learn to engage directly with individual potency and work to develop a sense of individual and collective resilience using concepts and techniques of craniosacral biodynamics.
Module 4 Living your dying
“Becoming aware of how you handle turning points is experiencing yourself, is discovering how you live with a little dying. Living your dying is learning about the transformation arising from your turning points.” Stanley Keleman
During this workshop we will explore our own processes of letting go and beginning again and look at various approaches to little death and big death. We will also learn the craniosacral skills to work with people coming to the end of their life.
For more information please email me at the address below.