Osteopathic Cranial Treatments
Catherine Henderson offers holistic osteopathic cranial treatments for adults and children of all ages, promoting self-regulation, recovery, and optimal health by addressing the interconnectedness of the body’s structures and functions.
Osteopathic Cranial Treatment for Adults
Catherine uses her hands to evaluate and treat a wide range of conditions, using gentle techniques that that cooperate with the body’s own self-healing mechanism.
Osteopathic skills apply detailed anatomical knowledge, gently sensing through layers of tissue to uncover and release strain patterns that have developed in response to an original injury, accident, surgery or birth trauma. The symptom that brings a client for treatment may have a cause from elsewhere in the body, and discovering this is the detective work of the practitioner.
Osteopathic treatment may resemble craniosacral therapy, however osteopathic training is much more extensive.
What Does an Osteopathic Cranial Session for Adults Involve?
After a detailed history and physical assessment, the client lies down on the treatment table. Loose comfortable clothes are recommended, not jeans. Evaluation and treatment often proceed simultaneously with the practitioner using gentle touch to assess tissue function and structural dynamics. The feet, pelvis, spine, ribcage, and head may be held during a typical session.
Clients may feel deeply relaxed and even fall asleep. Sensations may be felt moving around the body as releases take place. There may be tiredness following the session as the nervous system releases deeply, or there may be temporary discomfortas the body readjusts. As symptoms clear, there is often a sense of improved well-being and health.
What Conditions Can Benefit from Osteopathic Cranial Treatment
Pain . Injury and Accidents . Post-surgical recovery and rehabilitation . Brain Injury . Digestive complaints . Dental/Orthodontic problems . Neurological conditions . Recurrent illness and infection . Pregnancy: to treat and prevent complications including musculoskeletal pain, nausea and reflux, and to promote normal labor and delivery . Postpartum recovery . Scoliosis . Insomnia . Menstrual and menopausal issues
Osteopathic Cranial Treatment for Children
Children’s bodies are very malleable, and they recover quickly from injury and illness. However, the body can often compensate for a restriction, and pediatric check ups can prevent issues from manifesting when older. Effects of a difficult birth, or falls and accidents, or surgery can be held long after the event.
Challenges from birth can manifest as colic (often a headache) or inconsolable crying. Strain during birth on the sucking and swallowing muscles can cause feeding challenges. Treatment of falls, accidents, and surgery is recommended soon after the event, as the effects of these often cause later compensations which manifest in other ways.
What Does an Osteopathic Cranial Session for Children Involve?
This treatment involves very gentle touch. There are no manipulations or strong maneuvers. Babies may be treated across the parents’ lap or on a pillow, so they maintain contact. Toddlers may be treated on the floor, with interesting toys to distract them. They are only required to lie down for a short period, and usually enjoy the relaxing sensations of a session. Once old enough, children lie on a treatment table and play or read with their parents’ help.
What Childhood Conditions Can Benefit from Osteopathic Cranial Treatment
Injury and Accidents . Birth Trauma . Recurrent infection . Learning and behavioral difficulties . Developmental Delay . Headaches . Dental/ Orthodontic problems . Sleep issues, including nightmares and night terrors . Anxiety . Scoliosis . Recurrent infections including ear infections
Session fees
New clients
Initial adult visit: $205
Initial child (under 14): $130
Follow-up sessions
Adults: $145
Child (under 14): $90
($5 discount on follow-up sessions with cash or check)
New client forms
History
Osteopathy is the original integrated medicine in the US. Dr. Andrew Taylor Still was a surgeon, whose insights into the role of the spinal nerves and blood vessels as a communication system with the whole body became Osteopathy.He postulated that injuries to the spine and associated muscles could affect organs and limbs as well as local tissues. and thus cause dysfunction and pain. He developed a form of manual medicine ,and opened the American School of Osteopathy, in Missouri in 1871.
Many lineages of manipulative medicine developed from his pioneering work. Chiropractic, rolfing, myofascial release, many physical therapy methods, visceral treatment and craniosacral therapy all derive from osteopathy.
Cranial Osteopathy
Dr William Sutherland, a student of Still’s, developed Osteopathy in the Cranial Field. He applied osteopathic concepts to the anatomy and physiology of the skull and central nervous system. He palpated subtle expansion and contraction movements in the brain, meninges, bones, fascia, and fluids and named it the Primary Respiratory Mechanism, because it drives all the body functions and is the foundation for metabolism. This gentle treatment is applicable to babies and children, as well as adults.
The Primary Respiratory Mechanism is a living system, breathing, fluctuating and responding to its environment. The practitioner learns to access and engage this fluid perceptual field with its associated rates and rhythms . In addition to treating injuries of the head, brain, and spinal cord, cranial osteopathy helps the client adapt to and recover from stress, achieve and maintain homeostasis, and build a functional reserve.
The Biodynamic Approach
A Biodynamic Approach to Osteopathy in the Cranial Field (BOCF) was developed by James Jealous DO in the 1980s as a continuation and renewal of osteopathy.
Inspired by Sutherland’s discovery of Primary Respiration, Dr. Jealous applied this new knowledge and understanding to the study of human growth and development .Through the work of embryologist Erich Blechschmidt (whose use of the term “biodynamic” in describing embryological growth forces led to its use by Dr. Jealous), Dr. Jealous found further scientific evidence that organizational forces and fluid motion in and around the human embryo create living form and precede structure. This led him to an understanding of the embryo as an archetype of perfect form, and to the discovery that the forces of embryogenesis are the same forces of healing and regeneration that occur throughout life.
Like all traditional osteopathy, BOCF is primarily learned by apprenticeship, with teacher and student working one -on -one with clients in a clinical setting.
Osteopathic training in the UK and Europe is based on a 4 year course, using 100%manual methods to treat outpatients, without drugs.
In the US, Osteopathic Physicians train in osteopathic medical school and practice primary care. A small percentage of their time is spent learning manual methods, and DOs (Doctors of Osteopathy) who use these methods in full-time practice have spent many additional hours in post-graduate training.
Craniosacral therapy, developed by John Upledger DO, in the 1980s, is derived from cranial osteopathy, and taught over a few weekends. It does not include the osteopathic philosophy, or extensive anatomical, physiological and diagnostic courses osteopaths study, and there is no certification to ensure the standard of training.
Catherine uses her extensive training in osteopathy, both in a four year course in the UK, and many courses with Dr Jealous over 35 years. Her primary approach is BOCF, weaving in other methods as needed.
A lifelong interest in birth also underpins her work. She has trained in pre- and perinatal psychology with Dr William Emerson and Dr Ray Castellino, and worked as a doula in the Bay Area. She believes untreated birth patterns underlie many adult issues, both physical and emotional.
She has studied Voice Dialogue, Jungian psychology, the movement practice of Continuum and Sufi and Celtic meditation practices, and incorporates these into her work.