This article follows my introductory article about the difference between craniosacral therapy and biodynamic craniosacral therapy.
Here I provide a more nuanced view of the differences between the two therapies, by discussing them as historical developments in a single field. These developments then became defined as different fields, or as therapies in their own right.
From cranial work in osteopathy to biodynamic craniosacral therapy
Cranial work emerged in osteopathy, eventually giving rise to the separate modality of craniosacral therapy. The new modality of biodynamic craniosacral therapy then emerged as a separate therapy over the past few decades.
The significant changes to each therapy are often attributed to master practitioners who then became teachers of their particular approach.
The foremost teacher of the biodynamic approach is Franklyn Sills, who describes bcst as “a paradigm of work in the cranial field”, although a biodynamic approach has also been taught within osteopathy by James Jealous, among others.
William Garner Sutherland
The beginnings of craniosacral therapy are attributed to an osteopath named William Garner Sutherland (1873-1954). As a student, he speculated that the bones of the adult cranium are not completely fused, but are capable of micro movements. Through personal and clinical research throughout his life, Sutherland discovered that subtle rhythms of expansion and contraction were present not only in these bones but more deeply in the body systems, particularly in the fluctuations of cerebrospinal fluid around the central nervous system. This includes the whole spinal cord, and the influence of the small, involuntary movements of the sacrum.
The free flow of these subtle rhythms was understood as important for the health of many body systems, and practitioners therefore sought to perceive these movements in their clients and develop techniques to remove any resistance and tensions impeding them. This original approach is often termed biomechanic, because it relies on analysing the problem and making mechanical adjustments to correct it, such as using a light pulsing pressure or instigating small movements at points on the head.
John Upledger
Through Sutherland’s lifetime this work was limited to trained osteopaths, but in the 1970s osteopath, John Upledger (1932-2012) became an important teacher and researcher, eventually teaching this work to non-osteopaths. After directly observing the motion of membranes while assisting in surgery, Upledger developed a version of cranial work more focused on the membranes within the cranial system and on flow of cerebrospinal fluid. He promoted a gentler approach to manipulations and argued that the background training of osteopathy was not necessary for this technique. He coined the term craniosacral therapy to define the field as separate from osteopathy in the cranial field, and training became available to many more practitioners.
Franklyn Sills
The shift to the biodynamic approach began in the mid-1980s when Franklyn Sills also began teaching non-osteopaths. Sills had an eclectic background that included in-depth practices of Buddhist mediations and psychotherapy as well as an apprenticeship in osteopathy. His practitioner trainings were initially a mix of biomechanical techniques and the biodynamic approach. An important change towards the biodynamic approach was the shift of focus away from the rhythms of the cranium and sacrum, and its particular fluid system, towards the rhythms and fluctuations of many body systems at many levels (including cellular), while maintaining a focus on the body as a whole, in its surrounding environment.
Biodynamic craniosacral therapy involved a shift in emphasis
Some important features of the biodynamic approach were not exactly new but rather a shift in emphasis, centralising ways of understanding healing and the body that were already present in Sutherland’s earlier work. Sutherland, and many osteopaths and craniosacral therapists who followed on from his pioneering work, grappled with understanding and perceiving the forces that underlie the development and maintenance of human physiology and form in a balanced and healthy state. In more current, scientific language, we can describe this as the way that life, including in human beings, self-organises both within an individual and in the repetition of patterns that we see in embryonic development and through the lifespan.
Biodynamic craniosacral therapy orients to the body’s ability to self-organise
Biodynamic craniosacral therapy orients to these organising forces as the most efficient way of restoring health. The emphasis in the biodynamic approach is not on the practitioner identifying and fixing a problem, but on finding the best way to support the body-mind system to heal itself, in relationship to the possibility to heal and reorganise that is always present in living forms. Mainly through Sills’ work, biodynamic craniosacral therapy became in some sense a protocol for supporting this reorganisation. The most important aspects of the therapy became providing a safe relational space and holding the client in a subtle relational field to bring forward natural healing, with reorganisation and releasing emerging from within the system itself.
One of the most important principles of the biodynamic approach, then, is that therapists do not generate strong intentions about what should happen in a session. While skills are necessary to establish the right space and relationship for the client, and to be able to observe changes in the client’s system, the overall quality of sessions is essentially one of non-doing. It seems that providing safe holding and attention, but without intent—this non-doing—can support deep healing and resourcing. It allows the body to reorient itself towards the deepest patterns of its own form and physiology and to unwind the patterns of its conditioning through an individual life.
This approach to therapy opens up new perceptions of the body, mind and nature to both practitioners and clients and can bring about sublime moments of profound stillness. Such moments are beyond easy explanation but are clearly healing and connecting when they are experienced. There is something very simple and natural about biodyamic craniosacral therapy. The central orientation of this therapy, towards life itself, can bring about the spontaneous emergence of deep compassion for all beings, and a sense of awe and reverence for nature.
While we can fairly easily make a clear distinction between biomechanical and biodynamic craniosacral therapy in the ways I have described (based on intentions, techniques and emphases), much still depends on the individual practitioner. Some osteopaths and craniosacral therapists will naturally take a biodynamic approach and focus more on listening to the body than intervening, while some trained biodynamically might be less adept at holding the perceptual state of non-intervention. Both techniques are part of a fascinating and continually developing story. As in all fields, differences and disagreements abound, but the fundamental difference between making mechanical adjustments or not, and between having an intention or not are arguably the most significant between the two therapies.