What is biodynamic craniosacral therapy?
Biodynamic craniosacral therapy is a type of bodywork that uses very light touch
Biodynamic craniosacral therapy (or BCST) is a gentle form of bodywork that combines body awareness and therapeutic support. Therapists use light touch and observation within a calm and settled environment. During the therapy clients lie down, fully clothed, on a massage table, while the therapist makes a series of hand contacts to interact with the client’s body system.
Unlike most other forms of bodywork, biodynamic craniosacral therapists do not adjust, move or manipulate the client’s body. Clients usually remain relatively still during the session. The therapist’s contact and attention is enough to set healing processes in motion. Biodynamic craniosacral therapy amplifies the body’s ability to heal itself. It is useful for a broad range of physical and emotional conditions.
Biodynamic craniosacral therapy creates a sense of safety for the body and mind
The most important principle in biodynamic craniosacral therapy is safety. Therapists use a variety of skills and techniques to provide the client with a sense of complete safety. These include asking permission before making or changing contacts, as well as inquiring about and responding to the client’s moment-to-moment experience. In this environment of safe verbal engagement, the therapist’s consistent, light touch provides a strong physiological signal of safety for the body and mind.
The therapist uses a neutral style of attention that follows the needs of the client’s body system rather than the therapist’s intent or idea about what should happen. Biodynamic craniosacral therapy is a remarkable and unique way of engaging with the body and mind that connects with the body’s natural ability to release tension and trauma, to heal itself.
Biodynamic craniosacral therapy is a trauma-informed therapy
Biodynamic craniosacral therapy is a trauma-informed therapy. Therapists use skills and strategies to help clients allow uncomfortable feelings and sensations to emerge and resolve, without them becoming overwhelming or re-traumatising.
One of the most beautiful aspects of this therapy is that it can help people recover from the debilitating effects of trauma without ever having to discuss or go over the details of what happened to them. It also means that complex childhood traumas that may not be traceable to a specific event, or even be consciously remembered, can be healed simply through attending to present-time body experiences, in the context of a safe therapeutic relationship.
Biodynamic craniosacral therapy can be deeply relaxing and resourcing
During a session, the client often moves through different states or levels of relaxation. While this might sound unusual, these states are quite clear to the therapist and usually also to the client. The body often makes small adjustments within itself as experiences arise and pass away, and the body then learns to settle into a deeper way of relating within itself. Clients often feel more whole in a physiological sense as well as deeply relaxed, while remaining alert and energised.
Biodynamic craniosacral therapy is truly a mind-body therapy that can assist with physical, mental and emotional conditions and issues. It is particularly useful for chronic, systemic problems affecting the nervous or immune systems as it supports the body to gradually unwind itself. This therapy has a strong orientation towards finding the health rather than the disease in a person and can have a deeply resourcing effect on both the body and mind.
Biodynamic craniosacral therapy treats the whole body
BCST developed from craniosacral therapy, which emerged within the field of osteopathy. While all of these therapies are still based on the principle of treating the whole person and the whole body, they are actually quite different.
Despite its name, biodynamic craniosacral therapy isn’t really about the bones of the head (cranium) and lower back (sacrum), although some therapists might focus on these more than others. Biodynamic craniosacral therapy is much more about providing the right kind of attention and contact to allow the body to find its own way to greater health and resilience.