Exploring Cranial Osteopathy: A Holistic Approach to Healing and Balance

Have you ever heard of a medical procedure that claims to improve your general health by carefully manipulating your skull? Then check out cranial osteopathy, the modality of osteopathic treatment that is so subtle yet one of a kind, dealing with balance and harmony with the natural cycles of your body. The cranial osteopath leicester knows well that often areas of the body affected by past traumas, such as accidents or old injuries, may have “learned” to compensate for such traumatic events or injuries, so much so that they are subject to symptoms that are still present after a long time, without the patient being aware of it. 

Osteopathic perception by touch, and therefore manipulative treatment, is very important, as the cranial osteopath leicester works to activate the body’s innate ability to heal itself, offering delicate and specific support where necessary to bring the tissues back into a state of balance and release, to restore the state of health.

Historical Background

It was William Garner Sutherland, a student of Still, who started this osteopathic approach when while dismantling the bones of a skull he was struck by the similarity of the articular surfaces of the bones to the gills of a fish, which recall both movement and respiration. This gave rise to decades of further studies until the definition of his cranial model according to which the mechanism of primary respiration and the mobility of the sutures of the neurocranium and viscerocranium are inherent phenomena, present in all living organisms, independently of thoracic respiration and the cardiac impulse.

Sutherland perceived movement in the falx cerebri and the tentorium cerebelli, which are the largest of the folds of the dura mater, the intraosseous membranes of the skull, called the meninges. Sutherland observed that their intrinsic movement follows a well-defined pattern of contraction and expansion. He called this rhythmic movement of the dural membrane system the Reciprocal Tension Membrane System (RTM).

There are five aspects to what Sutherland called the “Primary Respiratory Mechanism”:

• joint mobility of the skull bones
• sacrum’s involuntary movement between the iliac bones
• the Reciprocal Tension Membrane (MTR) system
• neural tube motility
• the intrinsic fluctuation of the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF).

What does osteopathy consist of in the cranial field?

Cranial Osteopathy applies the same concepts articulated by Osteopathy’s founder, Andrew Taylor Still, while cultivating a keen sense of palpation that enables a cranial osteopath leicester to detect minute motions and imbalances in the body’s tissues, thereby addressing the body’s innate capacity for self-rebalancing.

This approach is called “cranial osteopathy” because it includes osteopathic treatment of the head as well as the rest of the body, but that doesn’t mean that cranial osteopaths only treat the head – it is a very subtle approach of palpating and treating ALL the tissues of the body and is equally effective and relevant to every part of the body.

It is a very gentle approach that can be applied to all age groups, including babies and children. The cranial osteopath leicester uses their finely honed skills to palpate involuntary movement or tissue movement throughout the body at a very subtle level. Osteopaths often refer to this silent palpation as “listening,” which allows us to grasp past traumas and injuries and, on a deep level, improve the body’s natural healing ability, restore its health, and the integration of body, mind, and spirit.

In the end, cranial osteopathy provides a distinct viewpoint within osteopathy as a whole, enabling practitioners to treat the mental and physical aspects of health. Seeing a trained cranial osteopath leicester can result in life-changing experiences for people looking for this type of specialist care.