WHAT IS HOMEOCRANIAL THERAPY?
Homeocranial therapy is a unique combination and integration of the principles and practice of homeopathy and craniosacral therapy. I have been practising both therapeutic disciplines for over ten years and have discovered that they are gentle, safe and highly effective in promoting an individual’s innate, self-healing ability.
Dr. Samuel Hahnemann, the originator of homeopathy in the early nineteenth century, discovered that every human being was energised, organised and balanced by an innate ‘vital force’ which could be affected by adverse conditions, noxious stimuli or innate susceptibility. Hahnemann also realised that what can cause symptoms in a healthy patient can cure those same symptoms in a sick one, i.e. ‘like cures like’.
This idea of the ‘vital force’ is mirrored in the writings of Dr. Garner Sutherland, a medical osteopath in the early 1900s, who demonstrated that every human organism is ordered and balanced by a universal intelligence which is communicated to each cell by the ‘breath of life’ via the cerebrospinal fluid which bathes the central nervous system. This ‘liquid light’ is systematically distributed throughout the body through ‘primary respiration’ and the inner tides. This subtle motion is barely measurable with instruments but the hands of a trained therapist are able to perceive it.
In response to physical knocks or emotional stress, the body’s tissues contract. Sometimes, particularly when the shock is severe or occurs within an emotional situation, the tissues stay contracted. Any stresses, strains, tensions or traumas which have been stored in the body in this way will restrict the body’s functioning and may give rise to problems over the years. The effects may be both physical (such as back pain, migraine or digestive disorders) and emotional (such as anxiety or depression).
Restrictions in the body’s functioning show up in the way that craniosacral motion is expressed. Craniosacral Therapists are trained to feel this subtle motion in the body, and can use it to identify areas where there is congestion or restriction. In this way, they can identify the possible origin of a problem and reflect back to the body its pattern of holding. In doing so, the body is able to ‘let go’ of its restrictive pattern and return to an easier mode of functioning. As well as releasing the body’s tensions, this frees the energy which the body was previously using to hold itself in contraction. So, one of the benefits of the therapy is an increase in the level of energy available.
‘The sole mission of the physician is to cure, rapidly, gently and permanently’ - Dr Samuel Hahnemann
