Category: Craniosacral therapy

Doing Voodoo On Your Spine (Not)

In the fifteen years since integrating Reiki with my bodywork sessions, I’ve only had one client get creeped out by it.

Oddly, she was a craniosacral therapist, and thus (I thought), should have known better. Craniosacral therapy, like other forms of “energy work,” is..subtle, and attracts attention from Quackwatch. The practitioner puts her hands on your head with surpassing gentleness and does…almost nothing.

People often get substantial relief from pain and other symptoms after receiving it, however, so craniosacral therapists continue to make a living.

My clients seem to respond to the Reiki, so I keep using it. My current theory about why it works is one part subtle stimulation of the nervous system, triggering a relaxation response, and one part placebo effect. If I want to visualize a healing purple light pouring through my hands and intelligently directing itself toward my clients’ malaise, well, it keeps me entertained. And lots of people like that sort of thing.

But after the craniosacral therapist became visibly uncomfortable, I stopped the Reiki immediately and checked in with her after the session. Respecting my clients’ boundaries is a top professional responsibility, and I let her know it. We’re cool.

The interesting thing to me, however, is that subtle forms of therapy often seem to be as effective as more aggressive treatment, if not more so. There’s still lot we don’t know about the nervous system. Often all the body needs in order to heal itself is the tiniest little nudge, where all the manhandling in the world does nothing.

The Roots of Chronic Pain

New research shows direct hormonal links between childhood trauma and adulthood disease:

There are two pieces of information that really provide the bridge to understand the connection between emotional trauma and adult disease, and the HPA axis is one of those pieces. The other is epigenetics. It starts with the hypothalamus in the brain, so that when we perceive any kind of threat to ourselves through the senses, through eyes or ears or nose or touch or whatever, that message comes into the brain and hits the hypothalamus. Then hypothalamus sends the message to the pituitary gland, which sits just below it, which in turn sends the message to the adrenal glands, which sit on top of each of the kidneys. This generates the flow of adrenaline and cortisol in the body. Adrenaline and cortisol are the hormones of stress. So there’s a connection between the hypothalamus, the pituitary, which is part of the endocrine system, and the adrenal gland, which is part of the immune system. That means that what happens to us emotionally affects our immune and endocrine functions.

When that happens early in life and chronically, it disregulates that whole system. “Trauma” means that stress is occurring over and over again chronically, so the HPA gets revved up and stays in the red zone. It upsets literally all of our physiology, activating the genetic proclivity we might have for whatever disease, setting the stage for it in the beginning, and oftentimes those systems don’t appear later in our lives until after our reproductive years. There is often a total disconnect between those diseases and its root in early chronic emotional trauma.

This is something I’ve suspected for years. I’ve noticed a strong correlation between my clients with chronic pain conditions–fibromyalgia, migraines, PTSD, anxiety, and vague neurological disorders such as primary lateral sclerosis(PLS)–and explicit or implicit childhood trauma. Often these clients have been further abused at the hands of a Western medical system which dismisses their pain and disability as ‘psychosomatic’ because doctors cannot pinpoint a specific cause.

As the linked article goes on to discuss, it is much harder to reverse this process than to prevent it. But that doesn’t mean there’s no way of addressing it in adulthood. The nervous system is plastic; if it is possible to mess it up through repeated stress, it is also possible to re-wire it. Bodywork is an excellent place to start. Massage therapy, craniosacral therapy, andnetwork spinal analysis all work directly and gently upon the nervous system to stimulate release of trauma and deep relaxation.

This is not a rapid process. Generally speaking, the more deeply rooted the trauma, the longer it takes to unwind. Our ‘silver bullet’ medical system tends to want to treat everything with surgery or a pill; nobody likes to hear that chronic conditions are, well, chronic. On the other hand, spending an hour or four a month on a massage table is a lot more enjoyable than pills or surgery. Isn’t that a piece of good news?

The Perils of Positive Thinking

Now, I’m not going to name any names. Let’s just say that There are Those Out There who will tell you, with great fluidity and earnestness, that you are what you think. That “your attitude determines your altitude.” That changing your mind will change your life. They will tell you this in a spiritual context, in a relationship context, in a financial context, in a healing context.

And without naming names, or going into detail, I will allow that they are partly correct. The mind is an amazing thing. Recent research into the placebo effect indicates that the brain releases endorphins that alleviate pain even when youknow you’re taking a placebo. Your thoughts can actually program your body for health or destruction, as well as for many things in between.

However, many New Age healers take this paradigm a step too far. They will kindly, earnestly and abusively tell a sick person that they ‘created their illness,’ and, by implication, that they can cure themselves by will alone. This is the kind of thing that generates  much antipathy toward New Age healers in certain circles.

heart

“Heart,” oil on canvas, 36″x 48″, Stephanie Lee Jackson 2007.

Two things. First of all, the mind-body connection is not a one-way street. It is a feedback loop. As much as your state of mind can affect your body (psycho-somatic), the state of your body certainly affects your mind (somato-psychic). There are a few people with such naturally sunny dispositions that their minds carry their bodies on an effortless wave of health and prosperity, but those aren’t most of us. Most of us get crabby when we have a headache, let alone a major illness, and we’re not going to think our way out of it.

Second of all–and this is something I’ve only discovered after years of giving and receiving both thought-based therapy and bodywork–your body locks in thought patterns that can only be accessed somatically. The reason you can’t will your way out of an injury or illness (besides the obvious) is that most somatic memory lies beneath the level of conscious awareness. Trying to ‘change your thoughts to attract health and abundance’ when you have oodles of trauma locked in your tissues only creates guilt, frustration, rage and misery.

In my experience, undertaking a healing path is a continuous, spiraling journey. Entertaining a new way of thinking can help a lot. I have undergone surges of positive thinking which performed as advertised–they attract health, joy, abundance and fabulous new friends. However, I have just as often fought my own thoughts for decades, only to have an expert bodyworker fiddle with my arm, my solar plexus or my big toe and trigger an unforeseen breakthrough, both physically and psychologically.

What Kind of Massage Should I Get?

The spa menu! Was there ever a thing so enticing, and simultaneously bewildering? ‘Bamboo Raindrop Swedish Scalp Treatment’! ‘Ayurvedic Aromatherapy Deep Tissue Scrub’! ‘Lavender Acupressure Intensive for Neck Pain’! ‘Meditative Earth Massage with Reflexology’? How in the world do you decide which one you need?

The dirty secret is, 90% of all this is marketing. Spas throw together these scrumptious-sounding confections so that they can charge you more money. That’s not to say the massage won’t be worth it; you just can’t tell by the packaging.

Your best bet is to shop around for a therapist who suits you. The technique is only as good as the therapist; anyone who is mechanically applying a particular treatment is not going to perform any miracles. And miracles are what you’re after!

With this in mind, here is your handy guide to deciphering the most common terms on spa menus.

Swedish Massage: This is basic. You take off your clothes, and the therapist rubs you with cream or oil in long, swooshing strokes. It’s nice. If the therapist is following the letter of the law, however, it won’t be much better than nice; if you’ve got a lot of knots, as most of us do, it can be screamingly frustrating. Your therapist will glide right over those festering areas, giving them no more and no less attention than the top of your hip bone. And few people ever get trigger points at their iliac crest.

Deep Tissue: Swedish, only tougher. Your therapist will go after those knots, possibly using elbows; your body will get a workout. However, the joy and relief you get from this is highly dependent upon the skill of your therapist. Some poor souls are imbued with lasting terror of deep tissue, after a ham-fisted masseuse left bruises that stayed for a week. A sensitive therapist will only go as deep as your body allows. If you flinch, tense up or cry out, and the therapist doesn’t immediately back off, don’t go back.

Shiatsu: Shiatsu is an Eastern modality that is traditionally performed on the floor, fully clothed. It involves the mobilization of joints, stretches, and pressure with cupped hands, thumbs and elbows, in specific patterns calledmeridians. Many people swear by it, particularly for back pain. Most Western therapists, however, don’t do straight Shiatsu, partly because it’s hard on their backs, partly because there’s little market for it. An experienced and well-trained practitioner will integrate some Shiatsu moves into a Swedish sequence, insuring that those meridians stay balanced.

Aromatherapy: A serious aromatherapist will interview you closely about your moods, health concerns, stress levels and daily habits before putting together a specific combination of natural essential oils to boost and tone your immune system, emotional condition and spiritual state. If you are getting ‘aromatherapy’ at a spa, this will not happen. It just means that your massage comes with scented oil instead of unscented. Ask to sample the oils before your massage, and ask if they’re natural or synthetic; synthetic oils have no therapeutic properties whatsoever.

Now we come to the more esoteric modalities of massage; the ones that you may reach for if you’re suffering from chronic pain, illness, or undiagnosed disorder that baffles your physician. Some of them may be effective; others may do nothing. Most of them won’t hurt you.

Neuromuscular Massage: This modality focuses on the elimination of trigger points, those areas of acute sensitivity that may radiate down a limb, or up into your skull, causing restriction of movement and chronic pain. A good massage therapist will be able to detect and treat these trigger points during a Swedish/Deep Tissue session, and eliminate them as part of the day’s work.

Since many massage therapists are just going through the motions, however, your chances of getting a thorough trigger-point tune-up are vastly increased if you go to one who explicitly states that they are neuromuscular-capable. At the very least they should be able to tell the difference between a trigger point and a tendon.

Reflexology: This is another Eastern modality that maps the body onto the soles of the feet, and intensively works your feet in order to stimulate healing responses elsewhere. It can be a particularly relaxing treatment if you are too sensitive in other parts of your body to tolerate direct massage.

Craniosacral Therapy: If you’re suffering from chronic neck pain due to whiplash, PTSD, or severe malaise of the nervous system, you might want to give this a try. It is extraordinarily subtle; the therapist places hands on your neck and skull and senses the pulses of your central nervous system, allowing the system to gently balance itself with minimal assistance. The theory is that bones in the skull are mobile, not fused, and the treatment brings these bones into proper alignment.

This theory, however, is controversial. Whatever is objectively happening during a craniosacral session, many clients find it deeply relaxing.

Reiki: This lightest-of-light energy modality is as controversial as it is popular. If you go to a practitioner who integrates Reiki with a more traditional massage session, you can soak in any potential benefits of Reiki while still getting your sore muscles kneaded.

Thai Massage: This is like passive yoga; massage connoisseurs say there’s nothing like it. You lie on a floor mat, and the practitioner bends, stretches and rocks your body in a way which give you a workout without the sweat. Look for an uptick in Thai popularity presently!