“To find Health should be the object of the doctor. Anyone can find disease”
Dr. A.T. Still, founder of Osteopathy
Biodynamic Cranial Osteopathy is an intergral part of Cranial Osteopathy and Cranial Osteopathy is an integral part of Osteopathy. The same fundamental Osteopathic Principles apply and the same grounding in Anatomy/Structure and Physiology/Function.
So, if you are not familiar with What Osteopathy Is, please read this page first
If you don’t know about Cranial Osteopathy, read this page next
If you are familiar with Osteopathy and Cranial Osteopathy, and would like to find out more about Biodynamic Cranial Osteopathy, then read on…
I think Biodynamic Cranial Osteopathy is best understood in contrast to a more mechanical approach to the work. If we think in terms of polar opposites; Biodynamic Osteopathy is the Ying, the Feminine, the Left Brain approach to Osteopathic treatment. It puts a particular emphasis on recognising the part within the context of the whole, which opens up an ocean of opportunity.
Being aware of the space in between and around restrictions allows access to Health, movement and ease in even the tightest and most compressed parts of the body; Allowing them to become more like a green twig again; full of sap, bendy and elastic.
This approach is ideally suited to treating all patients; from Adults to New Born Babies & Children, During Pregnancy and As We Get Older.
The best analogy that I have come up with for this work is to imagine you are sitting on a small beach with a number of fishing boats on it. The tide has gone out and the fishing boats are all stuck on the sand. Rather than putting allot of effort into moving a particular fishing boat back out to sea, the Biodynamic Approach to Osteopathic Treatment uses the tide coming back in to lift all the boats effortlessly back in the Ocean.
Biodynamic Cranial Osteopathy (or as it has more recently been called Traditional Osteopathy ) is taught to post graduate Osteopaths in the form of 9 phases which I have completed with Christian Sullivan in the UK, over the course of a 9 year program. I specialise in the Biodynamic approach to Cranial Osteopathy and have been a tutor on the BioBasics course held in London for several years now.
More detail on the difference between Cranial and Biodynamic Osteopathy
Cranial Osteopathy for Babies, Children & During Pregnancy
Historical Background
Osteopathy in the Cranial Field (Cranial Osteopathy) was founded on the original work of Andrew Taylor Still (founder of Osteopathy), and later developed by one of his students William Garner Sutherland. The Biodynamic Approach to Osteopathy in the Cranial Field (Biodynamic Osteopathy and more recently known as Traditional Osteopathy) is also at the very core of what Still and Sutherland did. The term Biodynamic Osteopathy was coined by the late James Jealous DO (aslo know as Dr. Jim Jealous) and came from his study of the German embryologist and anatomist Erich Blechschmidt (and not from the Austrian-born philosopher Rudolf Steiner, although there are some similarities).
“At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
T.S. Eliot
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where.”
With 19 years experience as a Cranial Osteopath in Stroud, I treat people with these conditions on a daily basis;
- Back Pain
- Neck pain
- Joint Pain, including hip and knee pain from osteoarthritis
- Muscle Spasms
- Sciatica
- Cervicogenic Headaches
- Migraines
- Tension & Inability to Relax
- Arthritic pain
- Circulatory problems
- Cramp
- Digestion problems
- Fibromyalgia
- Frozen shoulder/ shoulder and elbow pain/ tennis elbow
- Generalised aches and pains
- Lumbago
- Minor sports injuries
- Neuralgia
- Rheumatic pain