What is Craniosacral Osteopathy?
Osteopaths who use Craniosacral techniques are traditionally trained (a 4 to 5 year degree) and then undertake extensive post-graduate study in alternative techniques originally pioneered by an American osteopath, Dr. William Garner Sutherland, in the 1930’s. We tend to think of our skull (the cranium) as one bone, when in fact it begins as several bones linked together by joins called sutures. These are obvious in the infant skull, because the bones have not yet hardened and the sutures aren’t yet fully joined. Although they finally fuse by about age eight or nine years of age, Sutherland pioneered the theory that small tolerances of movement can exist even into adulthood. The soft tissues and membranes of the skull and spine form a continuous link between the cranium and sacrum. The sacrum, which is formed from the fusion of five vertebrae, is the wedge shaped bone at the base of the spine. It fits between the two main pelvic bones (ilia), where small rocking movements should occur a
