An
Ontological View of Cranial Osteopathic thought
A Life within a Life
Solihin Malim Thom DO DAc
Cranial Fluid Dynamics - an introduction in 4 days:
February 3 - 6th 2005
Auckland, New Zealand
Osteopathy has passed its first
centennial, and has settled into a small vibrant niche
within the plethora of therapies and techniques that are
now taught as alternative medicine. Its inception in the
close of the nineteenth century and its development during
the twentieth, saw it blossom and find its niche to the
side of conventional medicine in Europe and merged into the
mainstream in America. Osteopathic manipulation is taught
as an adjunct today in many Osteopathic Schools here in the
US, just as cranial osteopathy was sidelined as an esoteric
or arcane practice in the late seventies and early eighties
in the UK.
Cranial Osteopathy was first introduced by Dr William
Garner Sutherland DO in the early forties, reintroduced,
popularized and disguised as Craniosacral Therapy by Dr
Upledger DO [1] and expanded into a
bioenergetic form by the likes of Franklin Sills, Paul Vic
and Hugh Milne, Roland Becker, James Jealous and Solihin
Thom.
The Tides and
Rhythm
The energetic Cranial models purport to utilize the various
rhythms and tides of the body. The prevailing contemporary
model argues that there is an innate rhythmicity within all
cells and tissues, which may be palpated as various cycles
as a sine wave. Modern osteopathic research regards the
rhythms to be a beat frequency epitomized by what is known
as the Traube-Hering oscillator [2] or rhythm - which is a
combination of a variety of physiological rhythms brought
into a coherent oscillation by palpation either through
involuntarily or directly affecting the abberrent rhythms
themselves. Hands-on therapy may apply minute force to
alter the sine wave back into physiologic ease or to access
what is known as the long tide, whose very long sine wave
takes the system into a deep stillness, whereby the 'innate
potency' or health of the organism re emerges, as it re
arranges its longitudinal or embryological axis and
relationships – bringing order back into the system.
The typical sine wave can be drawn as such:
In the classical superficial and summated cranial rhythm X
is a duration of approximately 6 seconds, and Y represents
its power, amplitude or force. This is classically seen as
the 'normal' cranial rhythmic impulse (CRI), and it is this
rhythm that most practitioners 'tune' into when they start
their training and practice. It is seen as superficial to
both mid and long tides. The midtide, is a much slower
deeper rhythm that the superficial tide, whose rhythm is
about 2.5 times a minute. The long tide palpates at about
100 seconds in its rise and fall – its upwelling is slow
and constant and also is characterized by a small resolute
amplitude. Within all of this inherent movement other
rhythms manifest, some of which are more on the surface or
superficial and others deep and hidden in the matrix of the
system.
The reality
of the organism - its order and nature
Plotinus, a student of Aristotle, wrote of a unified model
on the nature of the spiritual and the body or soma. This
emanation theology was later adopted by Judaic
Kabbalah [3] and elaborated upon, and
Islamic theology [4] around the turn of the last
millenia, and can be reconciled, in some degree, by modern
quantum physics. We can take their ontological speculations
and apply it to a physiological, neurological and psychic
model of our selves, bridging the gap between a
philosophical and practical down-to-earth model of how we
work.
In the later half of the last century the phrase phylogeny
recapitulates ontogeny [5] was often talked about, but
modern morpholgists and biologists would prefer to state
that they are intertwined rather than an absolute
recapitulation. Inherent in this phrase is an attempt to
illustrate that our past is imbedded within our
embryological development and that we contain the
historical and evolutionary blindspots, deadends, redundent
information but also resources of the many organisms that
have paved the way for the genus hominoid.
In that light we can recast perhaps our human genus as a
parallel entity whose natures - remnents from the other
realms – provide for us the elements within our corpus that
support the human creature.
In our embryological development we can make out a
distinctive, albeit artificial demarcation of four stages
in our differentiation. It is true perhaps that others have
tried to pin down our phylogeny with exacting parallels
with the other kingdoms - mineral, plant and animal, but we
can look at this development occuring in four stages.
Stephen Jay Gould suggests that heterochrony - the precise
signalling of genomic regulation help change developmental
timing, for this ontogeny of timing and phylogeny of
lineages and ancestors, nevertheless paves the way to us
retaining primitive or juvenile characterists of previous
species that give us not only our morphology but also
physiological and neurological flexibility.
[1] material [conception to zygote] our ground substance is
laid down, and we develop towards a...
[2] vegetal stage [blastocystic develoment] as our
ancillary support systems are formed. We then go through
an...
[3] animal [bird, mammal and ape; homo habilis] period from
the fifth to seventh month whereby we mature sufficiently –
and where survival (if born in the early months of this
last trimester) is possible and the...
[4] human [homo habilis] stage when the neocortex is being
fully fleshed out at the end of gestation.
In Platonic emanation theory and in modern quantum physics
the two models are not irreconcilable; but they are only
theoretical. Many modern new age thinkers have latched onto
the general idea of quantum physics [QM] as a saviour that
at some level authenticates energy medicine. It is tempting
to correlate the old with the new, and to bring old and new
maps together. Modern QM allows us to think of matter and
energy being interchangeable. Given time and differing
frequencies energy changes from potential to a force
actually affecting other elements around it. Bohr quantised
this, saying that electrons circling the nucleus of an atom
could only exist in discrete orbits or energy levels. When
they stay in these orbits they are stable, but when there
is a loss of energy - entropy - the orbiting electrons fall
to a lower orbit releasing energy as photons. When the
electron has been excited to another level they acquire or
take energy but become unstable. Bohr's explanation was
riddled with holes as it was initially good for an
explanation of the hydrogen atom, but De Broglie found that
material particles could also behave like waves, and thus
those electrons in their various orbits formed standing
waves – like a plucked violin string, and in so doing
created an indeterminacy to this subnucleur world as energy
and force, matter and energy were so inter related.
An emanation theory also can be interpreted on a
macrocosmic scale rather than microscopic. As in this
atomic and electron configuration the same theory may be
applied, or summised, within a general emanation theory.
The emanationists argued that there was an Absolute, the
Monad, out which aspects of this Unknowable emanated until,
resting in matter it sought out to Know itself. From this
Monad, came duality or the world of life, followed by a
tertiary element, a fourth and fifth and so on. We can see
this in a practical level by summising that the first
resting place of matter is the physical or material world,
out of which emerged over time, the plant or vegetal
kingdom, followed by the rise of the invertebrates and
vertebrates inhabiting the animal which is superceded or
added upon by the human kingdom. Sitting within us are the
elements that have preceded us, the memories that have
carried us forward and the culture that we rose from, the
genomic instructions, good and bad, redundent and otherwise
that sit deep within each cell. These elements have a force
and they carry within their own quanta the information of
what has been carried before as well as the potential for
other elements within its own nature to further manifest.
When the organism becomes disorganized then the Primary
Monad becomes hidden, and the organism ceases to be in the
flow or 'rhythm' of the Great Life.
Palpation
When we place our hands upon a human being we engage those
very resonances and listen-in to their call. This means
that the various oscillators that provide for the various
rhythms are either present, discordant or absent. By their
very absence they provide information, the altered rhythms
provides a clue, a wave field in the tissues - potential
energy now a force – reveals data.
The difficulty that we confront in cranial or any body work
is what does this tell us?
Do we need to know?
Should we embark on the techniques, specific models of
therapy which we rely on, and hope that the tissues will
change?
Will they change?
Does the human self need help or is it simply good enough
to treat them with our hands-on approach?
An alternative process - ontological kinesiology
To the questions above, we simply articulate that we
believe that the human self needs to know why we are sick
or in disarray. In this way we need an ontological approach
to help understand why we are sick.
To help this process, we introduce in our initial cranial
workshops a form of kinesiology which we term ontological.
This means that we use this form of feedback as a way to
ask the person to talk – albeit non-verbally – about the
root problem that initiated the pattern of dysfunction.
This form of binary switching - a muscle group turning 'on
or off', is a powerful yet potentially easily errent
process; so many safe guards, protocols and training goes
into this work to make it accurate, powerful, non invasive
and free of errors commonly found in this type of
kinesiology. To help us further, we utilize a language that
uses a non-verbal approach, that gets under the human
neocortical defence mechanisms and cleverness, to enable
the client to speak to us, using hand mudras or gestures.
Not un-alike sign language, they enable a skilled
practitioner to converse with a client in a very deep yet
non invasive level; enabling them to tell us of the root
patterns that underlie their disease, disquite or
dysfunction.
This use of kinesiology and the mudras gives us a capacity
to write a story, as each individual mode or gesture relays
the dynamic that has actually occurred with the client –
the stacking of the data, very like neurological summation,
gives us a clear picture as to the forces inherent within
the patient that maintains their pattern of dysfunction.
The process writes their story.
Practitioners are then instructed to hold the mechanism
with the client's story in their consciousness, as it is
this story that creates the force that holds the pattern.
In this way we see how the differing forces - the elements
that compose us, actually manifest and hold the client in
their influence – and it is the practitioner's ability to
understand the forces and to be present with them, that
enables the organism to re-arrange itself back into an
hierarchical order. This enables a true resolution to occur
and precipitates a gradual mindfulness, helping the client
take responsibility for their ills and the patterns that
they habitually fall into.
The
niche
These habitual patterns – whether cultural or memetic,
emotional or sensorial, habitual, instinctive or addictive
or simply mental idiosyncrasies or beliefs – create
patterns of disquite that allow the human organism to alter
the niche. We live in a niche just as all other life forms
do, but ours is cultural, economic, emotional and habitual,
intellectual and definitely hierarchical – we inhabit both
a dynamic but also a static set of environments taht make
up our particular niche. We are made up of a genomic self,
physiological, instinctual and human self. These four
aspects sit metaphorically in their own niche -
ontologically, phylogenetically and yet these elements can
be disarrayed, so that we become disorganized – the selves
manifest as forces, which alter the relationship of the
whole, causing differing aspects to take predominance, or
parts to be buried so to speak, or sent away as if
ostracised.
The altered relationship of these waveforms can be seen as
the consequence to an 'accident' – a moment in time which
exists only for that moment and may change dependent on the
observer and the observed. Any incident may become an
accident – in which case the elements become disarrayed and
then these forces, although unseen as we gaze at a human,
are in affect influencing all the aspects of the person.
The example above is when the material self occupies the
arena or realm of the feelings, and the feelings drop into
the realm of the material self – so that the feelings
become hidden, unconscious, in the dark, inaminate. The
genome itself is given life, so it begins to influence us
more effectively, and sometimes to our detriment as old
patterns then are given more weight.
Sometimes our feelings are hidden and our genomic,
instinctual and human self are undifferentiated, in a
bundle so to speak, so that our human endevours become
habitual and yet a habituated from our family patterns. As
our feelings are so hidden we cannot really sense what we
are doing, why and how to get out of the pattern.
Ontogenesis
In osteopathic literature we have made a hierarchical
assumption that places the animal and material elements in
a higher relationship than the vegetal, with scant regard
to the human self, which is rather lumped into the animal
component. The vegetal is placed as the foundational
resource that supports the systems above. The vegetal part
is our physiology that is seen as the provider for the
primary system. This creates an organism whose parts occupy
the wrong niche or hierarchical order.
If there is an order, then we could place our building
blocks on top of each other with our substrate at the base,
physiology second, locomotive and instincts third followed
by our neocortical self.
The four natures and the four rhythms
Hierarchically, the four natures – emphasized
embryologically as stages of development – can be mapped
out in the human body. Each part can reveal itself through
differing sub-rhythms which signal their influence. For
over twenty years, I have observed that the key is to
understand these sub-rhythms for they are the pattern that
upsets the primary display, and distort the harmonic
interplay of all the other physiological systems. If we
teach our students to palpate a single rhythm, then they
will find only one rhythm. If, on the other hand, we teach
that the "Sutherland rhythm" as the summation of many
rhythms, we can then notice that its alteration is an
accident or influence, the causal relationship of the part
of the whole. That is, each different rhythm tells us which
part of the human speaks or calls our attention. Some part
of our organism whether in its niche or placed or held by
us in an inappropriate relationship, becomes the accident
that affects the substance. This part of us tries to
influence us because it needs attention. It’s intention is
to direct us to the source of power that has an influence
over us.
– material -
vegetal - instinctual - human - 'normal' CRI –
Material
human
Material substance -– the accident is the signal /
Ancestral resonance
The material human is the body that we observe in a
standing examination. It is the frame by which the human is
slung over, enwrapping a fabric over the dense weave of our
skeleton, and enfolding a sea of parts within, to harness
our life. This is the cement, albeit living, that binds us
together, and portrays the nuance of the past in our
posture and stance, in our bony shape and our buttresses.
We mirror parts of the past and reveal our lineage through
our predilections, our inherited pathophysiology, and our
encoded pathologies. These signal us via the bones as an
almost imperceptible rhythm – a tiny vibration that has a
characteristic incessant oscillation. It has low amplitude,
takes little space, and does not, on the whole, become so
salient as to dominate the patient’s time and attention.
This barely perceptible rhythm is how the body signals us -
like a telephone without an amplifier - so we feel the
vibration of the spoken word but cannot hear the words in
the receiver. This is the calling card of our ancestral
patterns. Their noise is constant, yet they lie in the
background and therefore are almost never noticed until we
indicate this solid, archaic state or constitution through
our bony pains. When we have compressed fractures,
osteochondrosis, when vertebra loose their shape and bones
ache, or when we develop spurs and osteoporosis and bony
fractures we are indicating that a primary material force –
gravity, pulls us down towards the soil, towards the old,
the ancient, our heritage . Our ancestors herald us, as
they signal us, calling out the strength and power of that
selfish gene, the power of the material that we have
evolved from. This is our bedrock and foundation, and which
we have inherited from our forebears. This tries to force
us to look at our foundation and roots.
Vegetal human
Vegetal substance – accident is
time / past / roots / Ancestral call
If we do not notice the material oscillation or signal, we
simply over time, adapt to it. The body accommodates,
dependent on the myriad other accidents that have occurred,
which stymies the flexibility of the system. When our
inherent capacity to adapt starts to wane, the body begins
to amplify the signal so that we become aware of it. It
does this by changing the carrier. Instead of the bones, we
carry it in the substance of our soft tissue and organs.
This is the secondary system of our osteopathic model. Our
internal milieu holds the field occupied by the amplified
signal, and this is registered as noise in the system. As
we amplify the signal it becomes a field – it occupies an
area within (our tissues) and creates a force that exerts
an influence at every point. Our neurology records the
afferent signals and either stops it locally or sends the
message up to the mid brain and limbic system to compare it
to previous experiences.
If the noise in the system is familiar but new, then the
body will either send the data up to the mammalian brain
and cortex for further identification, or it will simply
react based on past experience. If the noise is habitual or
known it may simply mask the data. However the system
alerts the practitioner that the person is 'held'’ in time,
unable to move out of that state. People held in the
vegetal system are unable to be flexible enough to either
be attentive or cognitively aware of their emotional or
sensorial states. This non alive state is artificially kept
down by the human (who manages) to avoid confrontation with
those elements. The body indicates this through the nature
of the rhythm itself, altering it into low, flat sine wave.
Its characteristic. Is a long duration with little
amplitude. This means that when palpated, we feel little
power of dynamic present, and thus the patient is unable to
lift them from their state. Hence, these patients tend to
stay in their illness or dysfunction as they lack the
animal vitality to move them out of their state.
This is a vegetal, emotional-based life, water-logged or
fluid stasis in its essence. Their lethargy, poor thyroid
function and general debility means that the vegetal human
is in power, and that the person’s emotional life takes
precedence. Underneath this, there will be some ancestral
pattern or resonance that heralded this condition.
Animal
human
Animal substance – accident is the force of protection and
habit / the dura protects.
Many of us shrug off the aches and pains, slight discomfort
or adopt a laissez-faire attitude to ourselves. We fail to
notice or are ‘out of step’ with the underlying unease.
When situations are more immediate or life threatening the
body can directly and more effectively illustrate its
warning. It does this through our joints, fascia, dura and
muscles. Our locomotive mechanism – our mammalian cortex,
limbic system, rhinocephalon and cerebellum – directs our
capacity to act in life. This is the neuromuscular aspect
of our neuromusculoskeletal system. When the structures
that enable us to act in life are affected then the rhythm
again changes and illustrates the force of the information
carried. When the human becomes unable to move, unable to
act, moribund, when they become out of step with what
really is bothering them, then the rhythm changes to
amplify this situation. The sine wave has a higher
potential in its amplitude, and shorter duration. The speed
of the rhythm – quicker than normal - tells us the person
is held in the process of ?doing? a life rather than
?living? a life. This is the ‘A’ type personality, the
highly competitive athlete, the salesman – humans who
operate from a perspective of survival, protection and
action.
Protection
The nature of the animal self is to survive. It does this
by defining and protecting its territory, feeding and
mating. It provides the human with our work ethic, power
and strength, flight and fight, sexuality and courage. This
inbuilt animal mechanism is exemplified by the
axiomatically dura mater (protective / tough mother), which
is actually programmed to lead us off on a wild goose
chase. When we hold onto the dura we meet the wounded
animal. This is amplified when we follow the dura to unwind
the fascial mechanism. Its modus operandi is to provide
protection. It does this as the animal would do, taking us
off course so we are unable to find the truth around which
their being pivots. Finding the true fulcrum is often a
moot point and possibly gives credence to many osteopaths
who assert that unwinding, although spectacular, may not
actually result in resolution.
-
Human self
Human
substance – accident are the thoughts / Cerebral
asymmetrical movement
Humans may be well adapted and have systems that illustrate
a fundamental wholeness and unity in a vertical manner.
That is, their systems illustrate a healthy and functional
state. However, their psyche can be the root of their
problems or ills. Many people have robust constitutions
having inherited as such. What may ail them is within the
human mind. The clay or material nature of the brain itself
is what we inherit through our lineages just as we inherit
our skin, hair and eye color. Just as the tissue matrix of
our body illustrates our familial predispositions, so too,
does our minds. In our technological, literate society,
where knowledge has become paramount, the psyche takes a
bitter toil. It struggles with knowledge, for it has little
boundaries, but also is hindered by the mental patterns
inherited. The human mind, entangled by or sometimes
unfettered by knowledge, speaks through a completely
different rhythm. This is characterized by high and low
peaks, intermittent fluctuation, movements or two of
absence, without a still point. It can disappear, appearing
disjointed and un-integrated. This uneasy rhythm is
difficult to notice, tantalizingly difficult to sense, and
often disappears when our attention is focused upon it. It
reflects lofty un-tethered thoughts, castles in the sky, an
ungrounded imagination. Conversely, if the human mind has
shaped and woven beliefs and ideas that have entangled the
patient, the human rhythm may then feel entangled,
enwrapped, held down or too wide, possessing thoughts that
are too expansive without boundaries
-
Pathoneumonic
Although the cranial rhythm is not heard, it is felt and
its nature is pathoneumonic of the carrier from which we
are operating. Noticing the nature of the rhythm that
underlies the mechanism allows us to have a far broader
understanding of the patient’s state. That is, instead of
simply addressing the symptom that is being presented, we
may notice that there is an ancestral or inherited
predisposition deep within the system that signals its
disquiet and may well be the precursor to the accident or
repetitive trauma that has occurred.
Broadcast
signal
This is when we are aware of that tiny resonance deep
within the bony matrix. Clinical experience has shown us
that some bones hold patterns that are inherited and
manifest with a similar broadcast in all peoples, whereas
when other non specific bones hold a resonance they
broadcast a particular and specific set of instructions for
that person.
Receiver
Occasionally when we hold onto our patients, we may find
ourselves being drawn into a sombulent state, as we hold
onto a system devoid of its own power. We may find
ourselves ‘going out’ or suddenly loose consciousness. This
tell us that we have been drawn into or encountered a field
whose power pushes us ‘out’ suddenly, as we meet its force.
We may then enquire as to the person’s emotions or feelings
at that moment relevant to the present context.
Amplified
Likewise, when our attention is narrowed towards the fascia
or dural mechanism we must become aware of the nature of
the tissues. Through addressing the protective mechanism as
a delaying, obfuscating and defensive mechanism allows the
subtext to surface – familial pattern and /or emotional
history. The fulcrum around which the pattern has occurred
may well then present itself in a hidden manner. What is
being protected, what habit has made the path? What is it
that they defend, or hide?
Deciphered /
decoded
Palpating a rhythm that peters out, goes off or disappears
entirely may well signal us as physicians to enquire as to
the beliefs and conceptual maps that the person may hold,
that sends their primary human mechanism into a cerebral
torque , asymmetry or dysfunction within the ventricular
spaces. This may then help to decode or understand the
shape of the discordance from that initial resonance deep
within the base of themselves.
Addressing the repetitive pattern at its root, even in the
absence of knowing precisely what has been carried through
the DNA or code, may nevertheless allow the innate
potential of the body to recognize the predisposition that
had created the accident of the moment.
Conclusion
Sutherland and others have performed an extraordinary
service to bring us back to the model that the Creator
oversaw the evolution of a wonderful machine. However we
are in essence not merely a system, but an organism. We
contain a multiples of differing and often separate parts
all playing a role within us. When we begin to note that
our own consciousness dictates our own cranial rhythm, we
may then reconcile the model that the cranial rhythm
actually is a signal of an unexpected life within, and this
creates the rhythm.
Notes
1 –
Upledger writes: One major difference between cranial
osteopathy and CranioSacral Therapy is the quality of
touch. Practitioners of CranioSacral Therapy use a
light touch that has been scientifically measured at
between 5 and 10 grams or 1/16 to 1/3 of an ounce.
That's about the weight of a nickel resting in the palm of
the hand. No invasive or directive forces are used in
CranioSacral Therapy. This gentle quality often
belies the effectiveness of the therapy as most clients
report feeling nothing more than subtle sensations during a
typical session. In general, the manipulations used
in cranial osteopathy are sometimes heavier and more
directive.
Also, in cranial osteopathy [OCF], the focus is on the
sutures of the skull bones. CranioSacral Therapy,
however, focuses more upon the dura mater membrane system
and the hydraulics of the craniosacral system as primary
causes of dysfunction. Since the dura mater attaches
to the bones of the skull, these bones serve as handles for
the therapist to access the craniosacral system
membrane. Both CranioSacral Therapy and cranial
osteopathic techniques involve the sacrum and coccyx, in
addition to the cranium.
Many practitioners of contemporary OCF would refute the
notion of a fixation upon sutures, although for many old
time osteopaths a mechanohydraulic approach was the way
they came into the science and art of cranial osteopathy.
2 - Traube-Hering-Mayer waves: Discovered in 1865 by
Traube, confirmed four years later by Hering and are
thought to be tonal vasomotor variations that alter blood
pressure, with a frequency of about 6 - 10 cycles per
minute. Sigmund Mayer described similar oscillations in
1876 but described them as low frequency, non-synchronous
with a ventilatory pattern. See also – J Am Osteopathic
Assoc mar;101(3):163-73 Cranial rhythmic impulse related to
the Traube-Hering-Mayer oscillation: comparing
laser-Doppler flowmetry and palpation. Nelson KE, Sergueef
N, Lipinski CM, Chapman AR, Glonek T. [Department of
Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine, Chicago College of
Osteopathic Medicine of Midwestern University, USA.]
3 - The original seed ideas that are now seen as the
kabbalah slowly crept into Jewish thought between the 8th
and 13th century, although most scholars think that it was
probably developed around the thirteenth. It incorporates
Chaldean, Egyptian, Gnostic and other old pagan ideas, as
well as Platonic and Aristotelean thought.
4 - Ibn Al Arabi, Ibn Sina [Avicenna] and Burani were
Islamic theologians who took the original Hellenistic
emanation theories of Plotinus and recast them into an
Islamic theology.
5 - Ontogeny is the embryonal development process of a
species, and phylogeny is the species evolutionary
history.