Cranialsacral Therapy pt.5

A client for massage told me they had TMJ problems. Speaking with them I recommended they come in for cranialsacral therapy. She seemed to be a balanced person, hard working, intelligent but this one issue plagued her for years.

She’d seen dentists, orthodontists and various medical professionals but no one seemed to be able to help. I worked with her then put on gloves to do work on her lateral pterygoids. She found it so tender I tried several times to sink in but with little luck. It takes finesse, a deeply relaxed client and frankly, time. You need time to settle and sink in and thirty minutes makes for a poor session.

I asked about her TMJ dysfunction and she said, “Well it’s more headaches.” I asked more questions to clarify and she said that the TMJ stuff didn’t hurt but the headaches kept her from really excelling at life. The pain, frequency and duration meant that she just got lost in life. Friends can’t help her, nor doctors and with no one to help, the pain just agonizes some days. I asked where they hurt and she made a motion with her finger, right through her eyes temple to temple.

Her lateral pterygoids which I’d been unable to relax are faulting her sphenoid. The muscles connect to the sphenoid, which is the keystone bone in the center of the head. It exits on either side of the cranium at the temples. As any boxer knows, the knockout punch is to the temples or the jaw, both put significant pressure on the sphenoid via its articulations and in response your bodies protection is to pass out.

I know what I think is right but clients are at times a hard sell on cranial bones moving, sphenoid what? Explaining all of this comes out of left field. What medical school did you go to? Life and love, the same that Jesus went to. Cranialsacral therapy is as much energetic as it is sound structure and function. One without the other is incomplete.

I never saw the client again. It’s sad to feel I can help but when they’re unwilling to do more than one session in a world where they want a single pill to fix things, my hands are tied. Healing is cooperative. I provide what I can in bodywork and education but the clients have to meet me with self care.

For this reason regular sessions are best with something like cranialsacral therapy. For most conditions I recommend a minimum of three treatments just to see if you have any benefit. At the most it may rid you of your health issue, at the least you’ll feel relaxed and calm.

Hopefully I can head to Big Sur, CA and take a class with Milne in the future. It’d be an honor to work and study with him.