These healing modalities use the therapist’s hands diagnostically, perceptually, and therapeutically. Years of training to understand skeletal and muscular anatomy is required to facilitiate this high-touch therapeutic work.
What is Rolfing Structural Integration®?
Developed by Dr. Ida P. Rolf in the 1940’s, Rolfing Structural Integration®, or Rolfing®, is a form of bodywork that combines directed movement by the client with hands-on manipulation by the therapist to release restrictions in the body in a progressive and cumulative manner. The goal of Rolfing® is to change the body’s physical structure in order to help it reclaim its optimum natural alignment and balance in gravity. Rolfing® works directly on the most malleable structural element in the human body, the network of soft tissue called fascia that maintains reciprocal tension throughout the body and in fact, creates each individual’s unique shape.
What is Craniosacral Therapy?
Craniosacral Therapy (CST) is an offshoot of cranial osteopathy. It was pioneered and developed by John E. Upledger after extensive scientific studies from 1975 to 1983 at Michigan State University.
Like Rolfing®, CST is a hands-on process. It uses a highly trained sense of touch to identify and treat restrictions in the body’s fascia. As noted, fascia is the material that interconnects and affects all the areas of the body both structurally and functionally.
However, CST differs from Rolfing® in that it is inherently gentler and more subtle. Its primary focus is on the evaluation and enhancement of the movement of the bones of the cranium in order to strengthen the production, resorption and cyclic flow of Cerebrospinal Fluid (CSF). Healthy functioning of CSF has a direct influence on the health and functioning of the nervous, musculoskeletal, vascular, lymphatic, endocrine, and respiratory systems.
By facilitating the body’s innate healing processes, CST can release tensions deep in the body to help reduce pain, relieve dysfunction, and improve whole-body health and performance.
What does Craniosacral Therapy feel like?
Craniosacral Therapy is very gentle and relaxing. Some people are aware of sensations such as mild tension, aching or sensitivity that gradually disappear. Others experience feelings of warmth and deep relaxation. Some people even fall asleep during treatment. In some instances, people are unaware of anything happening during the session but feel very different afterwards.
What conditions does Craniosacral Therapy treat or manage?
CST views the living body as a self-renewing, self-regenerating, self-recuperating whole that strives to constantly maintain health throughout life. Therefore, it is concerned with strengthening the body’s natural health-maintenance systems rather than simply treating symptoms.
Individuals have reported that CST has proven helpful with the following conditions.
Chronic pain
Complex regional pain syndrome
Fibromyalgia
Headaches/migraines
Neuralgia
Post-concussion syndrome
Scoliosis
Stroke
Temporomandibular joint syndrome
What is Muscle Energy Technique?
Muscle Energy Technique (MET) is a technique that was developed in 1948 by Fred Mitchell, Sr, D.O. It is a form of manual therapy, widely used in Osteopathy, that uses a muscle’s own energy in the form of gentle isometric contractions to relax and lengthen muscles and release skeletal joints. Unlike static stretching which is a passive technique in which the therapist does all the work, MET is an active technique in which the client is also an active participant.
Muscle Energy Techniques can be used for any condition in which the goal is to cause relaxation and lengthening of the muscles and improve range of motion (ROM) in joints. Muscle energy techniques can be applied safely to almost any joint or tissue area in the body.
