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Stilling the Mind: Using the Breath to Create Better Outcomes in Structural Integration and Craniosacral Therapy

Why do two therapists using the same technique so often get different results?

In nearly four decades of bodywork, from structural integration to craniosacral therapy, I’ve found one factor that shapes a session more than any modality: the state of the practitioner’s mind. It determines whether the work is mechanical or truly responsive.

The Monkey Mind on the Table

The “monkey mind” is an old Eastern term for the restless, chattering mind that jumps from thought to thought. When it runs the session, you can’t listen to the tissue under your hands. You start doing the work to the client instead of with them.

Bodywork without an agenda asks something specific of you. You don’t arrive with a goal to fix, release, or correct. You make contact, listen, and let the body show you what it needs. Your methodology gives you the map, but the client’s system decides the route. That listening can’t happen when your mind is crowded.

I know this from experience. When I walk into a session carried away by my own daily problems, or when my biorhythms are off, my ability to help is diminished. The person on my table came for my full presence, and a scattered mind can’t offer it. [Read more…]

The Fluid Body: Life in a Liquid Crystal Matrix

In 2018, a paper in Scientific Reports made headlines for “discovering” a new organ. Researchers had found that the connective tissue running beneath our skin and around our organs isn’t the dense, solid wall doctors had always assumed. It’s a lattice of collagen bundles suspended in fluid, more like a soaked sponge than a sheet of plastic wrap. A follow-up study published in 2021 by pathologist Neil Theise and colleagues went further, tracking tattoo ink and colloidal silver particles as they moved from the skin and colon into the surrounding fascia. The particles didn’t stop at organ boundaries. They kept going, following continuous channels of fluid that the researchers found running through skin, colon, liver, and the sheaths around nerves and blood vessels alike. Their estimate: the fluid in these spaces adds up to more than three times the combined volume of blood and lymph in the body.

For most of medicine, this was a surprise. For a handful of biophysicists and bodyworkers, it was closer to a confirmation of something they’d been feeling and describing for decades. Biologist Mae-Wan Ho argued that organisms are built as liquid crystals, and that the water saturating our connective tissue isn’t inert filler. It’s structured, responsive, and capable of carrying signals faster than nerves can. Craniosacral practitioners, working from a very different tradition, have described the body under their hands as a single fluid field rather than a collection of separate parts.

Put these threads together and a picture emerges of the body as something closer to a continuous, water-based communication system than a machine made of discrete components wired together by nerves alone. [Read more…]

The Reciprocal Tension Membrane: An Introduction

Cranial motion is conventionally described through the individual patterns of the bones. That description is useful, but it is not the whole story. What you are palpating is a membrane under tension, breathing.

The reciprocal tension membrane, or RTM, is the dural system that guides and influences cranial bone motion. It is one of the foundational concepts in craniosacral work, and understanding it changes how you hold a skull. This is a short introduction for anyone beginning the study, or for practitioners who want to revisit the fundamentals.

[Read more…]

The Value of Combining Disciplines

Combining Structural Integration and Craniosacral Therapy
Many of you know that I practice a Yin Yang approach in my vision of therapy. It has worked for me brilliantly in many ways, not the least of which is creating a more expansive palette for me to use. I would like to share one aspect today that may be of interest to you.

When I studied at the Rolf Institute in 1989, many of my teachers had studied cranial sacral therapy, visceral manipulation, and some chiropractic – which they dovetailed at one time with Dr. Rolf’s structural integration work, essentially a form of myofascial manipulation. A few of those teachers actually continued to practice both those disciplines and one very notable one abandoned the structural work completely and moved deeply into the exploration of craniosacral therapy.

I am sharing this with you because I believe there is value in practicing myofascial manipulation and cranial sacral therapy together. As massage therapists we often split the body into equal segments for the allotted amount of time that we are going to work with a client. If a massage therapist or a Rolfer, or anyone that does myofascial work, combines their work with cranial, they have a bit of an advantage. If you can feel the fluid moving through the body and somebody comes into your practice with a particular challenge, you can ascertain which of the limbs, or other parts of the body, have more fluid movement and which is more congested. That allows you to focus on the more congested area, spending more time there until you feel a balance between the two sides. You have the ability to be more focused and efficient with your time.

There is also the economic advantage of having your feet in both disciplines. There are some people that just don’t want to take their clothes off, and do not want the more aggressive touch that Rolfing and myofascial work can literally inflict on them. They prefer to be in their clothes and they prefer the light touch of a more esoteric approach like cranial sacral therapy. Conversely, you may have clients who initially come for a cranial session, but could benefit from some myofascial work. There is a possibility that your practice can be more expansive or fuller because of the additional tools you possess. There are many disciplines such as chiropractic that use an additional alternative therapy, like acupuncture, along with their base discipline to support a more positive outcome. Having both disciplines in your tool belt will potentially create a more successful outcome.

Fascial Manipulation and Trigger Point Therapy

Lyons Institute Structural Integration

Structural Integration (SI) is a therapeutic approach aimed at optimizing the body’s alignment, movement, and overall function by working with the fascia—the connective tissue that surrounds muscles, bones, and organs.

The biochemist Ida Rolf was the first to introduce it to the bodywork community in the early 1960’s as an approach to integrating the structure of the patient, although her work with patients proceeded that by 30 years. Her idea was to balance the body by manipulating the fascial envelopes and allowing gravity to be the final balancing act. This would then help by improving posture, reducing pain, and enhancing physical and even emotional well-being. It’s less about treating isolated symptoms and more about harmonizing the whole organism. [Read more…]