I hear more and more craniosacral therapists say that they specialize in treating trauma. And we certainly make a unique contribution to that field. In the last thirty years or so there has been a revolution in the understanding of the neurobiology of trauma and powerful new treatment methodologies have followed. The frontrunners are sticking to Peter Levine’s essence statement ‘Trauma is treated in the body not the mind’. 

 

That’s where we come in. A major feature of trauma physiology is autonomic dysregulation. All the things that the ANS controls go haywire – sleep, digestion, temperature regulation, immune response, blood pressure, heart rate and sufficient oxygen supply to the brain to maintain attention and cognitive function. 

 

With our outstanding palpation skills, we can detect altered function in the major autonomic centres like the cardiac plexus or the prevertebral ganglia, the crucial Vagus nerve, and the brainstem. And with our therapeutic touch we can restore primary respiratory function in these neural tissues. With touch we are healing trauma from the bottom up, from the body to the brain, along the gut-brain and the heart-brain axes. And we should be shouting from the rooftops about our distinct competence and why craniosacral therapy facilitates recovery from trauma. It’s about what we do that other therapies do not.​