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Further Information

Birth Energy

ICrA  Spring Study day 2023 - Open to members and non-members 
To be held at BCOM , Lief house , Finchley Road NW3 5HR

Registration 9.30 - 10am start & 5 pm finish 
Lunch included please inform us of special dietary needs 
Book online https://www.icra-uk.org/
Fee £80 members
£55 students 
£105 non-members  

Immersion Course

The course, of 5 seminars, will honour William Garner Sutherland’s journey. Early in his career Dr Sutherland described the subtle rhythmic motion of the Primary Respiratory Mechanism. His later insights led him to the Potency of the Breath of Life, the ‘liquid light’, which ignites and animates all living organisms. The practice of Craniosacral Biodynamics orients the practitioner to the action of this Potency within the fluid body and the slower tidal rhythms that it generates.

We will also be drawing on the insights contributed by Franklyn Sills; particularly the nature of the relational field, an appreciation of the three bodies and skills for meeting the psycho-emotional aspects of our clients’ histories.

Finally, the curriculum will be grounded in my own 35 years of clinical experience in this gentle touch practice.

PART 1 

THE GROUND OF CRANIOSACRAL BIODYNAMICS

Presence, Contact and Primary Respiration.

Topic will include:

·       Introducing the Biodynamic Paradigm

·        Building safety in the holding field

·       The cultivation of presence – being to being connection

·       Health and Resources

·       Relational touch – negotiation and listening skills

·       The Fluid Body – meeting complexity within wholeness

·       The Tide – The Three rhythms of Primary Respiration

·       Long Tide,  Mid Tide, Cranial Rhythmic Impulse

 

PART 2 

THE FOOTPRINTS OF EXPERIENCE

Original Motion and Conditioned Motion

Topics will include:

·        Forces and Fulcra

·        Blueprint and Imprint – meeting the contingencies of life

·       Three unfoldments of the human body

·       Mid Tide - Tissues, fluids and liquid light

·       Therapeutic Contact – the Holistic Shift

·       Trauma  Model 1 - The body remembers

·       Resources, overwhelm and traumatization

·       The Polyvagal Perspective

·       Skills for meeting hyperarousal, freeze and dissociation

 

PART 3

BIRTH, A FORMATIVE JOURNEY

Moulding the body and mind

Topics will include:

·       The birth journey seen from the baby’s perspective

·        Birth energy and empowerment

·       Creative opposition in the birth canal

·       Transition from inside the womb to the outside world

·        Umbilical ignition

·        The SBJ and patterns of experience - birth stages and cranial moulding

·        Diagnostic touch - Fluid head and whole-body patterns

·        Therapeutic touch – Becker’s three step approach

·        Trauma Model 2 – Pre-verbal imprints, birth, bonding and attachment

 

PART 4 

THE MIDLINES

The axes of human organisation and function

Topics will include:

·       The vertical midline – the axis mundi

·       Ventral midline of the axial skeleton

·       Dorsal Midline as the fluid core

·       Quantum midline as a vibrational central conduit of the life force

·       The spine - wholeness and segmentation

·       Axis of the tensegrity body

·       Embryological and neurological segments

·       The horizontal midline – the axis of our common humanity

·       The umbilicus as a blueprint of connection

·       The relational midline – we are social beings

·       The viscera as our emotional radar

·       ‘Neuroception’, social engagement and the Vagus nerve

 

PART 5 

DYNAMIC STILLNESS

Ignition and Transmutation

Topics will include:

·       State of Balance as a mysterious gateway

·        Dr Becker’s great insight into the nature of healing

·       “rhythmic balanced interchange” between the Stillness, the ‘liquid light’ of potency and inertial forces.

·       “something happens” – transmutation or change of state

·       Dynamic transformation in the depth of stillness

·       The Inherent Treatment Plan

·       Following the healing priorities which arise from within

·       Back to wholeness – realizing original health

·       Ignition – the spark in the engine

·       Conception ignition and the 3rd ventricle dynamo

·       Heart ignition and the embodiment of being

·       Ignition of the Quantum Midline – vortices of potency

·       The incandescent core of being

Focusing for Cranial Practitioners

What is focusing?

Focusing is a body-oriented process of self-awareness. It is based in an ability that most of us have, or can develop - that of listening to what our subtle inner feelings are telling us. 

It was discovered in the 1960’s by Professor Eugene Gendlin at the University of Chicago. There, he began research into the question ‘Why is psychotherapy helpful for some people, but not for others?’ After studying hundreds of therapy sessions, Gendlin and his research team concluded that they could predict the success of treatment based on the clients that were able to have body awareness; for which he coined the term ‘felt sense’.

 Gendlin went on to formulate a six-step protocol to teach people how to access and use this body awareness as a means of self help. His ground- breaking approach has been incorporated into numerous therapy modalities. In particular in the treatment and resolution of trauma Focusing has been adapted by great innovators such Babette Rothschild and Peter Levine.

Focusing and cranial treatment

In this workshop we will learn or deepen into the Focusing form and apply it in session work. There are three main ways in which Focusing can enrich our biodymanic treatment modality:

  1. Self care – working as a craniosacral therapist with many different clients can be emotionally taxing. Focusing is a wonderful tool for getting to the bottom of why we feel pressurised or uncomfortable in the presence of some of our clients. In turn this helps us create a safe relational field.

  2. Client’s body awareness – coaching our clients in Focusing as part of cranial treatment helps them orient to how their bodies store past experience and can augment the therapeutic effect

  3. Self-Regulation and Co-Regulation – this relies on the practitioner’s ability to stay in tune with their own inner state throughout the session and down-regulate or simply acknowledge any activation states; these might include physical discomfort, emotions or drifting off. This in turn co-regulates activation or freeze states in the client. Pure magic in cases of dissociation, where the client can’t feel what is happing in their body and in hyperarousal states.

Potency and its Functions

Only when we face overwhelming events, does the Potency act to protect us, to minimise the impact. Then the Potency will seek ways to overcome and heal the damage. As craniosacral practitioners we can augment and catalyse the healing process, but the Potency is always in command.

In this seminar we will distinguish and meet the Four Functions of Potency and explore the territory of ‘doing and not doing’, when to sit back and when to engage the arising history as it unfolds during a session.

Topics to be covered:

  • The four functions of Potency – organisational, adaptive, protective and healing.

  • Life is motion - the Potency as an animating force in the tide, the fluid within the fluid.

  • The organizational function of Potency - the quantum midline and the bioelectric ordering field, known as the original matrix.

  • The automatic shifting of potency as it adapts to the conditional forces of experience and meets the contingencies of daily life.

  • Cohesion and fragmentation – Becker called the potency which condenses at inertial fulcra ‘variant’ potency. This is the potency performing its protective function and preserving the integrity of the organism.

  • Transmutation – igniting entrapped potency, releasing the power to heal.

  • Craniosacral Biodynamics - optimizing health by understanding and harnessing the principal functions of Potency

Touch

Relational touch  - the quality of the practitioner’s touch sets the scene in which the client can experience safety, perhaps for the first time in her or his life. Relational touch is compassionate and without judgement, it signals unconditional acceptance of the client.

Diagnostic touch – reading the ‘nuances of the tide’ is a key skill for cranial practitioners. Tidal motions of fluids and tissues carry the imprints of individual experience. Listening hands can recognise these patterns of experience but also the deeper felt sense of that experience. This often carries an emotional charge but also the meaning of this experience from the past and how it impacts the client’s life in the present.

Therapeutic touch – simply hearing the story told by the body through our ‘listening hands’ can have a deep healing effect.  In this seminar we will revisit the subtle territory between ‘doing’ and ‘not doing’ and experiment with ‘touching beyond listening’.

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Our quest: to refine the art of ‘knowing fingers’

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