Issue link: https://www.massageandbodyworkdigital.com/i/588318
When I introduce this to clients, they report feeling a palpable sense of rightness about it in their bodies. Most embrace the idea that they have the answers they need within them, and I am their educated collaborator. They can easily accept that while we all need support, it's we ourselves who do the healing. As one client said to me, "My surgeon took out the tumor, but I healed. He took out a lot of tumors from a lot of people, but not everybody healed as well as I did." The concept of inner wisdom is often discussed in reference to the phenomenon of SomatoEmotional Release (SER). SER is the process that happens when a client's body has sufficient resources to release a pattern of trauma or holding. It isn't something therapists induce, but a spontaneous event directed by the inner wisdom. It's the craniosacral therapist's job to recognize this process and facilitate it. The most important way we track this is by paying close attention to the craniosacral rhythm, the body's response to cerebrospinal fluid production and absorption. In his research, Upledger noted that when a body was in a significant place in its healing process, the electrical potential of the entire body would drop measurably, and the craniosacral rhythm (CSR) would suddenly become still. This spontaneous stop is distinct from the gradual stop of a still point, which can be therapist induced. Since therapists don't tend to have sophisticated electrical measurement devices in their offices (and they can be distracting for clients), we rely on tracking that hard stop in the CSR, known as the significance detector (SD), with our hands. Emotions may surface in an SER, or they may not. What is always true is that SER involves an engagement of the entire body. 88 m a s s a g e & b o d y w o r k n o v e m b e r / d e c e m b e r 2 0 1 5 Dialog is meant to support the client's process wherever the inner wisdom leads, not to tell a coherent story, satisfy the practitioner's curiosity, or lead to a proscribed end. As a craniosacral therapist, my job isn't to diagnose, prognosticate, or fix, but to assess, foster, and facilitate that inner knowing. John Upledger, DO, the founder of CST, called the part of us that knows what needs to happen the "Inner Physician" or inner wisdom. That knowledge is usually beneath a person's everyday awareness, and the purpose of Therapeutic Imagery and Dialog is to engage clients with the therapeutic process already underway in their tissues.