What is craniosacral therapy?

Craniosacral therapy is a gentle therapy that works with the fascia and craniosacral system of the body. We are trained to use about 5 grams of pressure, about the weight of a nickel or credit card resting on the skin. Through that gentle touch, we are trained to feel subtle patterns, restrictions, and changes within the body.

Your craniosacral system includes the membranes and fluid that surround and protect the brain and spinal cord. This system plays a role in nourishing the nervous system, cushioning the brain and spinal cord, helping circulation of cerebrospinal fluid, and supporting the body’s ability to regulate, rest, and heal. Because the nervous system is connected to every part of the body, tension or restriction within this system can influence sleep, feeding, digestion, movement, regulation, and overall comfort.

Your fascia is the connective tissue that surrounds and supports everything in the body- nerves, muscles, organs, blood vessels, cranial bones, and more. It creates connection through the entire body, almost like a continuous web. Healthy fascia is able to glide, adapt, and move freely. But when the body experiences stress, pressure, positioning, strain, or trauma, fascia can tighten and adapt to those patterns over time.

Fascia is protective by design. If the body experiences prolonged tension, compression, difficult positioning in utero, a fast or long labor, forceful traction, vacuum or forceps delivery, or physical stress after birth, the body may hold onto those patterns as a way of guarding and protecting itself. Sometimes those compensations continue long after the original stress has passed. This can create pulling and restriction throughout the body, affecting comfort, movement, feeding, digestion, latch, head turning, posture, or regulation.

During birth, a baby’s cranial bones are designed to shift and overlap in order to move through the birth canal. This molding is normal and important for birth. Ideally, the bones gradually decompress and organize afterward. But sometimes, due to prolonged pressure, positioning in utero, rapid birth, cesarean birth, assisted delivery, or tension patterns in the body, the bones and surrounding tissues may not fully release from that compression. This can create strain patterns through the head, neck, jaw, spine, and nervous system.

Craniosacral therapy works gently with the body to encourage release of tension, improve mobility of tissues, support nervous system regulation, and help the body return to a more balanced state. The goal is not to force change, but to support the body as it unwinds and heals in the way it was designed to.