Craniosacral owes its roots to Osteopathy and its founder Dr. Andrew Taylor Still. Osteopathy itself has its origins intertwined with traditional bodywork and bonesetting practices developed by Indigenous Peoples, particularly the Lumbee and Shawnee tribes of which Dr. Still was affiliated with, and related to.

The first written reference to the movement of the spinal nerves and its importance in life, clarity, and “bringing quiet to the heart” is found in a 4,000-year-old text from China. Craniosacral work was referred to as “the art of listening.” Bone setters in the Middle Ages also sensed the subtle movements of the body. They used these movements to help reset fractures and dislocations and to treat headaches.

“To find health should be the object of the true physician. Anyone can find disease.” — Dr. Still

Dr. A.T. Still, DO  (1828-1917) — founder of Osteopathy. Dr. Still was said to be the “first” to identify the human immune system and develop a system to stimulate it naturally. He believed that the body was holistic and that a disease process in one part of the body could affect another part. Dr. Still may have been informed by his Native American heritage and interaction with the Lumbee, Shawnee and Cherokee tribes.

Dr. Still gradually formulated the ideas that would become known as Osteopathy, or as currently termed, Osteopathic Medicine. He believed that all elements of a person’s body, mind and spirit had to be incorporated into the total care of that person. He believed that the body had self-regulatory and self-healing powers, that the body contained within it all the substances necessary for maintaining health.

In 1874, after years of medical study and clinical observation, he named his new medical philosophy of drugless, manual medicine, Osteopathy. In 1892, he opened the American School of Osteopathy in Kirksville, Missouri.

“The cerebrospinal fluid is one of the highest known elements that are contained in the body, and unless the brain furnishes this fluid in abundance, a disabled condition of the body will remain."

“Nothing is invented, we are simply rediscovering everything.”

Dr. William Sutherland, DO (1873-1954) — founder of Osteopathy in the Cranial Field. Dr. Sutherland received a flash of insight while looking at a human skull. It was that the sutures were beveled, like the gills of a fish, denoting a primary respiratory mechanism.

“Within that cerebrospinal fluid there is an invisible element that I refer to as the 'Breath of Life.' I want you to visualize this Breath of Life as a fluid within the fluid, something that does not mix, something that has potency as the thing that makes it move. Is it really necessary to know what makes the fluid move? Visualize a potency, an intelligent potency, that is more intelligent than your own human mentality."

"You know from your experience as the patient that the Tide fluctuates; it ebbs and flows, comes in and goes out, like the tide of the ocean. You will have observed its potency and also its Intelligence, spelled with a capital 'I'. It is something that you can depend upon to do the work for you. In other words, don't try to drive the mechanism through any external force. Rely upon the Tide." 

Harold Magoun, DO — coined term “Craniosacral” (as in “craniosacral mechanism”) to describe the presence of synchronized, coordinated movement in the head, spine and pelvis.

Dr. Anne Wales DO — Protégé of Sutherland and one of the first women on the Sutherland teaching faculty.

“It is less the patient we are treating, but the space.”

Dr. Rollin Becker DO — a student of Sutherland who then became president of the Sutherland Cranial Teaching Foundation, and coined the term Craniosacral Biodynamics.

“I’m treating to restore health; I am not treating to restore the problem. In treating this way, I have opened the doors for the body to try to do what it wants to with its own living forces.”

Viola Frymann DO — student of Dr. Sutherland.

“I tell children, 'You're the one who does the healing, not me. All I do is open the door and let it happen.’”

James Jealous DO — Biodynamic Osteopath, student of Dr. Becker.

“Rest as much as you do not rest. Steal time to be Alone with the Health. Seek Restoration from Love.”

And many more… thank you.