Customer Reviews

Your Inner Physician and You: Craniosacral Therapy and Somatoemotional Release

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

When I was 16 yrs old, I was brutally raped and beaten. I did what I had to do to survive. I repressed all memories of the attack. It did not exist in my mind. My body was another story. It recalled in great detail the abuse I suffered. My body reminded me daily with unexplained pain in all parts of my body. I suffered from chronic strep throat from being choked, countless ear and eye infections trying not to "hear" and "see" the abuse. The pain was still there in my ribs from being kicked. I spent the next 14 years in and out of hospitals where I was diagnosed with everything from leukemia to the standard "it's all in your head". The pain was unbearable at times and I would be rushed to the hospital where the physicians would find nothing wrong. They took out my appendix for the heck of it and eventually I had a total hysterectomy to combat the big"C" (cancer). It took years of counseling, and numerous anti-depressants to heal my mind. Which is great in itself, but the physical pain was still there and remained a medical mystery. Through somato release and cranial-sacral therapy I was able to become a whole person free of pain. Dr. Upledger's book is well written and easy to understand. Anyone who has unexplained pain owes it to themselves and their families to read this book and put its theory to the test.

This book was recommended reading prior to taking the CranioSacral Therapy - 1 class taught by the Upledger Institute. As I passed through the first couple chapters, I was in total disbelief that any of what I just had read was plausible. After the next couple chapters - I could not put it down. I found the more I read, the more hooked I became. Although I was skeptical, I became more and more interested. Not having studied anything of this nature previously, it was hard to accept that such dramatic results were possible. What I had the hardest time with was the idea that (it seemed) NO ONE had previously observed nor noted the existance of the craniosacral rhythm. In any case - the book is written with great enthusiasm for the subject matter. I suggest that when you have completed this book you read the book "CranioSacral Therapy" by Upledger and Vredevoogd. It explains the principals and concepts upon which THIS book is founded.

This is the book I hand to my clients who are looking to understand what Craniosacral therapy is and what it does. The writing style reads quickly and easily, the language is not too medical for the lay person, and Upledger uses case examples to illustrate his points. I love this book and I recommend it to anyone who practices or receives bodywork, as well as anyone interested in the mind-body connection.

This is a captivating book if you can handle some new ideas. Upledger's system of craniosacral therapy is based on his accidental discovery that the pressure of the cranial and spinal fluid fluctuates in a regular rhythm. This cyclical change occurs at a rate of 4 to 10 times a minute, producing what he calls a cranial wave or pulse.

If your mind is handicapped by preconceptions instilled by our hidebound system of medical education in this country, you won't have any patience with this idea and you won't want to read this book. But I would encourage you to suspend your disbelief and give Upledger a fair hearing. His book is a fascinating report of his success in treating people that other practitioners have given up on. The book is entertaining and full of surprises, because the man writes without affectation and because he's simply an interesting fellow who has had an interesting life.

You may want to hold off on your own final judgment of some of Upledger's ideas but I definitely am giving him the benefit of the doubt. This is because I've had the good fortune to have been introduced to craniosacral therapy in massage school and again in one of the Upledger seminars. Under the guidance of someone who knows what they're doing, you can learn to feel the cranial wave and to manipulate the cranial bones. These bones do move, but the movement is very slight and you have to be infinitely patient and have some peace in your soul to be able to tune in to them. It's an overwhelming, awe-inspiring experience when you finally do.

One day Upledger will be recognized as one of the pioneers of medicine and the people of that day will wonder why it took us so long to catch on.

being a freelance writer i need to keep up with health issues and i found this book not only readable but also helpful in explaining the link between the brain and physical/emotional health. my nephew who has attention deficit disorder is being treated using CST (craniosacral therapy) and has improved immensely,so the book helped his mother and i to apply and understand some of the techniques. i recommend this book especially for mothers with autistic children or children with learning disabilities.

I have been in chronic pain for 1 1/2 years following a twisting fall down a flight of 8 concrete steps. I tried traditional medicine and medication, chiropractic, traditional swedish massage and nothing seemed to completely relieve the pain, although the chiropractic therapy did help to some degree. My family physician suggested I try myo-facial massage. It happened that the therapeutic massage therapist she recommended also was a practitioner of cranio-sacral therapy. I had never heard of cranio-sacral therapy and was doubtful. However, the therapist loaned me a copy of Dr. John Upledger's book and began this therapy method on me as an adjunct to the myo-facial massage . This combination of therapy has produced tremendous results. The book has also opened my eyes to a non-invasive, holistic type of therapy, cranio-sacral therapy, which can be extremely useful for a lot of problems people experience for which traditional medicine has failed or not provided complete results. The book is an easy read of a truly technical topic. It will provide much in the way of insight to anyone who reads it. I urge others to read it and to discuss its merits with your family physician and other medical practitioners. This is a book about a little known therapy which can produce astounding results! Well worth the time and money!

When a book offers one concept that you can use for the rest of your life, keep reading- there may be more valuable learning for you within. This book is one that offers awareness for everyone interested in learning, especially about themselves. For myslf and everyone I know who's read it, The Inner Physician and You has been one of those truly life changing books.
It's excellent for anyone interested in their own body, self-discovery, healing and personal growth. It offers learning about your CranioSacral system and the limitless opportunities for healing your body presents through it.
Written in simple language for the average person, this book is meaningful for everybody who has a body. It's what we never learned in school about the CranioSacral system and our amazing human body. Thanks to Dr. Upledger, anyone can now experience the benefits of working with the infinite intelligence of their own body.
CranioSacral helped me so much as a client, I became a therapist. CranioSacral continues to improve the health and wellbeing of many in infinite ways. I recommmend the therapy and this book to anyone interested in optimal health and living. To my knowledge, every person who has participated in CranioSacral Therapy has experienced not only deep relaxation but significant individual beneifts.
Clients who have read this book rave about the value of their increased awareness. Dr. Upledger brilliantly introduces many complex concepts so they are accessible to everyone. He's left the statistics, figures and anatomical details where they belong, in his text books. The average reader is appreciative! If you're curious about the anatomy of the craniosacral system, scientific and medical research data, read the text books written by Dr. Upledger in conjunction with other specialists. These can be found at www.upledger.com. along with recent projects. (Most recently, CranioSacral therapists successfully assisted in the development of cojoined twins and relief from post traumatic stress disorder with veterans and survivors of the twin tower tragedy in NY.)
In this book, Dr. Upledger has expressed well what words can, inspiring many to experience for themselves what words fail to describe. It may inspire your own deeper connection with your body and all parts of yourself. Enjoy.

I've been a pianist for 30+ years (grandstudent of Claude Debussy); I've also spent 16 years in IT doing software development and technical training. My father is a retired physicist with a PhD from Cornell. So I have a fairly strong and broad background both in left and right brained endeavors. I admit I found parts of this book to be out there, but from my personal experiences I've learned you can't discount the results, and the cases studies you read in Inner Physician pretty much mirror my personal experiences with craniosacral. I just finished taking the Upledger CST 1 course, and none of the roughly 50 students in my class could dispute what we saw and experienced, watching other students and gauging our own health barometers. Some examples from before taking the class:

1. Meeting an autistic patient of a craniosacral therapist and not even realizing he was autistic because he was friendly and outgoing from the time I walked into the office. He once told my therapist he wouldn't be who he is today without her. This made me seriously question the definition of autism, and whether or not he really was autistic. But before craniosacral therapy, you had to practically hit him over the head with a 2x4 to get his attention.

2. My therapist held a sharecare weekend class, but during one of those days a child came in with an emergency - he'd been climbing and had fallen 5 feet on his head. We interrupted the class and before the therapist started working on him, she said: here, feel the back of his head. It felt flat! It was horrible! After working on him for about 10-15 minutes, she said here, feel this again. The back of his head was perfectly round, and smooth again.

One CST 1 experience:
An older student had fallen and broken her arm years ago. She had a plate holding her radius and ulna together, screwed through those bones. For whatever strange reason, it resulted in frozen shoulder and she couldn't raise her hand behind her, above her waist. The other hand went halfway up her back. After the instructor worked on her for awhile, she was able raise the hand almost as high as her good hand.

The next day, she gave a follow up. She still had good mobility, but another curious thing had happened. In the area where the plate was, she'd had a bruise (going on 10 years since the surgery). Other students had noticed it too, and the bruise was gone.

I myself did a test - I've been in pretty good shape with a multitude of modalities used together - chiropractic, rolfing, cranio work, etc. I stopped all of that months before the class to do a test; I'd seen benefits but wasn't sure what modalities were responsible for what improvements so I wanted to isolate craniosacral alone to gauge the results. I was in awful shape by the time I walked in that class - headache on the left side, left back pain, left side sciatica. I almost couldn't turn my head, probably down to 1/4 range of motion on the bad side. The instructor only worked on me one time for a demo; the rest of the time students worked on me and vice versa. After 4 days I was 90-95% better (it fluctuates - an old pain will come and go, a different one will come and go). I admit the results aren't staying 100% because I don't have a great mattress. But hey, we were students who'd done cranio work for 4 days. What do you expect? :)

And as to the craniosacral rhythm: the first day, 75% of our class felt something (me included, I couldn't tell what, but I felt something). By the next day, the whole class felt the rhythms and they got stronger as time passed, probably because the instructor and assistants worked on students who were in pretty bad shape. I realize in retrospect you won't feel a strong rhythm when there is fairly significant dysfunction. By the third day, we were practicing putting each other into stillpoint and waiting for the rhythm to kick back in. My partner and I felt me go into stillpoint, and we waited for awhile and suddenly my system gave a huge UMPH!!! As if to say: enough!! Let me go!! And we both yelped. We felt the same when I put her into stillpoint. So the comments about different practitioners feeling different things - when you have strong healthy craniosacral systems, that's not true, because we students were sync'ed up by day three. I CAN see that if you're trying to evaluate a dysfunctional craniosacral system, practitioners will say different things, but that's going to be based on their skill level. A newbie just won't be able to assess the amplitude and rate of the rhythm the way an experienced practitioner can. I certainly can't unless it's obvious, right now.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. If I kept going this entry would be way too long. Everyone is entitled to their opinion which will be based on their beliefs, background, experiences, etc. I can't deny the results I've seen.

So why four stars? I guess that's the left brained part of me complaining about the out there parts. It can't get over thinking that someday traditional medical research and craniosacral research will merge, and we'll have a more complete picture - one that is more balanced, one that firmly bridges the left and right brained worlds.

Every single one of us has and owns a CranioSacral system. And the relaxation effect a CranioSacral session has on our bodies is unmistakable. As a craniosacral practitioner, I see many positive valuable benefits as a result of this therapy on a daily basis.

It is based on some not so controversial osteopathic medical principles. There are numerous studies that have shown for many years now that the cranial bones do indeed move. But much like people believed the world was once flat, it took a long time for the general belief system to begin to change.

In the future, I suspect Dr. Upledger will be applauded for his efforts and for honestly putting himself out there to be criticized for making an effort to break new ground and continue the research that began in the early 1900's.

CranioSacral is based on fascial strain patterns in the body. Fascia is real. Strain patterns are real. They can be felt and perceived through touch. Touch has it's own language. Some people are more fluent in the language of touch than others. Anyone can develop that sense of touch, it just takes time and practice.

You cannot describe touch in words. That is part of the challenge of proving something scientfically about human beings. We want everything explained to our left brain in a scientific manner, but that isn't where touch and emotion and humanity hangs out.

In case you haven't noticed, there are infinite scientific studies about human beings that directly contradict one another. One study says one thing, and another will come out a couple months later and say the exact opposite. Why is that? Human beings are unique and can change from moment to moment. We are living, breathing, dynamic systems, not a fixed machine. Each person is different. So you really have to judge by results.

This book introduces some of the basic concepts of craniosacral and somatoemotional release. The results of craniosacral and the many thousands of people who have benefited enormously speak for themselves. If you are interested in the process of how a touch therapy can literally help people heal themselves, then this book is for you.

However, if you are interested in detailed scientific studies, facts, numbers, how many mice were tortured, etc. then look elsewhere. Actually you might be more interested in his first book CranioSacral Therapy. A result of the many years of research in the late 1970's at Michigan State University.

Anyway, it's interesting to note and you might just get a little curious because any book that challenges people's belief system and causes people to respond with anger or fear, just might have something going for it.

I just read all the reviews of this book, and want you to know that the people who rated the book a "1" sound like the frightened, "old school," traditional medical people I come across on a regular basis who are not open to anything new or controversial. I have been a practitioner of CranioSacral therapy for 20 years and have seen some of the most amazing results from the work. And I know that Dr. Upledger has studied the CranioSacral system extensively, and has measured the movement of the cranial bones and the changes in electrical potentials with the treatment. If you want research articles, you can get a copy by calling the Upledger Institute at 1-800-233-5880. This book is designed for lay people to get a feel for the work, and not as a technical or scientific journal. If you want an overall look at CranioSacral Therapy in an easy-to-read and entertaining format, this is the book for you.