Craniosacral Biodynamics - a brief history

The work in this field began with the discoveries of an Osteopath, William Garner Sutherland. As an osteopathic student at the beginning of the twentieth century, the bones of the cranium fascinated him. He was taught that they are fused by adulthood, but he could not understand this as skulls can be disarticulated and cranial bones have sutures that seem to be designed for movement. He undertook investigations that proved to him that the living skull expresses motion and that this motion is physiologically important. While looking at a temporal bone, as he describes it, a thought struck him, “beveled like he gills of a fish for primary respiration.” This thought led him on a lifetime journey to discover its nature. He, being an osteopath, began to language the subtle inherent motions and pulsations with biomechanical language and used motion testing and various techniques to release what was experienced as resistance and patterning in cranial structures. In 1945 he had an extraordinary experience that transformed his understanding of the work, his approach to healing work and the language he used. He was called to the bed of a dying patient who was in great pain. As Sutherland held the man’ system, a depth of stillness arose and he had a direct experience of what he called the Breath of Life as the man comfortably and peacefully passed from this life. Sutherland’s language now shifted and focused on primary respiration and its inhalation and exhalation phases. He wrote about an approach where no force from without is used, but the unerring potency (life force) is trusted to initiate and carry out healing processes. What needs to happen cannot be learned through analysis or motion testing, but is a factor of what Sutherland called the Intelligence of the system and the intentions of the Breath of Life. At its depth, work in this field casts one into the mystery of life itself. Many practitioners carried on the work of Sutherland within the context of osteopathic practice.

Work outside of the osteopathic community was first taught by John Upledger DO beginning in the 1970’s and was called Craniosacral Therapy. Dr. Upledger brought the work out in a particular form and framework and his endeavors have been critical in the creation of a defined craniosacral profession and practice outside of the osteopathic framework. His work is taught by the Upledger Institute all over the world.

In 1975-1979 Franklyn Sills, with a group of other enthusiastic students, studied the work of Dr. Randolph Stone DO. Franklyn was fascinated by what Stone called primary energy and the neuter essence. He later discovered that Sutherland influenced Stone in this territory. In 1982, Franklyn and Maura Sills moved to England and created the Karuna Institute in Devon England, a center for the training of Core Process Psychotherapists and courses in complementary health practices. During this time, Franklyn undertook an osteopathic training and underwent an apprenticeship in a busy London practice. One of the osteopaths in the practice was a cranial practitioner who greatly influenced Franklyn’s work. Franklyn was encouraged to enter a receptive state, to orient to what was called the tidal potency and the fluid tide, and wait for the potency of the Breath of Life to manifest its healing intentions.

In 1986, Claire Dolby DO, an osteopathic colleague, encouraged Franklyn to begin teaching a form of the work outside of the osteopathic profession. He had already developed a two-year training program based on the work of Randolph Stone DO. The first cranial training developed by Sills was taught at the Karuna Institute in 1986, assisted by Claire Dolby DO. It was a mixed biomechanic and biodynamic training where people were taught to initially use biomechanical language, motion testing and functional techniques to aid in a deepening process into more formative forces.

At a tutors meeting at Karuna in 1992, all present agreed that they were not teaching what they were actually practicing, which had a clear biodynamic orientation. The hallmark of a biodynamic approach is a direct orientation to the universal and conditional forces of life. In this approach, the practitioner settles into a still and receptive state of being, clearly negotiates their relationship to the client and their system, orients to the presence of primary respiration, waits for a shift within the client’s system to this formative ordering force, and creates a container within which decisions are made by the Breath of life and the primary respiration it generates. The practitioner’s role is to facilitate a deepening into this territory through perceptual clarity, appropriate relationship to the client and their system, and a deepening awareness and appreciation of the presence of both primary respiration and the conditional forces and patterns held within the system. During this time Franklyn and his staff team were a lone voice outside of the osteopathic community orienting the craniosacral profession to what he called a craniosacral biodynamic approach. During this time it was clear that it takes students time to acquire the needed perceptual and clinical skills found within a biodynamic approach and the course length was changed from a relatively short 36-day one-year training to a longer two-year 50-day course of study.
It then took a good ten years of development before a fully biodynamic training approach was grounded at Karuna. This was a humbling and painstaking process of trial and error, where a clearer and clearer layering of theoretical, perceptual and hands-on training was continually being developed and reevaluated by the staff team. Changes to the curriculum were made in every new training year. Franklyn also introduced the work of Rollin Becker DO to the craniosacral community and helped people orient to what Becker called the inherent treatment plan. Franklyn and colleagues at Karuna developed perceptual exercises and contemplative practices that help attune students and practitioners to primary respiration and the different levels of mid-tide, Long Tide and Dynamic Stillness, and helped practitioners learn to generate a negotiated and holistic relationship to clients and their healing process. Franklyn included relationship and the healing of personal and interpersonal wounding, as a primary focus in training and session work. He coined the term craniosacral biodynamics and brought biodynamics into the craniosacral field. It is a term derived from Becker’s concept of biodynamic potencies. Franklyn also developed terms like the negotiated relational field, the holistic shift, the emergent healing intention, and the mid-tide to help clarify some of the perceptual territories that emerge in session work.

Over this period of time, Franklyn and his colleagues taught trainings in Switzerland, America , Spain and Germany and the biodynamic approach to craniosacral therapy has now spread around the world. Katherine Ukleja DO, Claire Dolby DO, Colin Perrow have been especially active in spreading the work.

Franklyn, along with Michael Kern DO, also helped start the Craniosacral Therapy Educational Trust (CTET) in London, which is now an important biodynamic training organization. Michael has also been very active in spreading the work around the world and has written an excellent introductory text on biodynamics. Other colleagues such as Paul Vick and Michael Shea have developed their own approaches to biodynamics and have also spread the work around the world in important ways. Michael Shea has also written a number of important texts on Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy. Other former assistants at Karuna, including Maria Offut and Mij Ferret, have also taught the work in various locations around the world. Maria has sadly passed on and is sorely missed by her loved ones, friends, students and colleagues. She was very active in spreading the work in Spain and Europe in general.

Former American students and teaching colleagues such as John and Anna Chitty, Mary Louise and Christopher Muller, Elizabeth Hammond, Kathleen Morrow, Roger Gilchrest, Deborah Bochinski, Scott Zamurut and Sharon Porter have also developed the work in their own ways and are active in teaching both in America and around the world. Other teachers, such as Cherionna Menzam, Gary Peterson, Jan Pemberton and Margaret Rosenau, have now been accredited as biodynamic teachers in North America via the Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy Association, an organization originally started by former students of Franklyn’s. Likewise, Ged Sumner and Steve Haines, colleagues from the CTET in London, are also teaching, developing and spreading the work around the world. Ged has developed a training program in Australia. Finally, Dominique Degranges, a former student and colleague of Franklyn’s has developed a wonderful teaching program in Wintertur, Switzerland for Craniosacral Biodynamics and pre- and perinatal therapy. Dominique is also the illustrator for Franklyn’s biodynamic texts.

Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy is a growing and vital field and practitioner organizations have been developed around the world. In 2007, a new organization, the International Affiliation of Biodynamic Trainings (IABT) was developed on the initiation of a number of American schools. This organization is meant to encourage a schools-based approach to teaching the work and to provide schools with a worldwide collegiate community for sharing information, teaching approaches and experiences of the work. Franklyn still teaches at the Karuna Institute in Devon England, and is involved in ongoing trainings in New York City and Munich, Germany.

Franklyn is in the process of writing new texts for the field, which are meant to bring the work up to date. His original texts, which were written in 1995-1996, were meant to be bridging texts for a largely biomechanical field and are in need of updating. This work is now in progress. Franklyn has also helped develop Core Process Psychotherapy and has written a text for the psychotherapy field, called Being and Becoming, Psychodynamics, Buddhism and the Origins of Selfhood.

Karuna Institute

International Training and Retreat Centre

Craniosacral Biodynamics - a brief history