Welcome, Come On In!

You have come to a place where deep healing and connecting with yourself and your inner wisdom is possible.
I am here to hold space and facilitate healing for you through CranioSacral Therapy and manual Osteopathy.
CranioSacral Therapy is my passion and I work with people and animals.
Some of the areas I specialize in are concussions and brain injuries, and also TMJ and dental work related problems.
Most physical ailments have emotional and/or spiritual components and this is where the fun of exploring and getting to the source of the problem starts.
I mainly practise at my cabin in Bragg Creek and in my tipi in my back yard right by the Elbow River, a magical place, surrounded by trees and the sound of water.
I will also travel to you.
If you'd like to find out more continue reading below and on the other pages.
In the BLOG I'm sharing some of my own stories and bits of wisdom.

 What Is CranioSacral Therapy?                        What Is Osteopathy?

Craniosacral Therapy is a gentle, non-invasive,
hands-on modality that was developed by
osteopathic physician Dr John Upledger.
It works with the central nervous system, fascia,
bones, organs, and the immune system.
The least force necessary to get the job done is
used.
During a session most patients are in a very
relaxed state, their nervous system goes into
rest and digest mode, rather than being in
flight, fight or freeze, that's when healing can
take place.
I am communicating with the body's Inner
Wisdom through my hands.  The Inner Wisdom
is the part of us that knows how to heal
ourselves.
Our bodies know exactly how to heal
themselves, sometimes they are just a little
overwhelmed and need more resources to
access those healing powers.
I help to supply those resources by holding
space and listening,  while connecting with the
tissues and blending with them.
The Inner Wisdom guides me where to place
my hands, how much pressure to use, in what
order to proceed and many other things
important for healing on a physical, emotional
and spiritual level.
The session may be mostly quiet or there may
be some dialoguing to get to the source of
certain problems.
The body is seen as a whole and not as separate
parts, everything is connected, therefore
restrictions in any area can be felt anywhere in
the body.
The therapist really is a facilitator who supports
and encourages the patient's body in doing its
own healing and thus releasing restrictions from
physical, emotional or spiritual trauma and
integrating the experiences.
When this happens our bodies are able to
function more normally again.
Craniosacral Therapy is part of Osteopathy.

Osteopathy can be described as "holistic manual therapy".
It focuses on osteopathic assessment and treatment of the physical body’s structure in order to optimize physiological functioning.
Manual osteopaths assess and treat the whole person, not just the symptomatic region.
So, for example if a patient has a headache they will be structurally assessed from head to toe.
This is because the primary cause may be remote from the symptoms.
The techniques are based on  the understanding that every part of our body is connected through fascia (connective tissue).
Palpation and Osteopathic Manipulative Therapy are used in conjunction with biomechanical, orthopaedic and neurological assessment.
Optimizing structural balance allows all aspects of our bodies to perform optimally.
Osteopathy is a patient centred approach to health care rather than disease centred.
Osteopathy was developed by Dr. Andrew Taylor Still (1828-1917), an American physician and surgeon during the time of the Civil War.
He had become frustrated with what he saw as the ineffective nature of remedies at that time, after experiencing the loss of his wife and three daughters to spinal meningitis. At the time meningitis was treated with mercury, and more patients died from the treatment than the disease.
Dr. Still developed osteopathic manual  techniques and established a practice that did not readily resort to drugs, purgatives and harshly invasive remedies to treat a person suffering from an ailment.
Components of his philosophy included the idea that structure and function are interrelated and the importance of each piece of the body in the harmonious function of its whole.
He believed that the doctor's role in fighting disease was to restore the body' s proper musculoskeletal function.
Dr. Still believed that illness was rooted in musculoskeletal problems and that osteopathic manipulations could solve these problems by harnessing the body's own self-healing potential.
Dr. Still founded the American School of Osteopathy
in Kirksville/Missouri in 1892. The school taught manual manipulation, nutrition, and lifestyle modifications, rather than surgery and drug therapies.

Some of  Dr. Still’s principals are:
1. The body is an integrated unit of mind, body, and spirit.
2. The body possesses self-regulatory mechanisms, having the inherent capacity to defend, repair, and remodel itself.
3. Structure and function are interrelated.

Manual osteopathy is not just a set of techniques, rather it is a philosophy based on these principles.
Dr. Still believed that many diseases began with structural problems in the spine. Nerves connect the spine to various organs in the body.
When there is a problem with the spine, the nerves send abnormal signals to the organs. Dr. Still called these spinal problems "osteopathic lesions" ("osteo" for bone and "pathic" for diseased), and created  techniques  to treat them. These treatments, he believed, would return the nerves to their normal function and allow the blood to flow freely throughout the circulatory system. With structure restored, the body's own natural healing powers would be able to restore full health.
An example for the relationship between structure and function is the analogy of a garden hose. If it is twisted (distorted structure) it can't function optimally, because the flow is disrupted. Similarly if our body’s structure is compromised due to posture, injury, trauma or lifestyle patterns, then our physiology is not working optimally. Circulation, nerve supply, hormone secretion, etc. are compromised.
When our body is "tuned well" it performs well.
Osteopathy is a science, as well as an art.
It is a science, because it is based on anatomy, physiology, biomechanics and other sciences.
It is an art, because osteopaths must be able to feel (in osteopathic language we speak of listening) with their hands. They need to be able to interpret tensions before normalizing them.
An osteopath’s role lies in evaluating and treating the factors that inhibit health, thus restoring balance in
the body through natural, non-invasive, hands-on techniques, releasing connective tissues, enhancing circulation and lymphatic drainage and improving nerve supply.