What is Cranial Osteopathy?

Osteopathy has many specialisms, all of which use the same umbrella of understanding for how a human can fall out of balance, and in turn be rebalanced.

Cranial Osteopathy is one such specialism, which uses subtle and very gentle techniques, in order to release often highly complex and sensitive patterns of tension.

Are Gentler Techniques Better?

In many cases, injury or stress can create a protective compensation pattern, designed to help us limit further exposure to injury or stress – or even just the possibility of it.

For example, as children, if we got something in our eyes, we would tightly shut our eyes to prevent anything more getting in.  Anyone attempting to force our eyes open – even if it was to help – would create resistance just by going against our protective reactions, even if the risk of further injury had already passed.

When this happens, a gentle approach can de-escalate our reactivity, allowing us to recognise of our own accord that the danger has passed, and let go all by ourselves.  More direct approaches, on the other hand, can end up working directly against our already protective tension.

In addition, where our compensation pattern is a complex knot, directly trying to untangle one part in isolation can often unintentionally tighten the knot elsewhere – inflaming the situation and leading to frustration and a feeling of being hopelessly tangled up in our own responses.

Gentle approaches, like Cranial Osteopathy, can help address this reactivity, creating space for our compensation knots to more easily untangle.

Our Team

Yan-Chee Yu and Oliver Cox have particular specialism in Cranial Osteopathy – click on their names to find out more about their individual skills and specialisms.

To book an appointment now, call 01865 243351 or email us at info@helixhouse.co.uk.