Mara cautiously walks huddled alongside her mom. This closeness, and the doll she clutches to herself, gives her a feeling of steadiness. She has low muscle tone that has caused her difficulty speaking, balancing, walking, using her hands, and developing at a typical rate. During Mara’s first CranioSacral Therapy (CST) session a lack of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) flow seemed to have disrupted the normal availability of vitalizing elements, called neurotrophins, flowing from her spinal cord to the rest of her body.
It is thought that neurotrophins are produced inside nerve cell bodies of spinal cord nerves, and then the neurotrophins stream within peripheral nerves throughout the body. Hindrance in the accessibility of these enlivening elements can cause cell exhaustion, which in turn could lead to Mara’s muscle weakness.
There was a palpable communication, both bio-chemically and energetically, between Mara’s CSF, neurotrophins, and tissue. It felt as though CSF was guiding the direction, and determining the amount, of neurotrophins trickling to her muscles, organs, and glands. Since her CSF flow was very congested, particularly where her peripheral nerves exit the spinal column, her neurotrophins had almost completely lost the support and guidance of CSF. Because of this CSF compromise Mara’s muscles could not receive their essential amount of vital energy from the spinal cord.
Our session focused on opening the connective tissue pathways by which CSF flows out of the spine, increasing CSF motion, and encouraging her body to receive increased neurotrophin flow. There were times when you could actually feel her muscles enliven, as though they were turning on for the first time.
The entire experience was surprising, enlightening and very exciting for me, even though I’ve never read anything about a relationship between CSF and neurotrophins to validate what I was feeling. Yet, client response to CST is one way to judge how precise our perceptions have been.
Mara’s mom reported that after our session Mara’s strength and balance noticeably improved, and the improvement lasted four weeks before the effects of our session began to diminish, but not disappear. This is an indication to me that Mara had a good response to CST, she could benefit from more CST, and there is a supportive relationship between CSF and neurotrophins in her body.
