Health from the Inside-Out

Craniosacral therapy works with the subtle, natural rhythms of the body to promote health and relaxation from the inside-out. Depending on the needs of each client, related forms of bodywork (such as visceral manipulation) that share the same approach to health and touch may also be used.

This gentle work encourages your body to use its own wisdom to address physical and emotional issues often beyond the reach of other therapies, and even of conscious knowing.

The old injury you forgot you had (but which still bothers you in ways that now seem just the way life is), a stiff neck or sore back, the fear or sadness never resolved, trouble getting a good night's sleep, or feeling out of sorts without knowing why; for each and any of these, cranial work may be able to help.

Cranial work can be profoundly relaxing, and this alone is helpful to many clients dealing with trauma or busy lives.

Clients say ...

Don combines his ability to transmute and clear locked energy patterns with his technical understanding of the body's innate physiology. I had long suffered from pain due to a fractured vertebrae, but received a powerful healing through Don's gifted hands. Don's skilled and gentle guiding of energy allowed the chronic physical pattern to release, while at the same time, lessening the charge of old emotional residue. I am forever grateful...."

— Susan B., Ridgway, Colorado.

Recently I was in the climbing gym and fell from about five feet high on my sacrum. It hurt quite a lot, and a few days later I was going to fly overseas to Amsterdam. I was worried and therefore called Don. Because of the urgency, he scheduled me in for the next day. During the session he worked on my sacrum and other areas of tightness that needed to be addressed. Throughout the session I felt that I was in good hands, feeling comfortable and at ease. After the session my pain was relieved and I had no problems during the flight overseas. Don, thank you for your help!

— G.H., Santa Fe, NM

My son Danny and I have worked with Don over a period of several months and both of us have benefitted greatly from his work. After many sessions with Don, I have learnt that his work invites the body's intelligence — as well as the spiritual guides that assist him with his work — to prioritize the healing needed during a session. Whether it be physical, mental, emotional or spiritual, and whatever we may think needs healing, I have total faith that the core issue is addressed during Don's healing sessions.

I'd recommend this healer above and beyond many others I have worked with. Don has a true gift to heal which I believe has its roots in his own wide range of studies, his belief in the intelligence of the body as well as the Divine guidance given by those beings who attend and assist him during his sessions.

—Carole Sanchez, Santa Fe, NM & Altea, Spain

A Typical Session

If possible, dress comfortably (as if for a nap since there's a good chance you might fall asleep) and have some time for yourself after the session to relax and integrate the work.

The work itself is gentle and slow and may, by agreement, cover any part of the body depending on where the key restrictions are located.

It is not uncommon that work on a physical issue will also bring emotions to the surface, such as memories associated with an injury. One purpose of a session is to provide a safe container for work on these emotions as they arise should you wish, without catharsis or re-traumatization.

Scheduling and Fees

Sessions are 90 minutes long, which allows for a full hour on the table. There will be plenty of time for a discussion of the client's needs, and no reason for the client to feel rushed after getting off the table.

Currently the fee is $90/session, including tax. Payment may be by cash or check, though credit cards are not currently accepted.

Don's home studio is at 2 Golden Ridge Road, Santa Fe, off of Old Santa Fe Trail and uphill from Harry's Road House.

Please note that on-line maps all have problems in this area, but Google comes close. (In the fully zoomed-in view, the road labelled "Ravens Ridge Trail" ... not "Ravens Ridge Road," which is correctly marked ... is really Golden Ridge Trail, the road you want.)

The Google map will get you close, but please use these printable directions once you turn off Old Santa Fe Trail onto Ravens Ridge.

Frequently Asked Questions

How does this work?

Life is movement, and the body has several different rhythms that are important in its functioning, including breathing, heartbeat and the movement of food through the digestive tract. In addition, the bones of the head, the internal organs and even the flow of lymph have their own rhythm or pulse.

Sensitive hands can tune into these more subtle rhythms, assess their ease of movement and locate restrictions that affect the body in important if not immediately recognizable ways. The therapist's hands can then propose long forgotten options to the body, which is fundamentally different than imposing new positions or movements because "they should work."

Work with the craniosacral system, for example, is usually "indirect" ... that is, encouraging the body to do move further in the "direction of ease". One can think of this as like nudging a stuck drawer in so that it can then open out, though in practice the "nudge" is closer to a silent suggestion than a palpable pressure.

All work is soft, slow and gentle, with the explicit aim of enlisting the body's trust and participation in its own healing.

Will I feel results right away?

Relief, just like pain, is unique to every individual. A common pattern is for a client to feel relief in some way immediately after getting off the table with further shifts over the next few days, but there are no guarantees.

For example, you might find the neck pain that brought you is mostly gone, but that your shoulder now bothers you for the afternoon as your body figures out what to do with its new freedom. You may get a better than average night's sleep, waking to find that the tension in your shoulder is now gone and that, seemingly by coincidence, you notice that the neck and shoulder pain seem related to a physically or emotionally challenging episode years ago.

These more noticeable changes may go on for up to three days, though the body may take a week or two to fully explore and integrate new possibilities. If you were to return for another visit in a week or two, you might then have newly-found complaints that want attention, as the body itself peels back layer after layer of holding around a few core issues.

How many sessions will I need? How far apart?

These good questions are really about the various kinds of problems clients may have, and there is no one answer for either. Some clients ... see the stories by Susan B. and G.H. under "Clients Say" ... get the relief they want in a single session.

Other clients will return with an issue different from the one that brought them in the first time. Work in one session ... say on restrictions in a hip ... may remove one layer of holding and compensation in the body, allowing a different problem, perhaps an old shoulder injury, to come to the fore. Or work on the throat and chest may uncover and perhaps release a primarily emotional holding, as in Carole's story. In these cases, the client may decide either to stay with the work to unravel deeper layers, or that they've gotten the help they wanted.

In some cases, the client's main issue isn't resolving with further sessions, and Don will offer to work with the client to find another professional who may be more appropriate for the condition as he understands it after working with it for a few times.

Since this work can "cook" for a while, the best use of the time and money a client has available for healthcare is often to space sessions two weeks or so apart, but not so long that the body re-establishes its old patterns if the issue is still "in play" and not resolved to improvement and stability acceptable to the client.

More frequent sessions may be advisable in either of two situations: If the initial problem is still acute and the body may revert to an old holding to compensate for a broader imbalance, a follow-up session within a week or ten days might help the body move through it's current pattern and into one of greater ease.

In another scenario, the client may need more support if things are moving rapidly. For example, if hip work makes the shoulder hurt as much as the hip did, then waiting for two weeks might not be a good idea. Sometimes a physical symptom may be connected to or masking a deeper emotional connection ... say, to a traumatic accident ... and the client could want to deal with the physical manifestations of this new problem as it appears, rather than waiting two weeks.

Will this work cure my ... ?

The emphasis is on healing, which is the body’s natural movement from within toward the best health the body can enjoy, rather than curing, which comes from the outside, often with the intention of working against way that the body is at the moment. Both have their places, and this work isn’t a substitute for knowledge and skills of a medical professional.

That said, this work may be particularly effective in dealing with restrictions ... either physical or emotional ... in the body, and the more directly traceable an affliction is to such restrictions, the more likely it is that this work can help in the overall healing process. This work might help more with a sore neck than a cold, for example.

There are cases where freeing restrictions in the skull have enabled a child to walk or to speak; and even more cases where cranial work just didn’t help with a headache. There are many possibilities, often wondrous, but no guarantees or typical outcomes even in the "simplest" of cases.

What are the roles of the therapist and client?

The therapist’s role here is as a resource that the client's body may, or may not, use for its own healing. In turn, the role of client’s body ... often subconsciously and continuing for days after a session ... is to accept what it judges helpful for its own current needs while disregarding the rest.

The effectiveness of the work depends on both the therapist’s ability to sense and match what the body needs, and the body’s intuitive trust in the process and its sense of the appropriateness of change at this time. Thus, the flavor of the work is much more like “listening and witnessing” rather than “doing and fixing.”

About Don

Don fell in love with cranial work in the late 1980s and since then has studied with teachers representing several different approaches. He studied massage at the New Mexico Academy of Healing Arts in Santa Fe and acupressure at the Acupressure Institute in Berkeley, CA.

In addition, he has over 1,000 hours of continuing education ... 500 hours alone in craniosacral therapy, plus studies in visceral manipulation and trauma work following the model of Peter Levine. Don continues his cranial studies with Etienne Piersmann.

Don earned his Ph.D. in theoretical physics at the University of Minnesota (1978); taught college physics briefly; worked in Silicon Valley as an engineering manager, in marketing positions and as an independent consultant; and volunteered extensively, much of it in environmental and land use causes affecting the California coast.

He enjoys travel to add breadth and texture to life, especially trekking in the Himalayas, Karakoram and Andes. Don practiced Aikido for over 20 years (earning a third-degree black belt) and continues practicing meditation in the Therevadan Buddhist tradition as taught in Burma and Thailand.