Cranial Osteopathy
with Physiologically Guided Imagery
1. What is Physiological Guided imagery in Cranial Osteopathy?
It is a manual therapy of visualization, palpation and balancing of anatomical structures that will provoke in the patient a local and global response of the autonomous, hormonal and central nervous system that will reduce or eliminate pain and increase the homeostatic response by affecting the primary cause of the dysfunction.
2. What treats the patient?
The patient is treated by rebalancing their autonomous nervous system in a sequential response dictated by it on the anatomical structures. The transmission of the signal between the osteopath and the patient will be made by the connection of the extra-cellular matrices of both, and by the physiological and anesthetic imagery focus of the osteopath.
3. How does the osteopath know what to focus on?
Through very light palpation, around 10 grams per cm², the osteopath will be able to kinesthetically obtain local and global information about the patient's body. It will be enough for the osteopath to follow and locate this sequential information that he receives palpably from the patient's body and in the cognitive focus that will gauge this information. The osteopath's work is finished when he can no longer feel movement in the anatomical structures of the patient's body projected onto his own hands
4. How does the osteopath communicate with the anatomical structures of the patient's body in order to achieve a healing effect?
Palpation can generate communication via the neurological pathway (stimulation of neurons) and via the similarity and continuity of the extra-cellular matrix between the patient and the osteopath, which includes transduction microstructures (integrins, cadherins, syndescans, Ca2+ channels, fibroblasts). Palpation with physiological focus imagery can trigger leukocytes (mast cells, neutrophils, cytokines (TGF-Beta1, TNF-Alpha, interleukins, prostaglandins), matrix metalloproteinases (MMP's) that will act in a few seconds in the inflammatory and immune processes and in the remodeling of the exracellular matrix.
The osteopath can focus on macroscopic anatomy (organs, blood vessels or others) or molecular anatomy.
The bodies of the osteopath and the patient work in unity through palpation, the extra-cellular matrices of both work in a continuum and through the same physiological language. When the osteopath focuses on a structure in the patient's body, the autonomous nervous system will apply homeostasis to that structure. The effect of this procedure on the symptoms will be to reduce or eliminate localized pain; the overall effect will be a parasympathetic response, i.e. an increase in vagal tone. The osteopath will follow the sequential anatomical and physiological indications of the various structures of the body until he reaches the cause of the primary dysfunction and eliminates the symptoms.
5. What are the side effects of cranial osteopathy with physiologically guided imagery?
It is usually a completely painless and even relaxing process. Patients often confirm afterwards that they felt some movement in the structures previously focused on by the osteopath. Rarely, during homeostatic rebalancing, there may be very slight transient pain due to the physiological remodeling that has taken place.
Cranial osteopathy with physiologically-focused imagery has a level of safety and gentleness in its practice, due to its respect for the body's homeostatic system and, for this reason, practically zero iatrogenic effects. Cranial osteopathy with physiological focus imagery is probably one of the safest and most conservative therapies available.
6. Is Physiological guided imagery in Cranial Osteopathy an unconventional therapy, but could it be an alternative or complement to other therapies?
Although Osteopathy is a holistic practice, it can be complementary to other therapies. For example, Osteopathy can be used in post-endocarditis (an inflammation of the endocardium: the innermost membrane of the heart) after a viral or bacterial infection. This inflammation caused by viruses and bacteria will produce fibrosis and adhesions in the left heart lobe, cardiac fibroblasts and interstitial valve cells. These structural changes can lead to a decrease in cardiac contractility several weeks after the original infection. On the other hand, fibrotic cardiac dysfunction is difficult to treat with medication, so osteopathic intervention may be an alternative.
Often, when patients consult an osteopath, they do so as a last resort, and not infrequently they have already consulted several specialists in various conventional therapeutic areas and have already undergone various imaging or biochemical tests, which have not provided a solution to their pain, in which case osteopaths are not an alternative, they are the last alternative.
7. Why is it called Cranial Osteopathy and not just Osteopathy?
Both cranial osteopathy and joint osteopathy follow the same principles; the main difference lies in the gentleness of the methods. Cranial Osteopathy only uses the body's homeostatic capacities and does not use mechanical processes of great amplitude and force.
8. Why is Osteopathy different from other therapies in its theoretical principles?
Osteopathy defends the unity and oneness of the body. The homeostatic capacities of the integrality of the organism will be paramount for Osteopathy. We believe that the body has the capacity for self-healing. Osteopathy emphasizes the principle of regular vascularization as the most important process for eliminating dysfunctions.
9. Do osteopaths treat pathologies such as cancer, viral, bacterial and fungal inflammations, or physiological organ insufficiencies?
Osteopaths legally treat holistic dysfunctions in the body. The osteopath will be interested in eliminating the symptom by eliminating the cause of the symptom. For example, low back pain may be caused by stenosis of the sphincter of Oddi, and as long as this structure and all the organs and structures attached to it are not regularized, the low back pain may persist. Osteopaths can play a complementary or alternative role in dysfunctional states of health.
10. Osteopaths are commonly recognized as professionals who treat or improve musculoskeletal conditions, but is it possible to say that they improve vascular, visceral or neurological dysfunctions?
By touching the patient with the appropriate anesthetic training after several years of practice, the osteopath will be able to perceive the dysfunctional anatomical structures of the patient's body through Physiological Focus Imaging Cranial Osteopathy. We believe that this cognitive and tactile communication will be ensured by the Extra-cellular Matrix of the patient and the Osteopath: both communicate palpably because they have exactly the same physiology. The hands are the osteopath's eyes as they receive information from the patient's various organic structures according to the specific homeostatic needs of that organism and the sequential order of regularization that the patient's own organism intends to transmit. The osteopath is a facilitator of homeostatic processes. By focusing on each structure indicated by the patient's body, the osteopath will apply the healing principle associated with the autonomous nervous system. This system will dynamically rebalance the various structures of the body in real time. For example, the heart works at the same time as the liver, the kidneys, the spleen, the digestive, hormonal, molecular and cellular systems. This simultaneous balance of the various structures of the body as a whole is ensured by the Autonomous Nervous System in conjunction with the central nervous system, which will receive information and coordinate the information from the Autonomous Nervous System. The Brain has specific representations of the peripheral organism, the Brain is somatotopic. The enteric, hormonal and vascular nervous systems will depend on the coordination of the autonomic nervous system.
By focusing on each structure indicated by the Autonomic Nervous System, the osteopath will rebalance that structure. The autonomic nervous system “only knows” how to rebalance specific structures through their relationship with the whole, through demultiplication to the root cause.
The autonomous nervous system will have the healing principle, but it will also have a structural effect through inflammatory and immune changes in the extra-cellular matrix. The extra-cellular matrix is the backdrop against which all the physiological processes of the organism take place, and all cells are connected to this matrix without exception. The remodeling processes result from the instantaneous inflammation produced by neutrophils, mast cells, activation of fibroblasts, inflammatory factors, transcription factors and molecular ligands, alterations in cell membranes, processes that will always be remodeling the extracellular matrix and providing epigenetic and genetic responses that overall and in synchrony are thought to be coordinated by the Autonomic Nervous System.
When osteopaths focus on a physiological structure, they trigger a response from the Autonomic Nervous System and a change in the extracellular matrix.
11. When did Cranial Osteopathy appear and what did it advocate?
William Garner Sutherland, the founder of Cranial Osteopathy (1939), a disciple of Andrew Taylor Still, the creator of Osteopathy (1874), conceived the existence of a primary respiratory mechanism associated with the circulation of cerebrospinal fluid and sacred cranial oscillations. The designation of primary respiratory mechanism, in relation to myocardial-pulmonary respiration, is not far from reality because the primary respiratory chemoreceptors of the spinal bulb oscillate due to the fluctuations of the cerebrospinal fluid in which they are immersed. It is these respiratory chemoreceptors that basically determine the cardio-respiratory system. W.G. Sutherland conceived that it would be possible to rebalance dysfunctions by regularizing the primary respiratory mechanism.
12. Can the Cranial Osteopath with physiologically guided imagery correct dysfunctions in any structure of the body and rebalance its physiology?
Homeostatic capacities, although omnipresent in every human organism, are dependent on co-morbidities, age degeneration, iatrogenic effects resulting from the amount of medication taken, the number of surgeries undergone, and mental states. In principle, the Extra-cellular Matrix and the Autonomous Nervous System bring together and manage all the dysfunctional variables, which may be the reason for the specificity and possible success of osteopathic work.
13. Is Physiologically Guided Imagery Cranial Osteopathy a natural and conservative therapy?
Yes. It is probably one of the most conservative and natural therapies available.
14. What is the extracellular matrix?
“The extracellular matrix (ECM) is a three-dimensional non-cellular macro-molecular network composed of collagens, proteoglycans/glycosinoglycans, elastin, fibronectin, laminins and various other glycoproteins. The matrix components bind together, as do the cell adhesion receptors, forming a complex network in which cells reside in all tissues and organs. Cell surface receptors transduce signals in the cells of the ECM, which regulate diverse cellular functions such as survival, growth, migration and differentiation, and are vital for the maintenance of normal homeostasis” in Theocharis AD, Skandalis SS, Gialeli C, Karamanos NK. Extracellular matrix structure. Adv Drug Deliv Rev. 2016 Feb 1;97:4-27.
15. What is the Autonomic Nervous System?
“The autonomic nervous system has generalized innervation to almost every organ system in the body. To understand the fundamentals of autonomic function, knowledge of the neuro-anatomy of the autonomic nervous system is necessary. Often thought to control “fight or flight” and “rest and digest” functions, the autonomic nervous system has an intricate network of connections to finely tune the systemic response to almost any situation. Although traditionally considered two discrete systems (sympathetic and parasympathetic), the enteric nervous system is now considered a third component of the autonomic nervous system.” In Gibbons CH. Basics of autonomic nervous system function. Handb Clin Neurol. 2019;160:407-418.