When you as a practitioner become more comfortable with the hand positions and techniques, you will be searching for the next level of care in authentic healing. As you become clearer and more present in therapy, the key aspect of the Gillespie Approach is listening.
Listen to the body. When I put my hands on a patient, I let the world spin without me and focus on being an “MRI for craniosacral fascial strain.” I feel for the top onion layer that the body wants to deal with now. It then starts to talk to me and I follow it. I know many layers exist back to conception, but I just allow the body to do what it needs to do to release and heal that one specific layer.
Listen to your intuition. When you are very quiet, your inner voice may be telling you to wait, hold another part of the body, or do something else. Listening to that “gut” feeling can take you to the next level of healing.
Listen to the patient during the session. If any new sensation(s) is presenting, have the patient hold the area(s) by becoming your third (and fourth) hand(s). Red marks on the neck, throat or face can also be fascial strain releasing. Let the patient become part of the therapeutic process by connecting their dots in space and time. The Gillespie Approach focuses solely on structural correction by addressing the root cause of the issue(s) to mitigate the effect(s), rather than managing them with drugs or surgery.
Listen to the patient’s story. A new patient recently presented with ocular migraines. She told me they started immediately after the birth of her first child a few years ago. Since we know from our infant research that almost all upper-body issues start with trauma or strain in the pelvic floor, I hypothesized that maternal birth trauma created craniosacral fascial strain, pulling into her eyes. In my world this patient would have been checked after the birth.
Listen to the mother’s feelings about her child. A mother felt that her son was tight and not comfortable in his own body. She had taken him for many medical evaluations, and no one could find any overt pathology. But she just knew he was not “right.” She had tears in her eyes when I told her that there was hope since all of her son’s “tight” conditions were in our Gillespie Approach wheelhouse.
Listen to mom’s opinion about her baby. I see babies who are thought to have neurological delays. The mothers feel that their children are neurologically fine, but medical professionals cannot explain why they cannot commando crawl or perform other basic activities. Since shoulder, pelvic, and other craniosacral fascial strains are not on the medical radar screen, providers incorrectly reason that the presenting symptoms must be due to brain pathology.
Listen to my heart. When I see a new patient with treatable condition(s), I know that birth trauma probably predisposed her or him. In 1966 my mentor, Dr. Viola Frymann, found that 88% of 1,250 hospital newborns in Minnesota had craniosacral restriction. My heart tells me that patients need to be seen and cleared of this core strain at birth. As much as I love to work with patients of all ages, my heart lies with prevention at birth. Someday I am hoping this will be the way of the world.
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