Polarity Therapy and Craniosacral Therapy sharea long history, but they exist as separate modalitiesand are rarely taught or learned together. This articleproposes that the two modalities need each other.Polarity covers material that Craniosacral sorelyneeds, and vice versa. Each one enriches the effective-ness of the other, and together they provide a morecomprehensive foundation for holistic health care,than either one can manifest by itself.

It is useful to acknowledge that the two have mul-tiple links going back to their earliest days. Both weredeveloped by American osteopaths,1 in approximate-ly the same time period2 and in the same geographi-cal region.3 The founders and early practitioners wereaware of each other and attended each other’s eventsto at least modest degree, and highly complimentarystatements have been directed back and forth betweenthe two.4

There are more congruencies. Both require skills ofsubtle perception and palpation, accessing micro-scalephenomena.5 Both are known for effectiveness, butalso both have never yet been fully explained scientifi-cally. Both propose that largely invisible forces createthe hidden foundation for health. Both are interestedin dualistic, cyclic patterns (expansion/contraction,flexion/extension). Both make references to spirituali-ty, mystical forces and transpersonal dimensions. Withall this in common, the two could be said to becousins.

At the same time, significant differences alsoexist. Craniosacral almost exclusively uses a verylight touch, while Polarity uses three touches (light,rocking and firm). Craniosacral is primarily non-ver-bal, and approaches all symptoms through a relative-ly few basic principles, especially interactions with“The Breath of Life”in its multiple expressions (slow,slower, slowest), known colloquially as the Tide.Craniosacral is relatively single-focused. In contrast,Polarity is multi-faceted. It can be entirely verbal, aswell as having therapeutic applications relating todiet and exercise in addition to its familiar touchmethods.

Having the two separated imposes limitations onpractitioner effectiveness. A Craniosacral graduatemay encounter clients in severe emotional distress,and lack the therapeutic training to work directly onthat level. Verbal skills may be very limited, becausethese may not be included in the core curriculum.6Phenomena may be palpated for which there are noconventional anatomical explanations. Importantrelationships may go unrecognized, such as thephysical manifestation of an emotional experience.The Craniosacral Therapist is generally taught tosupport the natural symmetry and range of motionof the midline structures and functions, which canbecome distorted or immobilized due to trauma.However, just waiting for the client’s inner resourcesto mobilize for this purpose may take an uncomfort-ably long time and may seem inefficient.

Meanwhile the Polarity Therapist has a muchmore active repertoire of therapeutic possibilities, butmay not know particular strategies to optimally dealwith specific situations. There may be little aware-ness of the profound possibilities offered by percep-tual interaction with the Tide. Effective strategiessuch as “stillpoints” and “Becker’s Three-StageProcess” may be unknown. Specific approaches forconditions such as TMJ syndrome, joint injuries andwhiplash may not be available, because they are notdirectly covered in Stone’s writing.

This article proposes that each modality will ben-efit by paying more attention to the other. In theabsence of a unified curriculum, at least each could

1. Polarity Therapy was developed by Randolph Stone, DO, DC,ND (1890-1981). Craniosacral Therapy is indirectly derivedfrom the research of William Sutherland, DO (1870-1954) andwas greatly expanded by John Upledger, DO (1930-) and others.

2. Both Stone and Sutherland were especially productive in thelate 1940s and early 1950s. Stone’s books were publishedbetween 1948 and 1954.

3. Both Sutherland and Stone practiced medicine in the Midwest:Stone in Chicago, Sutherland in Missouri.

4. Stone, Fulford, DeJarnette, Jealous and Sills all have publishedor unpublished comments directed from one to the other. For asample of Stone’s commentary about Cranial Osteopathy, seePolarity Therapy, Vol. II, pp. 223-4 (CRCS, Sebastopol, 1986).

5. The “primary respiratory mechanism,” the basis of CraniosacralTherapy, has been measured at about 1/50 of an inch (Liem,Cranial Osteopathy, p. 4). This is only about the thickness of asheet of paper. Meanwhile the energy pulses palpated by aPolarity Therapist may have no measurable physical movementat all.

6. Naturally there are many variations among different schools;this statement is derived from what is stated in the literature,not what is found in classrooms.

Gifts How Polarity Therapy and Craniosacral Therapy need each other

By John Chitty, BCST, RPP

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pull in some of the best practices of the other, toenrich effectiveness and expedite client improvement.

Craniosacral’s Potential Gifts to Polarity

1. Knowledge of the Tide. Sutherland’s discovery of aminute polyrhythmic movement in the body is one ofthe great (unappreciated) awakenings in health carehistory. The whole body is cycling in tiny slow expan-sions and contractions, of unexplained origin. TheTide is not much mentioned in Stone’s Polarity thera-py writings, probably because the timing of his writ-ing preceded or coincided so closely with Sutherland’sexperimentation. There can be little disputing theeffectiveness of strategies based on interactions withthe Tide; Polarity Therapists benefit enormously whenthis profound factor is appreciated.

2. Focus on anatomy. The Craniosacral curriculum ismore closely aligned with modern medical osteopathy,and generally there is much more time spent explor-ing certain particular anatomical information, particu-larly the skeleton, fascia, nerve and fluid layers. Bycomparison, the Polarity RPP curriculum’s 100 hoursof anatomy study attempts to survey the entire humananatomy, and therefore may cover a wider terrain, butmore shallowly. Polarity students and practitionerswould benefit greatly by expanding anatomicalknowledge to study more deeply in strategic areasand thereby be able to work more effectively withsome very common conditions.

3. Techniques for specific conditions. Craniosacral hasmethods for dealing with some very difficult but com-mon conditions, via “Becker’s Three Stage Process”and related approaches. Tempero-mandibular syn-drome, joint injuries, whiplash and tinnitus are exam-ples of conditions for which the instructions left byStone are not very detailed (even though they still canbe effective).

Polarity’s Potential Gifts to Craniosacral

Similarly, Craniosacral Therapy seems to have sig-nificant deficiencies, in specific areas for whichPolarity is particularly well-resourced. TheCraniosacral student would benefit enormously byexpanding beyond the base education to pull in someof Polarity’s featured concepts and techniques.

1. Three Touches. A Craniosacral Session is general-ly limited to a light touch and a very indirect style (see“Direct vs. Indirect” at the end of this article). However,there can be a great benefit to meeting the clientswhere they are, instead of waiting for them to find theslow, still pacing of Craniosacral work. Deep tissuework on the feet7 or gentle rocking of the diaphragm

can do wonders to synchronize the client with theforces of underlying health, and increase awarenessof subtle patterns. Having a repertoire of all threetouches can also alleviate the occasionally problemat-ic situation in which new Craniosacral clients mayfeel anxious because the practitioner initially doesnot seem to be doing much, while access to the Tideis being gradually tuned in.8

2. Mental-Emotional Support. Aside from FranklynSills and some of John Upledger’s Somato-EmotionalRelease, Craniosacral Therapy literature and curricu-la do not contain much verbal technique. MeanwhilePolarity Counseling is spectacular in its depth andeffectiveness. Many clients need mental-emotionalsupport in addition to physical therapies. PeterLevine’s Somatic Experiencing has been embraced byPolarity Therapists (for good reason: Levine studiedwith Stone in 19669) because it reflects core Polarityprinciples. Similarly Polarity Counseling offersunderstanding of the archetypes, the “Journey of theSoul,” and maps for linking emotions to physicalbody areas. These materials could enormously enrich

7. Stone’s comment (Lecture July 1950, transcribed by PhilYoung):“These people [cranial osteopaths] would get betterresults if they worked the foot as well as the head.”

8. Ibid., Stone, “It’s [waiting for the Tide to manifest] almost tootedious.”

Peter Levine made the following comments in his seminarsponsored by the American Polarity Therapy Association afterthe APTA Conference, Toronto, June 1997:“...The two polarities, just like in Polarity Therapy, are expan-sion and contraction. The two results of polarization areexpansion and contraction, so you have a wave undulationbetween the expansive quality of the energy movement andits contraction. That’s the normal response of that universe:expansion-contraction, expansion-contraction. “As you go into the trauma vortex you could call that thecompression vortex or the constriction vortex. As you moveout of that into the inner vortex, then the experience is one ofexpansion. Again, they have to be linked together, becausefrom a physics point of view, singularities are notoriouslyunstable. If you have something that’s just one polarity, eitherexpansion or contraction, it will eventually go into an unstableexplosion or annihilation, either rigidity or fragmentation.

“You have to have this pulsing back and forth. This is the keythat we come to over and over, really the fundamental essencephenomenologically of this approach. The movementsbetween expansion and contraction is the normal process ofself-regulation, the energetic basis of self-regulation.

“As I talk about this, I really see how deeply I was influenced byStone [in 1966]. I had not thought about it for years, but beinghere I can really see how he got me to start thinking in theseterms, how he helped me start to put these thoughts together,as did many others mentioned in the book acknowledge-ments. But he is one person I should put in, in the second edi-tion.”

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the practice of Craniosacral Therapy.3. Energy Anatomy. Craniosacral practitioners are

likely to see body patterns as purely expressions ofanatomy and physiology. The old timers talked abouttorsion and compression as if they existed simply inmechanical terms. However, most Craniosacral practi-tioners also recognize that mechanistic explanationsare usually oversimplifications. It is generally accept-ed that physical phenomena are often preceded (or atleast accompanied) by mental and emotional experi-ences, but Craniosacral practitioners are not oftentaught how to work with this situation. Palpating adistortion in the neck, Craniosacral Therapists willattend to cervical vertebrae, hyoid bone and neck fas-cia, and be generally unaware of the presence and sig-nificance of the throat chakra, which may be a keypiece of the puzzle. When the energetic level is recog-nized, the client feels more understood and the workgoes deeper. In Polarity, the links between levels areenvisioned as energetic filaments following certainpathways; recognition of this can dramatically furtherthe session work.

4. Cosmology. Finally, Polarity’s broad theoreticalfoundation would benefit Craniosacral Therapy great-ly. Perhaps reflecting its medical roots, CST oftenholds back on A.T. Still’s spiritual and esoteric ideas.10

Other than Franklyn Sills, the Craniosacral literaturedoes not propose a particular big-picture cosmology.Meanwhile Polarity, less tightly tied to mainstreamideas, is free to be much less inhibited. Stone’s writ-ings are saturated with spiritual and esoteric commen-tary and these can be very useful to help some clientsre-orient to their deeper purpose and recognize theirdeep longings for insight into the full meaning of theirconditions.

The day may come when a truly comprehensivecurriculum is developed and offered, combining bestpractices from related fields such as Polarity Therapy,Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy, Trauma resolution,and Pre-and Peri-Natal Therapy under one integratedMaster’s Degree program. Such a curriculum couldalso find space for some of the other rich areasimplied by Polarity principles, such as Sound Healing,aromatherapy, homeopathy, shamanism and relatedtopics.

But in the meantime, this article is a call to open

the gates between Polarity and Craniosacral. Withouttoo much strain on existing curricula, these few top-ics could be incorporated, and the work of practition-ers in each group would be immensely strengthened.Success of the modality depends on effectivenessmore than any other factor. These proven techniquescould add to effectiveness while also re-uniting fami-ly members who may have grown apart in the manyyears since Fulford sat in Stone’s early-1960s semi-nars. Stone’s often-repeated, all-inclusive motto,“Whatever Works, Works!” would be reborn in thehybrid that could emerge from this cross-pollination.

Direct vs. Indirect

If we attempt to use active pursuit of the thoughtprocess to achieve knowledge about the unmanifest, we getblocked or confused because a drop of water cannot per -ceive the entire ocean, just as thought cannot perceive thegreater thought of the unmanifest. But the passive recep -tion of information about the unmanifest routinely occursthrough reflection, contemplation and meditation.

–Paul Lee, Interface, p. 103One of Stone’s more interesting Polarity charts

represents the spectrum of therapeutic action.Polarity Therapy Vol. 1 Book 3 Chart 2 shows atoroidal shape with a fountain at one end and a vor-tex at the other. At the fountain end, the centrifugal

10. Interface: Mechanisms of Spirit in Osteopathy, by Paul Lee,DO (Stillness Press, Portland, 2006) tells the story of how osteo-pathic founder A.T. Still’s ideas were suppressed in attempts toaccommodate the concerns of science and mainstream medi-cine.

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Polarity Therapy Vol. I, Book 3, Chart 2“Opposites Polarized. Diagram of the Pattern of

Life Force and the Tissue Cell

principle is expressed, while the vortex end reflects acentripetal effect. At the centrifugal end, the chartssays “Quantity- Force” and at the centripetal end,“Quality- Essence.”

This chart could be interpreted to be an endorse-ment of the full spectrum of therapeutic possibilities.

At one end, the practitioner takes direct action andattempts to “fix” the problem through knowledgeableintervention. This is the realm of allopathic main-stream medicine. In Polarity language, this can be con-sidered the Yang end of the spectrum. It can be veryeffective but can have a side effect of disempower-ment of the client and loss of the client’s sense ofresponsibility (since the healing power or agent isexternal). Drugs and surgery are examples of directaction, but also at this end are the touch therapies thatdirectly manipulate the body and attempt to restore ahypothetical optimum. Massage can be very direct, ascan Rolfing, Chiropractic and similar deep tissuemanipulations. In psychotherapy, direct action isemployed by the practitioner who gives advice andtells the clients what to do to repair their lives.

At the other end, the practitioner works indirectly.The intention is to create a receptive field conducive tohealing from the inside out. This can be consideredthe Yin end of the spectrum. The practitioner is notexcessively trying to figure out ideal placement orfunctionality. If anything the practitioner is intendingto serve as a mirror so the client’s inner intelligencecan see itself, become more aware, and self-correctaccording to its own measures of optimal function.Here the practitioner does not try to be the all-know-ing authority. The real authority is considered to bethe “ordering principle” constantly being expressedby the mechanisms of life. Indirect methods, alsoknown as biodynamic, generally use a very lighttouch, or may even be off the body. Reflective listen-ing (instead of advice), nurturing and constantreminder of the importance of taking responsibility forone’s one condition are features of this approach.Indirect therapy has a disadvantage of being less use-ful in emergencies; an indirect approach would be apoor choice for arterial bleeding or appendicitis.

Craniosacral Therapy deserves great credit foruplifting appreciation of the indirect approach, whichis little known in mainstream allopathic medicine.

Rollin Becker, DO (1918-1994) was particularly elo-quent about this almost-forgotten therapeutic idea:

The purpose of the treatment is to arouse thebody physiology of the patient to evaluate its ownhealth patterns and to treat its own traumatic ordisease conditions with the resources of itsanatomicophysiological mechanisms.11

It can be argued that Stone valued both ends ofthe spectrum and everything in between. Anecdotestell of his direct action, deep touch and forcefuladvice. Other anecdotes describe a quite differenttherapeutic practice, such as the remarkable passagein Richard Heckler’s Anatomy of Change.

He had a presence that touched people, and itwas this presence, not technique, that was thebasis of his healing…”12

It is common for practitioners at one end of thespectrum to discount those at the other. Direct actionpractitioners may think the indirect approach is inef-ficient or even fraudulent; advocates of indirectmight talk about the limitations of external authori-ties and the importance of “healing from within.” Atworst, an atmosphere of ridicule is created, one sidesaying how it is better than the other. While thedirect-action camp perhaps has a worse reputationfor this, the indirect group can be just as snobby.

Chart 2 offers room for the whole spectrum, andPolarity Therapy is remarkable for its inclusiveness.Divisive arguments have little value for the client.

Craniosacral, particularly the biodynamic group,could be said to represent the indirect end of thescale. Polarity, with tamasic touch at the direct endand satvic touch at the indirect end, could be said tooffer both approaches, As Polarity and Craniosacralseek their common ground, the language of direct vs.indirect can help everyone stay oriented to the bigpicture while also taking advantage of the strengthson each side. Hypothetically it should be possible todance gracefully across the full range, according tothe individual needs of each client.

11. Becker, Rollin. Stillness of Life. Edited by Rachel Brooks, MD.Stillness Press, Portland, 2000. Page 85.

12. Heckler, Richard. Anatomy of Change. North Atlantic Books,Berkeley, 1984. Pages 113-116.

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