Katherine Ukleja Cranial

17/03/2026

TREATING THE BRAIN

Many Craniosacral practitioners avoid treating the brain in fear that they will cause problems. But the brain is not magical, it is an organ. Like any other organ it is made up of cells (neurones and glia), it has a blood supply, a 'capsule' made of meninges, both the blood vessels and the membranes have their own nerve supply. Additionally, the brain is bathed in CSF and has a glymphatic drainage system. So when the brain is injured, all and any of those physical components will be damaged. Help will be needed to aid repair and recovery. Craniosacral Tharapy is perfect for the job.

Two cranial practitioners who specialise in this field are running a seminar on 8 - 10 May, in Exeter, UK. I would highly recommend this for anyone interested in improving their understanding and skill in meeting brain injury.

For details email: cranialconnect@gmail.com

06/03/2026

THE GROUND LEVEL OF LIFE
HOMEOSTASIS AND PRIMARY RESPIRATION

In his Hierarchy of Needs Abraham Malsow gave us a psychological theory of motivation, famously depicted as a five-level pyramid. This psychological model asserts that people are motivated to fulfil basic needs before moving to more advanced, psychological needs.

At the base of the pyramid, he places immediate physiological needs including homeostasis. His view of homeostasis is limited to the body’s automatic, internal drive to maintain a stable, constant environment for life to persist. When homeostasis is perturbed, physiological needs are generated (hunger, thirst, cold). These needs that take top priority in Maslow’s hierarchy.

Antinio Damasio takes a broader view, he tells us that Homeostasis ‘ensures that life is regulated within a range that is not just compatible with survival but also conductive to flourishing, a projection of life into the future of an organism or a species’ *

The ground level of this pyramid is the province of our practice. We interface with life in the raw. Our paradigm and experience inform us that within the fluctuations of homeostasis order is maintained by the intrinsic rhythmic forces (seen in even the simplest living organisms) that we call the Tide. Through the Tide we tap into the biological imperative to thrive, to flourish. We work from the bottom up, from the ground of potential that gives rise to the full spectrum of health.

*Damasio, The Strange Order of Things

16/02/2026

VOCAL TONE AND VAGAL TONE

The sound of our voice is directly linked to our emotional state. It’s difficult to disguise how we feel. The tone of our voice gives us away. The muscles which tension our vocal cords, changing vocal tone, are controlled by the Vagus nerve, the ventral Vagus to be precise. And sensory input from the voice box feeds back to the brainstem control centres which determine vagal output known as vagal tone.
High vagal tone allows us to handle stress better. We react in a manner proportionate to the stressor and recover faster. Embodied history held in the throat has a direct impact on vagal tone.

Learn more: Join me for a two-day seminar, The Voice and the Hyoid, in Exeter UK, on March 14/15, 2026

BOOKINGS: https://circlecranio.com/post-graduate-cpd

11/02/2026

RHYTHMIC FORCES

William Seifriz was a biology professor who studied living organisms through the lens of physics. His research centred on slime mould, a protoplasmic entity which functions as a single cell with multiple nuclei. Decades on, science tells us that this remarkable organism is capable of problem solving, memorizing and navigating its environment without a brain. If fact the slime mould does not have even a rudimentary nervous system or recognizable sensory organs. It displays a very different kind of intelligence.
Seifriz hinted at this ‘intelligence’, but his main observation was of the ‘Rhythmic Forces’ in protoplasm which persisted even when the organism was anaesthetised or in shock. As he pondered these Rhythmic Forces, he pronounced that “we must be very close indeed to the question, what is life?”

It was the rhythmicity of the subtle motion that Sutherland discerned, initially in the cranial bones, that lead to his life-long search for the power that drives the motion of Primary Respiration. A power indivisible from life itself. His conclusion was that this force, which he called ‘potency’ derived from an ‘invisible element’. Possibly not answer that would have satisfied the empirically-minded William Seifriz!

Watch Seifriz’ protoplasm video on youtube.

05/02/2026

SUBTLE PHYSIOLOGY

In medicine, physiology studies the functions of living organisms which maintain life, health, and homeostasis, as well as how organisms respond to environmental changes. Beneath this measurable, material level of function, there is the subtle physiology of life itself.

In craniosacral therapy we attend to subtle physiology. This manifests in the living body as the polyrhythmic tidal motion which WG Sutherland named Primary Respiration.

Observing how this tidal motion responds to changes in the organism’s internal and external environment provides diagnostic information. These responses can be transitory, fluctuant, or they can be chronic; the latter become the subject of our therapeutic encounters in which we use gentle touch to liberate the forces that bind in order to reanimate the body’s subtle physiology.

05/01/2026

SEMINARS ON OFFER 2026

Happy New Year everyone.

I have now published my teaching diary for 2026 on my website. It is the complete list of my advanced seminar for the whole year, which is my final year of teaching.
There will be just one on-line event in February, hosted by the Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy Association of North America. This will be a two part webinar about Biodynamic Touch.
All other seminars will be in person, scattered across Europe.
Hope to see many of you before I retire

Booking details are available on my website.

The seminars are open to qualified craniosacral therapists as part of continuing professional development. Seminars are taught in English with translation into the local language.

30/11/2025

WHAT’S IMORTANT

2026 will be my final year of teaching. As I plan my schedule, I am choosing subject which I consider essential to the professional practice of Craniosacral Biodynamics. Hence, I have chosen Potency and Touch, but I am also including seminars which deal with vagal tone. Good vagal tone is the cornerstone of resilience, in turn, resilience underpins enduring holistic health.

I am kicking off the year in Poland, with two rounds of Behind the Smile, a seminar which distils specific cranial skills for meeting poor function of the Social Engagement System. This neural substrate is also known as the Ventral Vagal Complex. In his early research papers, Stephen Porges defined a ‘social engagement system, which focuses only on the neural regulation of the striated muscles of the face and head and the specific autonomic functions mediated by the myelinated Vagus’. He conceptualised this system as having ‘a common neural substrate composed of several cranial nerves that develop embryologically together’

This seminar is dedicated to understanding this group of Cranial Nerves, which together comprise the Ventral Vagal Complex. It concentrates on specific touch skills designed to improve the regulation of heart rate and boost vagal tone.

Come and join me in Wrocław, I will be teaching in English, with translation into Polish.

BEHIND THE SMILE, January 15 -18 and 22 - 25, 2026

https://www.europejskiecentrumterapii.pl/produkt/behind-the-smile-drugi-termin-katherine-ukleja/

30/10/2025

DIAGNOSTIC TOUCH

Rollin Becker wrote:
‘The physician’s mind becomes an observing tool, an analytical tool, an exploring tool, and an interpretive tool that accompanies the sense of touch as it follows the changes that are taking place. One might say that the physician’s mind alertly parallels the sense of touch throughout the diagnostic process..... the physician’s mind must follow deep within the patient’s body...

Thus, the use of diagnostic touch is more than a passive laying on of hands. It is a form of palpation that one might call an alert observation type of awareness for the functions and dysfunctions from within the patient, utilizing the motive energy deep within the tissues themselves.’

If you want to refine your palpation skills so your hands become confident ‘analytical and interpretive’ tools join me in Exeter in November for a two-day CPD seminar of deepening, expanding, refining our palpation skills and simply enjoying the power of touch.

TOUCH – November 15-16, 2025
https://circlecranio.com/post-graduate-cpd

11/10/2025

TOUCH, OUR SUPERPOWER

Quoting James Jealous:

‘We use our hands diagnostically, perceptually, and therapeutically - that’s how simple and profound this is. We are not listening for symptoms but for a pre-established priority set in motion by the Health in the patient. The founder of osteopathy, an MD surgeon, had a vision and followed his insight. He trained physicians to use their hands for healing, along with very simple and natural remedies - diet, rest, meditation, prayer - nothing was added but ‘hands-on healing’. It works!’

Yes, it certainly works! Touch is what we do. Touch is the cornerstone of craniosacral practice. Join me in Exeter in November for two days of deepening, expanding, refining our palpation skills and simply enjoying the power of touch.

TOUCH – November 15-16, 2025
https://circlecranio.com/post-graduate-cpd

07/10/2025

Franklyn, in our hearts

‘Health can be defined as the emergence of Originality’ (James Jealous)

Originality flowed from Franklyn. He inspired so many of us to go beyond the limits of our conditioning and beyond the limits of everyday perception, into the unimaginable depth of interconnection at the heart of our humanity.

If you missed his memorial service here is a link to where you can view it.

https://www.youtube.com/live/1MrRhgOrL4E

30/09/2025

‘WE ARE SHAPED BY OUR EXPERIENCE’

As I think of Franklyn these words play in my head. I heard him repeat these words often, over my long years of close association with him and they guided my clinical practice.

Southerland was fond of the proverb ‘As a twig is bent, so the tree will grow’. Meaning that events in early life affect our future health. In particular, he was describing the impact of physical forces exerted on the head when we are born and how these forces mould the growth pattern and potential of the whole body, as we progress through life.

Franklyn’s phrase, WE ARE SHAPED BY OUR EXPERIENCE, expands that idea beyond the structure and function of the physical body to encompass the emotional, psychological and spiritual dimensions of human experience. The living body becomes a storehouse for our biography.

So, when we put our hands somebody, we are touching their life history, their whole being. That opens the door to a more authentic, compassionate engagement with those who seek our help.

15/09/2025

DANCING WITH POTENCY

Life is motion. That motion is sustained by an animating force that we know as the Potency of the Breath of Life. Whenever and wherever that motion is compromised dysfunction ensues. That is the essence of Sutherland’s pivotal model of Primary Respiration. And it the Potency that has the power to re-animate and restore healthy function.
No matter if it’s a sprained ankle, sympathetic hyperarousal, emotional turmoil, or systemic disease it is the Potency that initiates healing. Our job is to align our superbly sensitive touch with the many functions of Potency to support all levels of healing from the physiological to the transcendent.

DANCING WITH POTENCY is a seminar for craniosacral professionals. It is the culmination of my forty years of clinical practice in the osteopathic and cranial fields and thirty years as a teacher of Craniosacral Therapy. Many, many of those years spent alongside Franklyn Sills at the Karuna Institute, a period of evolution in our philosophy and touch skills that culminated in the birth of Craniosacral Biodynamics.

There are still some places available on DANCING WITH POTENCY in Exeter, October 2 -4, 2025. I hope you can join me. It will be the last time that I teach this seminar in the UK before my retirement.

For details
https://www.katherineukleja.co.uk/seminars
Bookings
https://circlecranio.com/post-graduate-cpd