28/05/2025
What can CranioSacral Therapy (CST) treat?
Its a fair question right? And one we get asked LOT.
In the UK, we're not allowed to advertise CST by listing conditions it may help with, even if that's what people want to know. (That's down to the CAP code - the Committee of Advertising Practice - which governs what people 'advertising' can claim.)
We can say CST is deeply relaxing - the evidence for many complementary approaches supports that. We also have studies that shows positive results for headaches, concussion and - in our most recent published case study - infant colic.
(And there's more published research than you might expect - even though the classic double blind studies are pretty tricky to do...)
It's important not to make promises we don't know if we can keep, mislead people or be socially irresponsible in any way. Even though, even if there is evidence, results will always vary.
One person's chronic pain or anxiety may have very different roots than another's, etc...
But that's the bit that gets harder to explain - we don't treat the condition, we treat to the person.
So I did a little experiment. I asked a few of our experienced CST practitioners:
"What were the last 10 things clients came to you for?"
The answers were really interesting.
(My goodness we treat a variety of things.)
These are some of the things a few of them said:
Chronic low back ache; chronic fatigue; migraines; concussion; anxiety and depression (in all ages pretty much - this one has definitely been on the rise); insomnia; post cancer diagnosis or treatment; bowel issues; emotional issues of many different types and origins; sinus congestion; vertigo; COPD; TMJ dislocations, troubles and pain; aches and pains of all sorts....
And so the list goes on - and this was only including the last 10 treatments In the past, we've used a tool called MYMOP (Measure Yourself Medical Outcome Profile) to track change across CST sessions. Clients rate for themselves how their main symptoms shift over time.
This showed that, on average, three sessions were enough to begin to notice meaningful change. Not for everything, but it showed that this work has impact.
(С)Caroline Barrow
