Tender Courage 
What is Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy?
Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy (BCST) is a light-touch therapy that takes place with a client fully clothed on a massage table. With care and consent, the therapist ‘listens’ to the body through their hands while maintaining a sense of neutrality and drawing on a connection to the natural forces of healing as experienced by the practitioner.
This invites the tides of healing to awaken within the client. These tides help the body re-allocate life force energy that may have been tied up by emotional trauma or physical injury. BCST approaches pain and imbalance from the perspective of wholeness and with the belief that there is health at the heart of every wound.
(For a deeper understanding of craniosacral therapy, please scroll down to ‘My Approach’ near the bottom of this page.)
“The essence of a biodynamic session is a return to origins”
— James Jealous, D.O.
Home visits and distance sessions are available upon request.
To learn more about Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy…
Craniosacral sessions offer support for a wide range of experiences and conditions, including:
- PTSD
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Chronic and acute pain, from injury or otherwise
- Migraines
- Concussion
- Broken bones
- Sprains and tears to muscle or ligament
- Surgical recovery
- Insomnia and finding deeper sleep
- Creating more comfort and ease; increased somatic and sensory awareness (felt-sense within the body)
- Clearing birth trauma for both child and birth parent. Recovery from birth trauma can be accessed at any time in life.
- Helping the cranial bones settle into a spacious and comfortable relationship after navigating the birth canal
- Support birth and postpartum recovery for both baby and parent (more here)
My Approach
In my work as a craniosacral therapist, I believe there is a blueprint which informs the unfolding of our bodies, both in the womb and throughout the life cycle. As I listen to and protect this pattern, I gently invite it back to its most fundamental and whole expression.
Craniosacal therapy has it’s roots within the field of Osteopathy. It addresses the body as an integrated ‘Whole’, primarily through the fascial system, a continuous fabric of connective tissue that interpenetrates all layers and extends unbroken and complete from head to toe and throughout all organs and systems. In addition, fascia is the scaffolding upon which the nerves and circulatory system are supported and ‘held’. It is a protective layer that remains fluid at moments of rest and safety, but will quickly solidify upon impact and physical, mental or emotional stress, thus protecting the delicate tissues throughout the body. When the body or nervous system are not overwhelmed by the stress or impact, the fascial system can easily release and return to it’s ideal fluid state. This reflects resilience within the system. However, when the system is overwhelmed, the fascia will remain in a unmovable frozen state in that particular area of the body, sometimes for years upon years. This is experienced as the places within our body that feel congested, tight, painful, ‘locked up’.
The goal of craniosacral therapy is to work with the body’s own rhythms and wisdom to help the body gently release these constrictions, such that the free flow of blood, nerve impulse, energy exchange and tissues can easily begin to flow and glide against one another in synchrony. This ‘flow state’ optimizes the life-force (or Qi) within the body and the full expression of who we are intended to be.
Tender Courage Birth and Wellness is located in unceded Pocumtuk territory, serving folks throughout the Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts; including Greenfield, Deerfield, Amherst, Northampton, and Easthampton, Holyoke, Springfield and all of the hilltowns surrounding. Also Southern Vermont and Brattleboro area, Southern New Hampshire …. and anywhere on Zoom. The Tender Courage office is in Northampton, Massachusetts.