If you have picked up this book, you have probably heard, somewhere along the way, of a technique called cranial osteopathy. A treatment that involves nothing more than resting one's hands gently on the head — hearing that, you may well have wondered how such a thing could possibly help with headaches, dizziness, a baby's crying at night, or a child's restlessness.
My name is Jiro Yamahata. I direct PALMS CHIROPRACTIC COLLEGE in Osaka, and I have stood at the clinical front line for nearly thirty years. In this book, I want to show, through the patients I have actually treated, the situations in which cranial osteopathy proves useful, and to explain it in language as plain as I can manage. Please note in advance that the cases described here are composite accounts drawn from real clinical experience, not descriptions of any particular patient.
I do not do this work alone. My wife is also a practitioner, trained in Reiki and osteopathic-family bodywork, and much of our daily practice takes the form of working together — I attend to the cranium while she attends to the sacrum, the diaphragm, or the tension in the fascia. You will meet this two-handed way of working many times in the chapters ahead.
This book covers a wide range of ages, from newborns to the elderly. It begins with real cases, then explains, as simply as I can, the workings of the body that lie behind them. It then introduces the people who built this tradition, before returning once more to cases — this time from adolescence through old age. Finally, it closes with what I most want you to take from this book, stated plainly one more time.
This is not meant to be a difficult medical textbook. Please read it, instead, as a way of seeing your own body — or the body of someone you love — a little differently, and read on with your shoulders relaxed.