This is an area of interest for me, so I'll take a stab at it...
•••quote:•••Originally posted by Texas_Sam:
•How many of you will actually use Cranial Manipulation in practice?•••••I will.
•••quote:•••Originally posted by Texas_Sam:
•How many of you cringe during the lectures when the Dr. starts talking about "The Breath of Life" or "The intrinsic fluid within the fluid" or other metaphysical assertions?•••••I do.
•••quote:•••Originally posted by Texas_Sam:
•Does it bother anyone that this particular field of manipulation is being taught as mainstream medicine? •••••Not anymore than it does that Freud's concept of an id, ego, superego is taught as part of mainstream medicine even though there exists little evidence to support such a theoretical superstructure. Not anymore than it does that neurologists frequently subdivide brain functions into "primitive" versus "executive" or "emotional" versus "cognitive" theoretical subdivisions even though these distinctions are a hotbed of controversy and evolving research.
The problem as I see it is one of phenomenology. That is, the translation of EXPERIENCE into LANGUAGE suitable for instruction. How do you describe the experience of "redness"? If you could accurately describe it, how would you TEACH "redness." I'm not talking about pointing at the crayon box and SHOWING "redness." I mean getting other human beings to experience "redness" the way YOU experience "redness." It is not an easy task, but it is the fundamental task involved in teaching palpation.
Osteopathy and cranial osteopathy evolved within a historical and intellectual context. Early workers used the only language/concepts/metaphors/experiences familiar to them to communicate their perceptions and experiences. If you read Still's books, you'll find that he depends upon mechanical metaphors to communicate almost all of his observations. That was the paradigm he was working in at the time of his "discovery." Southerland also uses mechanical metaphors, but also evokes all kinds of "fluid" model metaphors and spiritual metaphors to describe his observations. That's to be fully expected from those living 100+ years ago.
But, times have changed. Knowledge has advanced and observations get constantly re-interpretted within scientific frameworks as new data become available. This is the way science works. We no longer think of disease being caused by "ill humors" in the blood. Now we understand that "toxins", "immunomodulator", "cytokines", "pathogens", "antibodies", "antigens", etc all mediate systemic immune responses that make us feel "sick." Ill humors has been re-interpretted into language that reflects current science and current phenomenology.
This has yet to happen with cranial osteopathy. Perhaps because the science is so primitive or perhaps because of intellectual laziness, we are still depending upon out-moded language to communicate an experience in a more sophisticated time. This need not continue. There is language available, based upon modern scientific thinking, theories, and language to communicate the phenomenology of cranial experience. Two examples are provided below:
Med Hypotheses 2001 Jan;56(1):40-51
The cytological implications of primary respiration.
Crisera PN.
[email protected]
Observing the macroscopic complexities of evolved species, the exceptional continuity that occurs among different cells, tissues and organs to respond coherently to the proper set of stimuli as a function of self/species survival is appreciable. Accordingly, it alludes to a central rhythm that resonates throughout the cell; nominated here as primary respiration (PR), which is capable of binding and synchronizing a diversity of physiological processes into a functional biological unity. Phylogenetically, it was conserved as an indispensable element in the makeup of the subkingdom Metazoa, since these species require a high degree of coordination among the different cells that form their body. However, it does not preclude the possibility of a basal rhythm to orchestrate the intricacies of cellular dynamics of both prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells. In all probability, PR emerges within the crucial organelles, with special emphasis on the DNA (5), and propagated and transduced within the infrastructure of the cytoskeleton as wave harmonics (49). Collectively, this equivalent vibration for the subphylum Vertebrata emanates as craniosacral respiration (CSR), though its expression is more elaborate depending on the development of the CNS. Furthermore, the author suggests that the phenomenon of PR or CSR be intimately associated to the basic rest/activity cycle (BRAC), generated by concentrically localized neurons that possess auto-oscillatory properties and assembled into a vital network (39). Historically, during Protochordate-Vertebrate transition, this area circumscribes an archaic region of the brain in which many vital biological rhythms have their source, called hindbrain rhombomeres. Bass and Baker (2) propose that pattern-generating circuits of more recent innovations, such as vocal, electromotor, extensor muscle tonicity, locomotion and the extraocular system, have their origin from the same Hox gene-specified compartments of the embryonic hindbrain (rhombomeres 7 and 8) that produce rhythmically active cardiac and thoracic respiratory circuits. Here, it implies that PR could have been the first essential biological cadence that arose with the earliest form of life, and has undergone a phylogenetic ascent to produce an integrated multirhythmic organism of today. Finally, in its full manifestation, the breathing DNA (1) of the zygote could project itself throughout the cytoskeleton and modify the electromechanical properties of the plasma lamella (26), establishing the primordial axial-voltage gradients for the physiological control of development (53).
J Appl Physiol 1990 Sep;69(3):809-21 Related Articles, Books, LinkOut
Membrane and cellular properties in oscillating networks: implications for respiration.
Dekin MS, Haddad GG.
T. H. Morgan School of Biological Sciences, University of Kentucky, Lexington 40506-0225.
Because of a number of major advances in the past one to two decades, there is little doubt that the inherent cellular and membrane properties of neurons in an oscillating network play an important role in shaping the output of that network. There are a number of such examples in vertebrate and invertebrate systems. In this review, we present some of the newer methods that have been used in the identification of membrane properties and detail some cellular studies performed in both vertebrate (locomotion and sleep/waking rhythms) and invertebrate network systems (escape swimming in Tritonia diomedia and pyloric rhythm in Panulirus interruptus). Studies examining the cellular or membrane properties of respiratory neurons have been scarce until recently. The importance of these properties in dictating respiratory rhythm generation and output in the mature and immature animal is not yet known; however, we put this issue in perspective by building a parallel between mammalian respiration and other vertebrate networks that have been better investigated and characterized.
Both of these studies describe central assertions of the cranial model using scientific language that does not include "breath of life", "fluid within a fluid", or other such language. We need modern, scientifically educated people reinterpret early cranial observations with suitable language for our time.
Here's an interesting article that makes some of these points:
J Am Osteopath Assoc 1998 Mar;98(3):164-8
Communication for osteopathic manipulative treatment (OMT): the language of lived experience in OMT pedagogy.
Gaines E, Chila AG.
West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine, Lewisburg, USA.
Questions about the scientific merits of osteopathic manipulative treatment (OMT) and the search for consistent, effective teaching methods for OMT persist in the discourse of the osteopathic medical curriculum. Although grounded on scientific principles, the philosophy of osteopathic medicine in the words of Andrew Taylor Still, William G. Sutherland, and other prominent osteopathic medical scholars advances concepts in metaphoric language that may seem obscure and dated to many of today's students. Evidence in the literature of osteopathic medicine supports the congruence of phenomenology with the philosophy and methods used to teach OMT. Phenomenology offers an alternative paradigm to address questions of scientific merit and could provide a consistent language to a rigorous, scientific approach to communication for OMT pedagogy. The authors propose a solution for the tactical adaptation of a communication strategy based on an interpretation of osteopathic medical methodology and phenomenology.
Fiziol Cheloveka 2001 Mar-Apr;27(2):47-55
[Slow rhythmic oscillations within the human cranium: phenomenology, origin, informational significance]
[Article in Russian]
Moskalenko IuE, Frymann V, Vainshtein GB, Semernia VN, Kravchenko TI, Markovets SP, Panov AA, Maiorova NF.
PMID: 11544869 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
