Dear friends and future colleagues,

Option 1:  3-Year Full Foundation Training

Liza Borodkin



Download the Application Form (MS Doc)

When you have completed the application, please email it to liz@lizborodkin.com along with your photo and application fee of USD $100.

The application deadline is December 6, 2014

 

Goal

The purpose of this training is to graduate practitioners who can confidently use basic biodynamic craniosacral skills in order to safely and effectively treat clients with various conditions and knowledgeably accompany them through their healing process.

What is Craniosacral Healing

To start, please listen to this overview Intro interview

It is a touch therapy, although it doesn’t have to be through touch, whereby a client and a therapist take a joint journey into the exploration of the inherent Health that underlies any seeming pathology. The recognition of the Health by the two people greatly magnifies the workings of the already-existing healing process and helps bring it up to the surface. The Health in question is expressed via an inherent energetic pulsation throughout the human mindbody system and is referred to as the Tide.

The Tide expresses the Health history of the person going as far back as his/her conception and beyond. The recognition of the peculiarities in the flow of the Tide by the practitioner and the client is all that is needed for the Tide to re-balance itself in such a way that the client’s system shifts to a higher order of functioning and rebalances itself. Since matter is nothing more than concentrated energy,  re-balancing within the Tide allows to address the client’s energetic, emotional, and physical conditions. This is a therapy of observation, and not manipulation. One can rely upon the Tide.

How Does it Work?

The underlying belief of Craniosacral therapy is that the body is capable of healing itself. The surgeon relies on the body's capacity for self-repair to complete the work that he/she did after the operation. Every medical doctor knows that the body is always striving towards homeostasis. Even when we take a strong pill, it is still our own body that is doing the healing work, so why not work with that natural power we all have? When the patient's body feels that it is being listened to on such a deep level, the Tide responds and begins to do its healing work. It's as if Health sees itself in a mirror and realizes what needs to happen. The therapist acts as the mirror that compassionately and non-judgmentally reflects the client's processes on the table. This way, the body can find the root cause of its issues, which often results in benefits that are different and greater than what's expected by the client.  What seem to be physical issues are actually unresolved emotional and spiritual problems. Through the Listening and Recognition, the Tide rebalances itself and begins to do the healing work.

 

Holistic Approach

The great power of the Tide is that it shows the health of the entire person's body, and can, therefore, point to the root cause of the problem, which could easily be in a different part or system of the body than the original problem. Instead of treating separate symptoms, this therapy treats the whole person, which results in benefits much greater than alleviating the original health complaint.

 

What Conditions Craniosacral Healing Can Help

There isn’t a condition for which cranisacral therapy may not be helpful. Even at the latest stages of terminal conditions, craniosacral therapy could help a person access the state of underlying health. Remember, Dr. Sutherland’s most profound experience with the therapy was accompanying a person into his death. The following is a partial list of the conditions that craniosacral therapy has been known to help:

• chronic pain
• confusion, anxiety, depression, lack of energy/vitality
• insomnia
• head injuries
• circulatory disorders
• organ dysfunctions
• learning difficulties
• neuro-endocrine problems
• TMJ and dental problems
• psychiatric conditions
• infants' conditions and pre-natal trauma
• trauma of all kinds — birth, falls, accidents and other injuries, physical, sexual or emotional abuse, Post-traumatic stress disorder, loss/grief, surgery, anesthesia, feelings of compression or pressure.

Craniosacral Healing is also excellent as a preventive therapy because it can facilitate the resolution of imbalances within a patient/client's system that s/he may not be consciously aware of.

Specific Goals of Training and Skills to be Acquired 

• To provide a non-judgmental and safe learning environment conducive of observation and exploration
• To encourage and support the personal development process of each student.
• To explore together and develop the necessary palpation and therapeutic skills and be able to apply them within a clinical context.
• To provide an integrated training in healing that is rooted in the principles of Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy and incorporates influences from other self-reflective and relational disciplines such Peter Levine's trauma healing model, yoga, ayurveda, Alexander Technique, Feldenkrais method, Neuro-Linguistic Programming, eastern meditation techniques, and others.
• To provide a deeply-rooted, “embodied” understanding of the basic principles of Craniosacral Biodynamics and enable students to see the unfoldment of these principles in every aspect of their life. At the end of the course, the students will have an appreciation for CST being a way of living, rather than just a healing modality.
• To be able to safely and knowledgeably apply these principles with clients and have the skills to accompany each client through their healing process
• To teach observational and verbal skills necessary to support the on- and off-table therapeutic work.
• To graduate skilled, safe and therapeutically effective practitioners

 

What a student will be able to accomplish by end of the 2-year training

 

• Get an initial “read” of the client through the client’s Health Intake form and the initial interview during the 1^st session. This initial read will be based on both concrete clues, such as the person’s body language, verbal language, appearance, as well as non-concrete clues, such as the impression the patient gives off, the student’s own reaction to the client’s presence and ability to see what’s behind the client’s facade.
• Explain what is Craniosacral Therapy to the client, how the client will benefit from it, and how the work will be conducted.
  
• Be aware of one’s presence and intentions and establish a safe relational field before putting hands on the client.
  
• Upon placing hands on the client’s body, be able to palpate the Tide, at least at the mid-Tide level, and be able to palpate and describe the quality thereof.
• Become aware of other key craniosacral Health indicators, such as the potency of the Tide, the fluid drive, the orientation of the system to the midline, and any obvious inertial fulcra
• Be able to meet the client’s conditions in a safe and non-judgmental manner so that a potential shift out of those conditions might occur
• Be aware of the overall process or “story” of each session. How did the session begin, what was the transformative phase of the session (and whether or not it was present at all), and how did the session finish. In other words, throughout the course of a session, where did we start, and how did we end up?
• Be able to relay what happened in a session to the client in such a way that the client understands and feels empowered by it.
• Explain to the client the expected process of healing or “the treatment plan”, accompany the client through it, and trace the gradual change in the craniosacral and non-craniosacral Health indicators from session to session.

The Teaching

• The course will be given over 2 or 3 academic years, 6 or 11 segments of 4 days each. At the end of the course, upon completion of all 11 segment, the students will receive a Diploma for having completed 2-year Foundation Training in Healing Based on Biodynamic Craniosacral Healing from RHA (Relational Healing Arts).
  
  
• The students have to commit to completing all 11 segments of the course. Without this, participating and exchanging work with other students is not fair because of difference in experience levels. 
   
• Each segment will consists of 4 days: 9:30 am - 1 pm, 3 -  5:30 pm
  
  
• The course will run much like a craniosacral session itself. Instead of focusing on “pathology” or what is wrong, not working, and needs to be in any particular way, we will shift our attention to what we do learn, perceive, and what is the health behind every step of the learning process. We will observe and explore, rather than judge and manipulate.
  
  
• There will be homework assigned between segments (practice sessions minimum of 2 per week, readings, write-ups, anatomy drawings, perceptual exercises).
  
  
• In the second year of the training, each student will undertake a written clinical case-study, whereby a practice client is treated and progress is noted over the course of 11 sessions.
  
  
• I will be fully available to all the students over email and phone for support and questions to guide students through the process or learning, and their own personal process as it arises during the study of this therapy. It is the responsibility of each student to seek qualified professional help, be it from a CS therapist, a psychotherapist, or a healer in other modalities) should the personal process so require.
  
  
• Being a continuous client of this therapy is an essential part of learning it. Students will be provided with a list of qualifying biodynamic craniosacral therapists in Lebanon, and will be required to arrange for sessions with one of them at least once a month. Students will also be required to exchange sessions with one another at least once monthly.
  
  
• Each student will conduct two assessments sessions on Liza for the purposes of feedback and tracking progress. These will take place once on each year of the training.
  
  
• Teaching format will consist of lectures, practical work (sessions), various exercises, meditation, visual and auditory aids, body-awareness-oriented movement (e.g. simple yoga, tai-chi, Feldenkrais ATM’s, a bit of Argentine tango)

 

Reading List

This reading list is not meant to overwhelm you with information or increase the homework load. Consider these books as your in-home professors that you will consult for reference, inspiration, and to continue building your knowledge relevant to CST.

Required:

• Craniosacral Biodynamics, Volume I & II, by Franklyn Sills
• Waking the Tiger : Healing Trauma by Peter A. Levine
• Emotional Anatomy, by Stanley Keleman
• A comprehensive anatomy atlas and book, such as that by Frederic H. Martini, or Frank H. Netter MD

 

Recommended:

• Acland's DVD Atlas of Human Anatomy, set of 6
• An anatomy coloring book
• Wherever You Go, There You Are - Mindfulness Meditation In Everyday Life by Jon Kabat-zinn 
• A book on body language, such as Body Language by Brian Smith

 

Topics To Be Covered for the full 3-year Foundation Training. An appropriate subset of these topics will be covered in the Weekend Trainings (like a craniosacral session itself, these topics are just a proposed skeleton; however, we will go with the flow of things, which means if the student’s natural learning process will take us into a different direction, topics may be modified to maintain an organic progression).

• The Basics: History of the Work, Basic Theoretic Principles, Development of Practitioner Awareness, overview of the Biodynamic Model, Establishing a Relationship,  Ritual of Contact, Palpation of the Tide
• Cranial Dynamics, Sacral Dynamics, Reciprocal Tension Membranes: Sutherland’s Fulcrum, Facial Dynamics (including TMJ), Vertebral Dynamics, Midline, Visceral (organ) Dynamics
• Health and its Craniosacral indicators
• Working from Stillness
• Working on distance
• Practitioner’s Perception & Contact – the silent co-conductors of the session
• The Tide and its various manifestations – CRI, Mid-tide, Long Tide, other Tides. Meeting the client where they are: exploring various layers within the tides, stillpoints, neutral, states of balance
• Working with Dissociation and Trauma: will be covered on several segments throughout the training, with different aspects and nuances highlighted each time.
• Embodying Spirit: Energy, Fluids & Tissues – their motility and dynamics
• Psychology within the Tide – observation and palpation of the psychological layer of the system.
• Embryology & Birth Process, Ignitions, Formative Forces, Interosseous Issues
• Nervous System Dynamics
• Natural and Inertial Fulcra, embodied shapes
• Session Process
• Shifts of State (often referred to as transmutation)
• Local and global work
• 3-step process and sequential process
• Tide-initiated resolutions – stillpoints, lateral fluctuation, augmentation, transmutation, etc.
• Qualities of Systems – learning to describe various systems
• Clinical skills, practice development and accompanying clients through the healing process

Dates and Cost for 3-year Foundation Training:

• 2015 dates, consisting of 3 segments are as follows:
• Introduction and Segment 1: January 9-12, 2015
• Segment 2: March 27 - 30, 2015
• Segment 3: July 31 - Aug 3, 2015
• Year 2 and 3 dates, which will consist of 8 segments will be announced later and in agreement with the course group.
  
  
• The total cost of the course is USD $9,900 for the entire 3-year Foundation training consisting of ten (11) 4-day segments. Only a limited number of students will be enrolled. The application fee of USD$100  is to be submitted (via wire transfer) together with the course application, and will be deducted from the course fees if the student is accepted and enrolled.
  
  
• Payment options: the fees for the course are to be paid in full by December 21, 2014, or via 11 installments of USD $900 two weeks prior to the beginning of each segment. All payment are to be made via wire transfer.
  
  
• Location: Broummana

Dates and Cost for the 2-year Basic Foundation Training:

• This training consisting of 6 segments is on the following dates:
  
  
  • First Year dates, consisting of 3 segments are as follows:
  • Introduction and Segment 1: January 9-12, 2015
  • Segment 2: March 27 - 30, 2015
  • Segment 3: July 31 - Aug 3, 2015
  • Year 2 dates, which will consist of 3 segments will be announced later and in agreement with the course group.
  
• The total cost of the course is USD $5,400 for the entire Basic Foundation training consisting of six 4-day segments. Only a limited number of students will be enrolled. The application fee of USD$100  is to be submitted (via wire transfer) together with the course application, and will be deducted from the course fees if the student is accepted and enrolled.
  
  
• Payment options: the fees for the course are to be paid in full by December 21 2014, or via 6 installments of USD $900 two weeks prior to the beginning of each segment. All payment are to be made via wire transfer.
  
  
• Location: Broummana



Testimonials

Here is what some of the students had to say about training in BCST with Relational Healing Arts:

 

“For me craniosacral therapy has opened up a whole new world, a mysterious magical world not visible through the eyes but perceived through the hands”

 

"Dear Liza I enjoyed a lot studying with you Biodynamic Craniosacral therapy, you are a special teacher, I felt all knowledge about Craniosacral theraphy is anchored on your system that you don’t need notes to remember! And you did the same on me as student. That is related also to the harmony between learning and practicing. I knew the body from new perspective that has opened my interior eye to see the waves of the body, the tide on the soar of stillness as a felt sense in the body and appreciate how our body is amazing structure of opening and closing in perpetual movements that lead the body in our presence as therapist to it health. What is coming from within just let be, let it go just be peacefully aware, such an amazing way to lead the body to it health peacefully and alive. Believe me what is coming is crucial issues to understand how our life is embodied. Thank you Liza for taking my hand to this beautiful adventure."

"Thank you Liza for connecting us deeper with the energetic tide created since early ignition of our souls. Biodynamic Craniosacral therapy has been a life-transforming journey. Your Knowledge, spirituality, and guidance has greatly enriched our skills and energetic contact in our path of healing."

“In a world full of chaos craniosacral therapy for me has paved a road to peace and tranquility”

“Not only does craniosacral therapy alleviate suffering, it takes you a place where you become a part of the non-physical reality, that is awe inspiring and truly powerful”

“As a patient craniosacral therapy has not only cured my back pain, more importantly it has ignited in me a beautiful path of discovery that ultimately showed me the means to contentment, as a student practicing this therapy I realized that this modality must be the only one where therapists can alleviate the suffering of others while at the same time transforming their own suffering”

“It is through learning craniosacral therapy that I started to feel a deeper connection with my body, and its relationship with others. I became aware of the inherent health in our bodies and learnt new ways of accessing it. Craniosacral therapy accompanies me whenever I sense my body is not responding well; whenever my children are not feeling well; whenever there is an emotional shift which calls for attention. I am grateful for Liza to have opened this learning opportunity last year and for teaching us the essentials of craniosacral therapy in a simple and practical approach that stays with us after the workshop for direct application.”

“I already took 2 modules of cranio-sacral therapy and would like to tell you how much it has  enhanced my daily meditation practice very positively. Through cranio-sacral I learned to get in touch with my deeper tissues and organs. Any time i have aches or pains i am capable of neutralizing them through craniosacral practice."

"Practicing on others has been a delight to both myself and the other; we've experienced amazing results. I would like to add that learning this therapy with Liza has been wonderful, she is very thorough and very skillful at communicating the information to us. Thank you Liza and i look forward to the next modules.”