BY Miki Ettore & Kate Stuart The Fulcrum, Issue 91 January 2024 NEURODIVERSITY is a term used to describe naturally occurring variations in the human brain. Neurotypical is defined as ‘normal’ and neurodiverse is a spectrum that varies from person to person and affects how they experience and react to the world around them. It is estimated that around 20% (1 in 5) of people in the UK are neurodiverse. A clinical diagnosis is often regarded as a lifelong disability, although this attitude is changing.¹ The most common neurodevelopmental conditions include autistic spectrum conditions/ disor ..read more

BY Carolyn Stevens The Fulcrum, Issue 91 January 2024 Lizette Villaverde and I are the birth mothers of the Craniosacral Collaborative, a space for therapists to share, enrich and empower one another through collaborative practice. Our objective is to empower practitioners and assist the wider community through acts of creative service. Lizette and I met 10 years ago when we both started to tutor at the College of Cranio-Sacral Therapy in London (where we both continue to teach) and are from vastly different professional backgrounds. She has a background in social work, which eventually led he ..read more

By Sue Harding The Fulcrum, Issue 89 May 2023 The experience of adoption can sometimes feel like the occupation of a liminal space; a sense of floating between two places, times or selves. It is a before and after separation, two sets of families, (sometimes) two different names, and a sense of a silent self. As an adoptee now in my sixties, my work as a craniosacral therapist and Reiki practitioner has helped me understand the duality at the heart of the adoption journey. This duality means adoptees can have unfelt emotions that surface unexpectedly, leading to destructive coping behaviours u ..read more

By Richard Kramer Having worked with babies for many years I am interested to learn more about how a breech birth can affect a baby’s development.  Born with their buttocks, feet, or knees emerging first, breech babies are relatively rare, comprising one in 200 births in the UK.¹ Although breech presentation is common in early pregnancy, most babies will have turned into the head first position by 36 to 37 weeks of pregnancy.  However, there are several factors that may make it more difficult for a baby to turn.  These include: a first pregnancy; a low-lying placenta (placenta p ..read more

By Ally Stott The Fulcrum, Issue 88 January 2023 I live on a small island in Oxford. The river called me here eight years ago at a time of great change and transformation in my life. Three years ago, I began year-round wild swimming in rivers, oceans and lakes. It is these healing, transformational experiences I will focus on here. Merging, being received, held, awakened to joy, rebirth… Entering Earth’s water-body on bright, cool autumnal mornings, I am elated, dopamine suffusing my brain, I am one with all creation. “Water is life’s matter and matrix, mother and medium. There is no life wit ..read more

The Fulcrum, Issue 86 May 2022 We were delighted that Franklyn Sills was able to join this year’s AGM to present his thoughts on primary respiration and the power of potency. A pioneer in the development of a biodynamic approach to CST and Core Process Psychotherapy, Franklyn co-founded and co-directed the Karuna Institute in Devon. Author, teacher and speaker, he is a much valued and respected member of the craniosacral community. Franklyn began his presentation by introducing the pioneering work of Dr. William Garner Sutherland DO and Rollin Becker DO and their contributions to the foundatio ..read more

By Sophie Rieu The Fulcrum, Issue 85 January 2022 I sit down and help my client settle into resource and safety. I place one hand under her shoulder and one hand under her thigh. I sit back and listen, anchored in my whole being while I tune in to hers. My contact is present, light, and spacious. There she is, almost from the get-go, the rhythmic motion expressing in the tissues and fluids. I follow her along the spine, and suddenly a slow release of what feels like a shower of sparkles relieves a contracted area around the brainstem and floods the thorax and midline. I have felt many times th ..read more

By Maria Esposito The Fulcrum, Issue 84 September 2021 When I first started working with a heart-centred connection, my practice was transformed. I found that working from the heart enabled me to connect with my higher self and strengthen my intuition. Clients commented on the treatment experience and the more I nurtured my heart connection, the more effective my work became. Yet, developing heart connection was not easy or straightforward. There were times when the connection was open and grounded, spacious and flowing. Other times I resonated with painful emotions and experiences. Questionin ..read more

by Tanya Desfontaines The Fulcrum, Issue 83 May 2021 “THE REALITY IS THAT YOU WILL GRIEVE FOREVER. YOU WILL NOT ‘GET OVER’ THE LOSS OF A LOVED ONE; YOU WILL LEARN TO LIVE WITH IT. YOU WILL HEAL AND YOU WILL REBUILD YOURSELF AROUND THE LOSS YOU HAVE SUFFERED. YOU WILL BE WHOLE AGAIN, BUT YOU WILL NEVER BE THE SAME. NOR SHOULD YOU BE THE  SAME NOR WOULD YOU WANT TO.” ELISABETH KÜBLER-ROSS, ON DEATH & DYING A year on since I wrote about the dramatic impact of the first lockdown in the UK, we find ourselves emerging into a world that has changed in ways that many of us may be finding diff ..read more

by Viola Sampson The Fulcrum, Issue 83 May 2021 In November 2020, in the UK alone, there were already more than 186,000¹ people suffering from long-term symptoms following COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus SARS-CoV-2.  With the surge of cases that followed over the winter months, that number is expected to have risen significantly. Although COVID-19 was initially considered to be primarily a respiratory disease, it’s now clear that the virus affects multiple organ systems in the body – including the central nervous system, circulatory system and digestive system – leaving many wit ..read more