If you’ve never been to craniosacral therapy before, you might be wondering what to expect from your first session. We’re here to help! From before your appointment to during your treatment and after, here’s what your experience will be like to help you prepare for the wonder that is craniosacral therapy!
Before Your First Craniosacral Therapy Session
Welcome to the Craniosacral Center of Grand Rapids! We’re so glad you’re making an appointment with us. Although we’ll try to answer a lot of questions in this blog post, please know that we’re always happy to talk through your specific questions. If you have a question or are not sure if craniosacral is right for you, you’re welcome to book a free discovery call with us. During this call, we’ll ask you about what brings you to craniosacral therapy and what you’re looking for. We know your time is valuable, so we want to make sure that we think craniosacral therapy is a good fit for you and that we can help you.
After you get your spot on our schedule, you’ll get an email from our office with some basic intake paperwork. Just like any medical office, we want to make sure we have all the information we need to treat you and understand your condition. You’ll also receive reminders via text or email about your appointment.
When you come to our office for the first time, don’t let your GPS deceive you! Often it wants to take our clients to the left or right, but you’re going to continue on Parchment drive until it ends in a cul-de-sac in the woods. That’s where our very peaceful and healing office is located! We are downstairs, tucked in the corner. Look for the gold Craniosacral Therapy Center of Grand Rapids logo on the window.
During Your Visit
Our offices are on the bottom floor of the building, so no troublesome stairs to climb. Our receptionist will greet you and get any additional information that we may need before you begin.
You’ll be greeted by your therapist and then be taken back to one of our therapy rooms. During our intake appointments, we always schedule at least 75-90 minutes so that there’s plenty of time for the therapist to hear what’s going on with you and ask questions. They’ll tell you a bit about craniosacral therapy and also about success stories they’ve had with clients with cases similar to yours. They’ll also talk to you about a treatment plan - how many treatments you might need and how often in order to get lasting results.
Then it’s time for receiving treatment! You’ll get up on one of our tables, which are similar to massage tables, but you don’t need to remove your clothes. You’ll remain fully clothed the entire treatment. Our padded, comfy tables have blankets, pillows for under your knees, warming pads for chilly days and anything else you need to be comfortable.
Your therapist will start by gently holding a part of your body - usually your feet or underneath your head. They won’t squeeze or move you at all - just hold with very gentle pressure. From there, they will move to other parts of your body with the same gentle pressure - less than the weight of a nickel. They’re tuning into the rhythm of your craniosacral fluid pulsing through your body and feeling for the release of tension. You may also feel these tension releases, or you may not. Either is totally normal.
Often when you’re lying on the table, you’ll begin to feel very relaxed and at ease. Our clients often report that their mind stops racing and they feel deeply relaxed. Many of our clients blissfully fall asleep on the table! You are welcome to chat with your therapist while you receive treatment, but there is no pressure to do so. If you’d like to have a quiet relaxing time, please go ahead.
When your time is up, your therapist will let you know, but there will be no rush getting up from the table. Often our clients feel so relaxed that they’re a bit woozy as they get used to how their body feels. Take your time and go at your pace. Your therapist or the receptionist will talk to you about setting up a treatment plan and find you your next appointment on the schedule. We recommend scheduling ahead, as our appointments do fill in advance.
For more on what your session will be like, check out our blog post What To Expect From Craniosacral Therapy.
After Your First Craniosacral Session: Setting Up Your Treatment Plan
Our clients often report feeling very relaxed after their craniosacral session. Often, they sleep very well the night after a session, whether that’s typical for them or they’re a chronic insomniac or a colicky baby. You may also notice some decreased pain or tension in the area that you’re receiving treatment, even just after the first session.
You may feel decreased pain, tension or alleviation of symptoms for the first few days, but very likely, it will fade without further treatment. That doesn’t mean the therapy “didn’t work.” It simply means that your body can’t continue to hold that decrease in tension and is defaulting back to old ways of being. Think of a paper map that’s folded with creases. You can flatten it out on a table and smooth it out, but if you pick it up and move it around, you’ll find that it starts to fold again along the creases and wants to go back to its old ways. It will take multiple sessions for your body to iron out these tension patterns in order to make room for a new healthier rhythm.
To help the body sustain these new changes, we recommend more frequent visits at the beginning of your treatment plan — once or twice a week, depending on your situation — and then once your body can “hold” the new changes for longer, reducing the frequency of treatment until you are fully healed. As much as these tension patterns bring discomfort and pain to our bodies, our bodies are also “comfortable” or used to being there, so they will revert back quite quickly at first. With continued treatment, our bodies will find a new equilibrium and then other systems of the body can also begin to heal. Some conditions, like migraines or seizures, may require periodic check in appointments to prevent them from recurring.
At the very least, we recommend clients to come in again at least within 2 weeks to maintain the momentum and forward growth. Research on craniosacral therapy showing positive outcomes tends to be based on at least 14-20 sessions.
The frequency of your appointments may depend on how demanding your life is and the severity of your condition. We often describe the process as stabilize, build and maintain. First, we stabilize your condition and keep it from getting any worse and get you to a functional pace. Usually during this period, we meet 1-2 times a week. Then once things are stable, we build on that to find a more optimized pace, reducing your symptoms even more and finding new changes, meeting every 10 days to 3 weeks. From there, we often go to a monthly maintenance level and offer a membership for those clients who need that support.
One of the things that we’ll focus on in your first three sessions is learning how to listen to your body and noticing how your symptoms change, both between individual sessions and over the longer time period. Pay attention to how you feel the first day or two after treatment. What difference do you notice in your symptoms? How has that changed by day five or later? What’s different between week one and two and week two and three? Make a note of what day you notice the symptoms returning and how long your body was able to sustain these changes for.
Often our clients find a significant difference in the first few days after treatment. For example, someone struggling with insomnia might fall asleep or stay asleep the first few nights. Then by night five, they’re starting to see their symptoms recur a bit. By day six or seven, they’re back to their old rhythms and feeling frustrated. It’s easy to see this as “it didn’t work,” but what actually is happening is that your body needs more support to maintain these changes. There is almost always improvement from one session to the next, but it can feel more subtle in the beginning. It can also take a few sessions to get used to what craniosacral is, what to expect and to learn to notice how your body responds.
When we give the body more support, we’ll see those positive results come back and even deepen. The changes can be subtle, and if we’re not paying attention, we miss both the progress we’re making and the opportunity to help our bodies make long-lasting change.
Scheduling Your Next Craniosacral Therapy Session
Follow the treatment plan set out by your therapist and schedule accordingly. As you progress, you can make changes to that treatment plan as possible, spreading out appointments when your body seems more able to hold new changes for longer periods of time. While you can wait to schedule by noticing when your symptoms start to return, we highly recommend scheduling ahead of time for a couple of reasons. One, our appointments tend to fill quickly, so by the time you notice your pain or tension returning, you may not be able to get in for a couple of weeks, unless we have a last minute reschedule. Also, by scheduling ahead, you can get your preferred time slot when you are available.
Two, you’ll get better results if you don’t allow the tension to build back up and continue supporting your body’s healing journey before it settles back into the patterns it is used to. If you wait too long, your therapist will be almost starting over each time and your progress will be slower.
For more about treatment plans, take a look at our post on the cost of craniosacral therapy and using your FSA, HSA or medical cost sharing plan to pay for craniosacral.
To schedule your appointment, you are welcome to call or text the office - 616-433-3003 - or use our online scheduling tool. After your intake appointment, choose the appointment time that best works for your schedule - 45 minutes, 60 minutes, 90 minutes, etc. Some patients find that longer sessions bring deeper, more lasting results, but you can choose what works for you. Your provider can offer you an idea for the ideal session length for your condition, as it can vary.
Always let us know if you have questions - we are here for them! You call call, text or email us at hello@craniosacraltherapygr.com.