I’m trying to decide what classes to take this fall and I’m looking at craniosacral… this is in “great debates” because, well, there IS quite a debate about the merits of this therapy. Some say it’s wonderful, has helped with ADD, hyperactive children, headaches, et. al… some say it’s completely useless. I have made a point of seeking out skeptical information about it, btw. There’s a BCC meta-study from a couple of years ago that examined all the studies that had been done to date. It concluded that the kind of research needed to prove whether or not it worked (and could be billed to third-party payers) just simply hadn’t been done, so there was no way to say. Therefore, they didn’t recommend it. However, even this extremely skeptical meta-study (which is cited a lot in attempts to debunk craniosacral) said that the cranial bones do NOT completely fuse in adults, and that they DO move, also that there really IS a cranial rhythm. Huh. On the other hand, it also said that you just can’t prove that manual manipulation can either move the bones or test the rhythm. So, I don’t know what to think. I’m hoping for opinions-- either from those who have studied it, or those who have had it done!
For the StraightQuack on this comes a great quote
The people selling this stuff to gullible schmucks will claim that it cures
In addition, it
OTOH, two real ostopaths (who weren’t paid to shill the procedure) concluded in 2002
I’m a very sceptical person when it comes to health treatments. However, I’m trying to figure out what’s really going on with craniosacral, not just trying to reconfirm a preconceived idea I already had to begin with. So I appreciate what both posters have said, but I do hope to get more of a VARIETY of opinions. I don’t think it’s really too helpful to start out by calling something quackery, because that weakens rather than strengthens an argument. The argument ITSELF has to prove that a treatment is worthless; beginning by calling it worthless makes it very hard to take the argument seriously. And that quote is very similar to quotes from the same BCC meta-study I mentioned. The problem is that when the meta-study is used to bolster the quackery argument, that’s the only type of quote that ever gets used… and by reading the entire study, I saw that the authors themselves didn’t seem to know what to think of craniosacral; their opinions were not as simple as that kind of quote would imply. All that being said, I might be looking for information that doesn’t exist, because what I’d really like to see is UNBIASED information and it may not be out there. Arguments that begin by calling craniosacral the One True Path are just as bad. 
Not to beat the duck analogy to death, but when it walks, talks and quacks…
While partial quotes are usually preferred for space reasons I’m going to quote the remaining portion of the CST treatment method and the number of ailments it purports to cure below from the CST link I gave above.
When the theoretical paradigm for a physiological treatment methodology references made up things like supernatural “energy cysts”, and purports to treat a huge host of dissimilar ailments through light touches I think even an unusually credulous person needs to take pause. How are you going to have testable theory if it’s methodology is partially supernatural?
If Tapioca Dextrin’s link that says “no properly randomized, blinded, and placebo-controlled outcome studies have been published” is correct, then that would be enough for me to avoid it. We all know the placebo effect is enough to make some people believe anything has a positive medical effect, whether it’s tapping the skull or sacrificing boll weevils to the Spaghetti Monster.
If these aren’t the hallmarks of quakery, nothing is. Has any treatment that alleges to treat or diagnose the whole body from one small area (eg, iridology) ever turned out to have valid medical use? And really, one shouldn’t have to read beyond “energy cysts” to made a pretty solid judgement call on this one.
Anise asks about craniosacral therapy, opinions on whether it works, and references a BCC meta-study that concluded that the kind of research needed to prove it works hasn’t been done. It is undisputed that cranial bones exist and don’t fully fuse, and there is cranial rhythm, but there is no connection shown to any cures.
You may not find many on this Board who have studied it or had it done. I do remember reading an article involving a 10-12 year old boy who had it done, where the therapist used intense, distorting pressure on his skull, with no apparent benefit, and appearance of considerable cruelty. However, I don’t have a cite, this is anecdotal, and proves very little.
Discussion
Reasons to believe in it:
[ul]
[li]Proper studies showing it works? None; this reason is vacant.[/li][li]It would be wonderful if it works. True, but a lot of things would be wonderful if they existed. This reason is vacant.[/li][li]Taught in a school. Depends on the competence of the school committee. Unknown.[/li][li]There are therapists making money with it. True, but there are people paying money for it, and none are properly proved to receive a benefit. Vacant.[/li][li]Statements by advocates. Too often unreliable, that is why experienced professionals and regulators ask for proper studies. Vacant.[/li][/ul]
Reasons to discard it:
[ul]
[li]There are far too many conditions cured to be credible. Tapioca Dextrin cites it curing 10 and many more conditions, and being “extremely helpful” for 25-plus more. astro found a list of about 20 more.[/li]What other medical treatment restores so much health? This is a credibility issue.
[li]Most of the conditions that it is supposed to correct would draw headlines. Where are the headlines? "“TMJ Cured!” “Chronic Fatigue Solved!” “No More Depression!” “Both Hyperactivity and ADD Have Simple Answers!” “A Fix for your Ulcer!” “End of Tinnitus!” “Meniere’s Victims Relieved!” “Psoriasis and Exzema Clear Up!” “Teenagers, Wonderful, No More Acne!” “Arthritis Radically Improves!” “Bye, Bye, Asthma!”[/li][li]Strong similarities to many fantasy cures of the past; no similarity to reality-based medicine (no studies, no proposed established mechanisms).[/li]
[/ul]
You may want to read the definition of Quackery and draw your own conclusion. Quackery is defined at Wikipedia as “the practice of producing medicine which may lack any commonly respected evidence of their effectiveness”, which is exactly what the meta-study cited shows.*
The Wiki full article is a little longer, and there is a longer definition at QuackWatch also, or in any dictionary.
Aspirin, iodine, Vitamin C all have proper studies showing they work. But CST does not, and neither do a lot of sincerely promoted forms of juju. To be taken seriously, CST needs the correctly made studies, and it’s been over 20 years since Upledger did his (unpublished or not properly done) studies.
*It is not up to the disbelievers to prove a medical claim is false; it is up to the claimant to show evidence it is valid. This is by the definition, and also because for endless generations, people have thought, often sincerely, that they have found a cure for something, and most of the cures have come to nothing.
Ah, a fake cure for a fake disease. It’s symmetry, really.
Quackwatch has several entries for CST.
See http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/cranial2.html
Pure anectdote here… I was once referred to a “chiropractor” who turned out to use craniosacral therapy. I went once, listend to his gobbledygook about how everything eminates from the craniosacral region, and never went back. Put me in the “quack” column. And I’m one who does accept chiropractic therapy-- it has saved me many, many times.
[hijack] This not being the Pit, I can’t tell you what, precisely, I think of your position, but suffice it to say you might perhaps be a little less dismissive of chronic fatigue syndrome. The CDC, the Mayo Clinic, and the NIH, just to take the first few search results, would disagree with your perspective on CFS. Certain protein expression levels are altered in the blood cells of CFS patients. (You can only get the abstract without a subscription to the journal.) While CFS is certainly sometimes used by doctors as a diagnosis to make overly persistent patients go away, it is a real disease, and don’t snark at the pain of others.
On the other hand, I’d agree with you on the value of craniosacral therapy.
[/hijack]
It works. I was in a car accident three years ago and began on the usual road to recovery, including chiropractic. Very little help. I then—out of desperation—agreed to incorporate both Feldenkrais and Cranial-Sacral therapy. And thank God. It works. I admit that I at times felt foolish on the table with someone basically just dradling my neck and head. But the results were so pronounced I kept going back. And still do.
Call it whatever you want, wuackery, fakery, whatever. Just don’t try to cancel my appointment.
I really appreciate all the opinions. 
They stirred to me to research, as so many things do, and these are my thoughts on the whole controversy.
The primary problem, I think, is that arguments both for AND against craniosacral therapy have a very bad tendency to fall into two traps: basing the entire argument on personal opinion to begin with, and cherry-picking evidence to support what they say while ignoring evidence they don’t like. It’s easy to see how this can be true of arguments supporting this therapy, but unfortunately there are times when it is qualitatively true of arguments against it, as well. I actually wish it wasn’t, because I would like a simple answer, but I don’t think there’s one to be had. I’ve gone through the literature available, and this is what I’ve come up with.
The study that avoids subjective opinions the best is the BCC study, A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW AND CRITICAL APPRAISAL OF THE SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE ON CRANIOSACRAL THERAPY, put out by the Centre for Health Services and Policy Research, British Columbia Office of Health Technology Assessment,
Joint Health Technology Assessment Series.
. (it can be found at: http://www.chspr.ubc.ca/bcohta/pdf/bco99-01J_cranio.pdf) This study is frequently cited by people like Dr. Stephen Barnett at Quackwatch, who argues against the validity of craniosacral therapy. In fact, this study does NOT recommend it, does not end up recommending that workman’s comp should cover it, and says “Using the Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care grades of evidence (Dingle ‘94), all identified studies can be classified as Level 3 — the lowest grade of evidence. Therefore the benefits of craniosacral therapy on health outcomes have not been demonstrated using research with sufficiently strong study designs and protocols. Not only is there an absence of efficacy evidence, the available research is of methodologically poor quality.” Essentially, the final message of this meta-study is that the research we have addressing whether or not craniosacral therapy reliably works isn’t high-quality enough to be acceptable, and that it especially can’t be proven that it works in the exact way that practitioners says it does.
And yet, there’s no way around the fact that this meta-study confirms the existence of both movable cranial bones in adults and a craniosacral rhythm. There were the exact bases on which craniosacral therapy has traditionally been “debunked,” and it is distinctly weird to see someone like Dr. Barnett arguing against it on those bases while using the BCC study as his justification for doing so. He really can’t do this if he’s going to use this study as his main piece of evidence, because it doesn’t quite say what he claims it says, as anybody can see from going to the PDF file and reading it. I think that Dr. Barnett has done some really good and useful work, but he falls into the personal-opinion and selectively-choosing-evidence trap as often as anyone else. He would be a lot better off saying, “All right, cranial bones can move in adults, and there is a cranial rhythm. We always said there wasn’t, and we were wrong on both counts. But there’s really no decent proof that practitioners can affect any of this with their hands, or that they’re doing exactly what they say they’re doing. And all we really have as far as proof that they can cure people of anything this way is anecdotal evidence and studies that weren’t very well done. That’s not enough.”
This problem continues in the Hartmann/Norton study that was quoted from earlier in this discussion. (The PDF file is at: http://faculty.une.edu/com/shartman/sram.pdf.) The problem is that the BCC study had some points of agreement with it, but even more points of disagreement. For example, the BCC study found that while consistent measurement of the cranial rhythm often wasn’t very impressive, it wasn’t zero, even if you ignored the Upledger study. A small number is not the same as zero, and it doesn’t help Hartmann and Norton’s argument that they pretend it is. More importantly, though, the BCC meta-study cited several very well done studies proving that movement of the cranial bones does exist in adults, and that these bones are not ossified until the ninth decade of life. Hartman and Norton only cited studies that supported their point of view on this matter, which is, again, cherry-picking one’s evidence. No matter how well-done the Hartman/Norton study was—and in many respects, it does appear to be very well done—this is not a logical way of formulating an argument. Also, this study does not at all address the issue of whether patients are helped by this treatment or not. That’s not what this study was about, but since it’s the only other actual study (beside the BCC meta-study) that ever seems to be used in arguments against craniosacral therapy, it would have been really nice to see this issue at least touched on.
I think the ultimate answer to all of this is that at this point, nobody can give a definitive answer to the question of whether craniosacral therapy works or not. I wish that better-designed studies would be done that could quantifiably measure the results of it, because that’s really the question that matters. The BCC study does cite many that do show good results, but it’s true that their methodology wasn’t very good. Since the two physical bases that have always been used to support this modality do exist, however—movement of cranial bones in adults, and a craniosacral rhythm- I wouldn’t be so quick to put this in the same category as reiki, or past-life regressions, or crystals, or whatever. I think that if the really well-designed studies are done, we’ll know more about whether it really works.
Explain what an “energy cyst” is please.
Anecdotally, in my surgical residency, a recommendation for “craniosacral therapy” meant “get your head out of your ass”.
E.g. : “Dr Brossa, I hear that you wanted to discharge this patient today. Have you considered craniosacral therapy?”
Good Lord, I don’t know what an energy cyst is, or if there even IS such a thing. I’m a sceptic, remember? I know what Dr. Upledger said it was, but that’s about it. But I meant what I said when I posted that I really don’t know WHAT to think about craniosacral therapy. For ONCE, I don’t have a preconceived idea. (This is a special moment! We should all celebrate!) The worst thing about it seems to be (given current information) that there’s no way in the world to prove that it works in the way that practitioners say it does. And there really isn’t, not with the studies that exist. The E-cyst thing is a good example. But there’s no way around it-- the arguments against it have always been on the basis that its two main tenets are nuts, and the plain truth is that we now know they aren’t. Now, does that prove that there are really energy cysts? Nope. That’s why, in the end, it has to come down to results for me. I don’t see any other way to evaluate it, but I’m not comfortable, either, with rejecting a methodology because it “sounds nuts.” For me, that’s much too subjective of a measurement, just as it too subjective to accept something because we like the way it sounds.
Anyway, I was glad to hear from someone who’d actually had it done, and I’d like more details.
I’ve had it done to me many, many times, and I’ve seen it done to others many more. My ex-GF (and currently my closest friend in the world, though no longer an item) is an OT who uses CST extensively.
I’ve tried to get her into the dope many times in the past but it hasn’t taken, which is actually a good thing at the moment because I would never say this to her, and I hope she never reads what I’m about to say, but CST is complete new age bullshit!
Anyway, Anise, I know this is not the kind of argument you were looking for with your OP. I did the same research a year ago that you’re doing now, and read the same studies (I believe). I’m too tired right now to reread them and form the more solid arguments that you’re looking for. But in your last post you did ask for anecdotal accounts. Now you have mine.
Anise,
Of course extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. What do we have?
Extraordinary claims by practioners that CST can cure most anything.
Anecdotes of how well it has worked for individuals.
From the BCC study:
a statement that some movement of cranial sutures may be possible but that there is no evidence that external manipulation, such as that applied during CST can effect such movement;
a statement that there does indeed appear to be some “flow” to CSF with pulsations that are independent of arterial pulsations but no evidence linking this to any disease state or outcome or even any evidence that CST influences this flow;
a review that shows no good clinical evidence of efficacy for CST.
Hardly the extraordinary evidence to balance out the extraordinary claims. Anecdotes do not meet such a standard.
Actually, I care little as to whether or not sutures move or even whether CST can effect that movement. Something can work but for reasons other than what people think. Sutures might not move and yet CST could be effective. There is solid evidence that I believe as to the efficacy of accupuncture for many conditions. I can accept that without believing that the mechanism is altering the flow of Qi. Sticking just to Western medicine - for years we believed that theophylline worked by way of the phosphodiesterase cascade. And indeed there is a phosphodoesterase cascade and theophylline effects it. But that was not how theophylline exerted its beneficial effect. The effect was real, our understanding of how it worked was wrong.
The evidenciary question that matters most for such extradorinary “it cures almost everything!” claims is, by far: are there there good randomized double blinded studies that support its use? That is where the burden of proof lies. Not on others to disprove it. There is no evidence that it does so. (I also do not have evidence to prove that placement of objects in rooms does not cure cancer, that sacrifice of rabbits to the goat god doesn’t treat ADHD, or that Santa Claus does not exist. All are possible, just without evidence to absolutely prove them or disprove them)
DSeid’s is a good summing-up of the issue so far… I do want to get to the library and actually read the results-oriented studies that DO exist, though, because I’d like to see for myself how good or bad the methodology is that they actually used. I don’t think I can do that until Friday, though… and online, you have to pay to read the articles. :mad: I do wish better-designed studies existed. No doubt about it, there’s a lot of silliness that surrounds this therapy, but in the end it has to come down to the studies.
And don’t you know that the Goat God requires GERBIL sacrifices??? No wonder the ADHD wasn’t cured. 