Katherine Ukleja Cranial

31/08/2026

VITALISM

Potency and Craniosacral Biodynamics are entwined at an elemental level.
The principles of both the biomechanical and the biodynamic approaches in Craniosacral Therapy go back to WG Sutherland. The former follows his identification of Primary Respiration, the subtle rhythmic motion present in the fluid and tissues of all living organisms. The latter rests on Sutherland’s curiosity about what it is that drives that motion. His answer to the second enquiry was his ‘discovery’ of Potency of the Breath of Life.
I have put ‘discovery’ in inverted commas because, while to Sutherland the presence of Potency came as a revelation, historically it places him squarely in the Vitalist tradition.
Vitalism is a school of scientific thought that dates back to Aristotle. It attempts to explain the nature of life as resulting from a Vital Force peculiar to living organisms and different from all other forces found outside living things. This force is held to control form and development and to direct the activities of the organism. Vitalism has lost prestige in the scientific community, but it still has traction with practitioners of many forms of complementary medicine, including Craniosacral Biodynamics.

image source: Stefan Pacovski/Philosophy

03/06/2026

FORCES IN ACTION
In Craniosacral Biodynamics we talk about Biodynamic, universal, ordering forces and Conditional forces which are the forces generated by individual experience. Rollin Becker called these Biodynamic and Biokinetic forces, names derived from the work of pioneering embryologist Erich Blechschmidt. Interestingly, Becker refers to both the Biodynamic and Biokinetic forces which operate in the living body as ‘intrinsic’, which means that they are unavoidable, or inseparable from life itself. Later teachers both inside and outside the osteopathic profession give us the idea that the Conditional/Biokinetic forces are introduced externally, which implies that they are somehow optional.
However, Blechschmidt used these terms to describe entirely different phenomena. His work is concerned with movements of tiny particles across the cell membrane and gross developmental movements in the embryo such as the rotation of the gut or the primary heart loop. In both cases, at both micro and macro scales, directional forces are applied, there is a transfer of energy, hence work is done.
So, in Blechschmidt’s terminology Biodynamics refers to physical forces acting in a specified region, which could be a single cell or an aggregate of cells, while Biokinetics is the ensuing movement. That movement could be the bidirectional transfer of particles across the cell membrane or the positional changes of tissues and organs during embryogenesis.
Hence when we ‘borrowed’ Blechschmidt’s nomenclature and applied it to the principles and practice of Craniosacral Therapy it was a massive departure from the original meaning, a case of poetic licence.

12/05/2026

TACTILE PERECEPTION

We use all our senses, our entire sensorium to navigate the outside world. But in our practice, we privilege the sense of touch. Our hands can discern the subtle motion of primary respiration, the overall state of health, the patterns of adverse experiences held in the body and how they compromise tidal motion. Those tactile images revealed to our hands are diagnostic and guide session work. Our hands can also feel how the organism responds to our touch. For instance, a shift in the autonomic tone to a parasympathetic state of calm or the letting go of a tissue memory and realignment of the tensegrity network of connective tissues or shift out of fluid stasis.

All of this if perception, which relies on the brain’s ability to interpret sensory information. Through persistent practice, we can expand our compendium of tactile images and grow our palpatory literacy, our ability to accurately interpret the messages that our clients’ bodies deliver to touch receptors in our hands. This is not guesswork, it’s not intuition, not the channelling of mysterious forces, it is simple the art of touch.

15/04/2026

EMBRYONIC ECHOES
Life is present at conception. Two living cells, the o**m and the s***m, reach their full potential when their DNA merges and a new biography begins. For the next eight weeks life unfolds into a human body. The process of building a body is not linear, structures come and go, a rod becomes a tube then a tube again, fluids pool then canalize, there is no hanging on, no attachment to anything beyond expediency. And so, in a short space of time, just eight weeks, all components of human body are completed. Granted, all of these structures will grow, morph and take on function, but almost nothing will be added.
It’s a period of flux and urgency, driven by the imperative to thrive, for life to continue. It’s at its most vital in the embryo but the principle continues through the lifespan. In this way the embryo is a wonderful teacher of Biodynamic principles. The forces of creation continue to propel us forward. The body continues to evolve day by day, continues to adapt, to meet current needs and contingencies so life can prosper.
This embryonic way of being underpins resilience and health. It manifests in every cycle of primary respiration inspired by the Potency of the Breath of Life.
To learn more about the application of this core principle in the practice of Craniosacral Biodynamics join me in:
Wrocław, Poland, May 21 – 24
https://www.europejskiecentrumterapii.pl/produkt/embryonic-echos-katherine-ukleja/
Exeter, UK October 22 – 25
https://circlecranio.com/post-graduate-cpd

17/03/2026

TREATING THE BRAIN

Many Craniosacral practitioners avoid treating the brain in fear that they will cause problems. But the brain is not magical, it is an organ. Like any other organ it is made up of cells (neurones and glia), it has a blood supply, a 'capsule' made of meninges, both the blood vessels and the membranes have their own nerve supply. Additionally, the brain is bathed in CSF and has a glymphatic drainage system. So when the brain is injured, all and any of those physical components will be damaged. Help will be needed to aid repair and recovery. Craniosacral Tharapy is perfect for the job.

Two cranial practitioners who specialise in this field are running a seminar on 8 - 10 May, in Exeter, UK. I would highly recommend this for anyone interested in improving their understanding and skill in meeting brain injury.

For details email: [email protected]

06/03/2026

THE GROUND LEVEL OF LIFE
HOMEOSTASIS AND PRIMARY RESPIRATION

In his Hierarchy of Needs Abraham Malsow gave us a psychological theory of motivation, famously depicted as a five-level pyramid. This psychological model asserts that people are motivated to fulfil basic needs before moving to more advanced, psychological needs.

At the base of the pyramid, he places immediate physiological needs including homeostasis. His view of homeostasis is limited to the body’s automatic, internal drive to maintain a stable, constant environment for life to persist. When homeostasis is perturbed, physiological needs are generated (hunger, thirst, cold). These needs that take top priority in Maslow’s hierarchy.

Antinio Damasio takes a broader view, he tells us that Homeostasis ‘ensures that life is regulated within a range that is not just compatible with survival but also conductive to flourishing, a projection of life into the future of an organism or a species’ *

The ground level of this pyramid is the province of our practice. We interface with life in the raw. Our paradigm and experience inform us that within the fluctuations of homeostasis order is maintained by the intrinsic rhythmic forces (seen in even the simplest living organisms) that we call the Tide. Through the Tide we tap into the biological imperative to thrive, to flourish. We work from the bottom up, from the ground of potential that gives rise to the full spectrum of health.

*Damasio, The Strange Order of Things

16/02/2026

VOCAL TONE AND VAGAL TONE

The sound of our voice is directly linked to our emotional state. It’s difficult to disguise how we feel. The tone of our voice gives us away. The muscles which tension our vocal cords, changing vocal tone, are controlled by the Vagus nerve, the ventral Vagus to be precise. And sensory input from the voice box feeds back to the brainstem control centres which determine vagal output known as vagal tone.
High vagal tone allows us to handle stress better. We react in a manner proportionate to the stressor and recover faster. Embodied history held in the throat has a direct impact on vagal tone.

Learn more: Join me for a two-day seminar, The Voice and the Hyoid, in Exeter UK, on March 14/15, 2026

BOOKINGS: https://circlecranio.com/post-graduate-cpd

11/02/2026

RHYTHMIC FORCES

William Seifriz was a biology professor who studied living organisms through the lens of physics. His research centred on slime mould, a protoplasmic entity which functions as a single cell with multiple nuclei. Decades on, science tells us that this remarkable organism is capable of problem solving, memorizing and navigating its environment without a brain. If fact the slime mould does not have even a rudimentary nervous system or recognizable sensory organs. It displays a very different kind of intelligence.
Seifriz hinted at this ‘intelligence’, but his main observation was of the ‘Rhythmic Forces’ in protoplasm which persisted even when the organism was anaesthetised or in shock. As he pondered these Rhythmic Forces, he pronounced that “we must be very close indeed to the question, what is life?”

It was the rhythmicity of the subtle motion that Sutherland discerned, initially in the cranial bones, that lead to his life-long search for the power that drives the motion of Primary Respiration. A power indivisible from life itself. His conclusion was that this force, which he called ‘potency’ derived from an ‘invisible element’. Possibly not answer that would have satisfied the empirically-minded William Seifriz!

Watch Seifriz’ protoplasm video on youtube.

05/02/2026

SUBTLE PHYSIOLOGY

In medicine, physiology studies the functions of living organisms which maintain life, health, and homeostasis, as well as how organisms respond to environmental changes. Beneath this measurable, material level of function, there is the subtle physiology of life itself.

In craniosacral therapy we attend to subtle physiology. This manifests in the living body as the polyrhythmic tidal motion which WG Sutherland named Primary Respiration.

Observing how this tidal motion responds to changes in the organism’s internal and external environment provides diagnostic information. These responses can be transitory, fluctuant, or they can be chronic; the latter become the subject of our therapeutic encounters in which we use gentle touch to liberate the forces that bind in order to reanimate the body’s subtle physiology.

05/01/2026

SEMINARS ON OFFER 2026

Happy New Year everyone.

I have now published my teaching diary for 2026 on my website. It is the complete list of my advanced seminar for the whole year, which is my final year of teaching.
There will be just one on-line event in February, hosted by the Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy Association of North America. This will be a two part webinar about Biodynamic Touch.
All other seminars will be in person, scattered across Europe.
Hope to see many of you before I retire

Booking details are available on my website.

The seminars are open to qualified craniosacral therapists as part of continuing professional development. Seminars are taught in English with translation into the local language.