The best bodywork for trauma

Craniosacral Therapy: The Missing Link in Healing from Trauma — Part 1
A paradigm shift in healing — the next wave of trauma treatment

At this year’s 2025 Masters Event Trauma Conference In Oxford, UK, I was struck again and again by how much of what the great teachers, thought leaders, and paradigm shifters shared, aligns directly with the core principles, fundamentals, and practices of Craniosacral Therapy (CST).
Though each speaker came from their own field—psychology, neuroscience, research, or somatics—their insights echoed what Biodynamic CST has applied and embodied for decades: the body’s innate wisdom, its inherent health beneath fragmentation and dysregulation, the intricate anatomy and physiology CST directly works with, and the profound healing potential of therapeutic presence and touch.
This convergence points to CST as an essential component in a truly integrated trauma-healing approach.

Health Is Never Lost
Dick Schwartz, founder of Internal Family Systems (IFS), spoke about the “essence that can’t be damaged,” the core self that rests just beneath the surface of wounded parts. He described how, when space is made, this essence emerges naturally—it “pops out immediately and knows how to heal.” This resonates deeply with CST. Craniosacral work begins from the premise that health is never lost. Beneath layers of trauma, tension, and fragmentation, the body holds a blueprint of wholeness,- an original matrix. 
The practitioner’s task is not to fix but to attune, to hold space, and to listen to the body until deeper health reveals itself and begins to reorganise the system from within. Healing happens from the inside out.
This is why CST can have such profound effects on nervous system regulation. Trauma is not held in the mind—it is imprinted in the body: in the tissues, in the cells, and neural pathways. It is through the body-to-body resonance, hands-on listening, and precise anatomical touch that CST supports repair and regulation. 

Presence and Neural Resonance
Bessel van der Kolk reminded us of the relational field created by mirror neurons: “We mirror each other. And there is a very powerful element of the therapeutic relationship. How do we energetically affect each other?” 
CST is founded on this principle. Through therapeutic presence and attunement, the client’s system entrains to the practitioner’s regulated state and energetic field. The body doesn’t only hear words—it feels safety. It mirrors calmness on a physiological level, allowing the nervous system to shift from survival to restoration and repair. 
Van der Kolk also stated:
“The most important thing is touch. And of course, we as psychotherapists shouldn’t—unless you get really well trained to do body work, which is at least as complicated as the best psychotherapy. But touch is enormously comforting for people, and can make all the difference in the world.” This is precisely where CST belongs in the trauma field. CST practitioners are rigorously trained , in my case, over a three-year professional pathway deeply grounded in anatomy and physiology: cranial nerves, central and autonomic nervous system, parasympathetic, and sympathetic balance, fascia, and cerebrospinal fluid - an education every bit as demanding as advanced psychotherapy training. 
Our work is not simply about touch, but about listening to the language of the body with refined, attuned, and non-dual use of touch. CST could be considered the best bodywork for trauma: subtle, non-invasive, and guided entirely by the client’s own rhythms, nervous system, restrictions, and subconscious holding patterns.

Repair Beyond Words
Dr Scott Lyons highlighted the subtle yet powerful role of oxytocin in development and relational repair. He spoke about “oxytocin insensitivity”—how, when bi-directional connection is disrupted early in life, the very receptors for oxytocin can shrink in adaptation, leaving a person unable to fully feel loved, cared for, or even present with another human being. As Lyons explained, micro-ruptures and micro-repairs within a therapeutic space can reawaken oxytocin sensitivity, gradually restoring the capacity for connection and attunement.
Through safe, non-invasive CST touch, oxytocin release is naturally stimulated. More importantly, CST works beneath language and beneath the thinking mind—directly with the nervous system and the soul. Each session holds countless micro-moments of repair. Even when a client’s history has made connection feel unsafe, the gentle relational field of CST re-sensitises the system to safety, belonging, and love.
We also know through the work of Dr Sue Carter - speaker at the 2024 Trauma Conference in Oxford, wife of Dr Stephen Porges, and pioneering researcher best known for her groundbreaking work on oxytocin - that oxytocin is not only crucial for bonding and social connection, but also plays a powerful role in regulating inflammation and the stress response. Carter’s research shows that oxytocin can reduce inflammatory processes, calm the autonomic nervous system, and promote healing by shifting the body toward a state of safety and restoration. 
This is precisely what Craniosacral Therapy facilitates. Through gentle, attuned touch, CST activates these same pathways  - promoting oxytocin release and parasympathetic regulation. In doing so, it helps the body transition from defence to repair, supporting both neurobiological regulation and tissue-level healing.

Why Trauma Work Needs Touch - If trauma is held in the body, then the body must be part of the healing. It needs to be touched to heal.
What these thought leaders affirm is that trauma cannot be resolved through cognition alone - it is stored across multiple brain regions and expressed through physiology. Healing is relational, health is inherent, and repair happens beneath conscious awareness—when the body is included. CST uniquely integrates these principles, bridging body, mind, and relational attunement.
When a body has not been touched, it can hide, deflect, and keep feelings and stories stored within. With precise listening skills, CST accesses the language of the body: movement, stagnation, heart rate variability, restrictions, rhythms, and neural firing,  creating a space where self-regulation and repair can naturally emerge. 
This is where repair begins. Where words cannot reach, and insight alone cannot repair, touch reawakens the body’s innate capacity for regulation and connection. 
The parasympathetic system comes online, oxytocin pathways open, and the system reorganises from survival to safety, from fragmentation to wholeness. In this field of presence, touch gives form to safety — sending the most fundamental message a body can receive: you are no longer in danger.
Through attuned touch and deep listening, the body remembers its own blueprint of health. From that remembering, healing emerges—slow, relational, embodied, and deeply human.

Craniosacral Therapy does not replace or compete with psychological or neurobiological models; it completes them. By bridging body, mind, and relational work, CST offers a hands-on pathway that grounds these insights in lived bodily experience. The practitioner’s role is not to impose healing but to listen to the body’s rhythms, restrictions, facilitated nerves, fluids, and innate intelligence,  allowing inherent health to reveal itself and reorganise the system.
For trauma work to be truly integrative, the body itself must be included - because the nervous system, fascia, and the body’s physiology, cannot be regulated trough cognition alone. 

CST offers the missing link: a hands-on, body-based pathway that allows the system to reorganise from the inside out. This is why CST belongs in the trauma field—because the body has always known how to heal, and through this work, we finally give it the space to remember its way back home.

Conclusion:

• Repair happens beneath words, through subtle neurobiological shifts. CST facilitates these shifts by regulating the autonomic nervous system and restoring physiological balance and stability.
• Through safe, attuned touch, CST naturally stimulates oxytocin release—lowering inflammation, calming the stress response, and reawakening the body’s innate capacity for connection and repair
• CST is not an alternative to trauma therapy. It is the body’s missing voice        within it.

In Part 2, we will further explore the meeting points between modern trauma science and Craniosacral Therapy—examining how the latest research into brain networks, and embodied safety is applied and brought to life through the hands-on practice of CST.