"... a closely supported environment, in which one feels very safe around unfamiliar and deceptively powerful techniques, both as model and operator. " Read more...
"I would recommend this course to everyone, regardless of how you currently choose to practice." Read more...
"An inclusive view of the structure and function of connective tissues, intra- and extracellular relationships, tensegrity, and support of internal organs."
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"... leaves one energised, inspired and gagging for more."
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"If some of your patients have poor vitality or spark then this was the course for you." Read more...
"I felt refreshed and able to put some of what I learnt straight into practice - thanks to the faculty and their gentle, supportive supervision."
Read more...
"Lectures, timings and course organisation were perfect. I couldn’t fault a single lecture or tutorial." Read more...
"...enables me to nourish my students better." Read more...
I was first introduced to the marvels of osteopathy when I acquired a sports injury that was treated amazingly with cranial techniques. I was inspired and thought it would be a wonderful way to work. It was not until another ten years down the line that I eventually gave up teaching and embarked on a full time undergraduate course to change my career. Cranial osteopathy was all I ever wanted to do and it was frustrating to be held back until my qualifying year when I could finally embark on the SCC Pathway - the series of 9 modules for professional development in the cranial field provided by the Sutherland Cranial College.
The SCC module 2/3, run over five days, is very intense and challenging for the beginner. Lectures are thorough, well-prepared, and presented in a variety of combined methods such as power point, slides, practicals and worksheets. Each person has the privilege of working with a different tutor each day, with no more than three other students. Experience and expertise is varied so it is great to glean all the information possible from each tutor. I also like to regard courses as a sort of retreat and personal development/healing process - a promotion of growth, which enhances our ability to work with greater insight.
There is some controversy as to why students have to repeat module 2/3, particularly from the expense point of view in the first year or two after graduation when we are struggling financially. I was very surprised however, with only six months between, at the amount that I gained from the second course. Having had experience putting into practice what I had learnt on the first course enabled me to learn and imbibe additional information that I had not been ready for on that first occasion. The second course enabled me to really appreciate just how much I had developed. I know practitioners who continue to repeat modules a number of times and gain substantially each time.
After Phase 2 modules students are required to produce a case study of a patient which demonstrates what and how much they have learnt from the course. Six to eight weeks are allowed for the project and it is marked by two tutors; comments and feedback are provided. This is an excellent exercise in analysis of findings, research, interpreting results and incorporating our own interpretations and reading. Whilst having a deadline for a piece of work is tedious, it is an excellent way to force us into another mode of learning that actually can become all-engrossing and instructive. The case study helps focus on what you have learnt from the courses. So often notes get filed and forgotten – not possible on the SCC pathway.
Becky Hall
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Osteopathy in the Cranial Field, 31 March - 4 April 2007
Review by Adam Whitfield
I arrived on the course having already completed a first run two years previously. I had enjoyed the experience hugely and had developed a general feeling of affinity for this type of work. But in spite of a pleasant feeling of having ‘come home’ when around cranial osteopaths, with my mainly structural background I still didn’t feel that I quite ‘owned’ the work when it came to actually applying these concepts in the clinic. I was often seeing reasonable results with the techniques I had learned with the SCC, and occasionally more dramatic ones, but cranial osteopathy is a huge field, and the more I went on the more I felt the need to come back for further guidance.
So it was that I found myself in a leafy and secluded corner of Leeds with a group of like-minded colleagues. I was quickly struck, within the first few hours of the course, by how much easier the experience was as a student the second time around. This is genuinely complex material and if you are thinking of embarking on this route you will do yourself a big favour by brushing up on your cranial anatomy before you arrive. You will need as much free brain power as possible to grasp the sophisticated concepts that underpin the approach. Things really do start to get exciting when you have been immersed in the course environment for a few days and your palpatory discoveries start to match these new ideas.
I have to say I felt the faculty did a very good job of integrating the theory with the practice. Lectures are immediately followed by the relevant workshops, with different aspects of Sutherland's concept being explored, individually at first, and then brought together at a later stage. As each new concept is introduced, so each previous one makes more sense, but again this was far more the case for me as a returning student. As the course progresses so these interrelated aspects are brought together into an integrated treatment approach.
The course was structured so that this unity really is from the ground up. The "Significance of Embryology", the title of an early lecture, was a recurrent theme, and appropriately found its way in some form into many of the other lectures.
As usual, the workshops themselves were in very small groups, with one tutor for every four students. This made for a closely supported environment, in which one feels very safe around unfamiliar and deceptively powerful techniques, both as model and operator. Thanks are due to the faculty for the great care and attention they took with us.
One memorable moment was a vivid demonstration of the Reciprocal Tension Membrane, in which my model was asked to dorsiflex one ankle while I palpated at the cranium. As she did so, I could clearly feel that whole side of her RTM being pulled by the stretch from the ankle - there was no mistaking it. This was particularly exciting having recently seen Dr Steven Levin speak on the related concept of Biotensegrity, and here was a real-live "continuous tension network" actually in my hands, rather than on a PowerPoint slide!
The concept of Balanced Ligamentous Tension was also touched on as a treatment modality and I found immediate uses for this on returning to the clinic, for example with a patient whom I had been treating for grumbling low back pain, probably discogenic, which had flared up with a vengeance the previous evening. By simply following the advice to exaggerate the compression that I found to a neutral point, I witnessed a rapid symptomatic resolution that I might normally have expected to take a fortnight or so using my familiar structural methods.
A key difference, having done the course twice, was a greater confidence in what I could expect in terms of clinical results, now based rather more on palpatory changes and rather less on the "textbook" prognosis for a given injury. This in turn has had a bearing on patient management, a very down-to-earth use for what had at first appeared to be a very esoteric set of ideas.
Apart from these and other discoveries it is always good from time to time to drop everything, go somewhere new, and mingle with other osteopaths. By the later stages, the course had taken on the feel of a sort of "osteopathic village", and many people commented on the warm and supportive atmosphere that had developed. When not studying, we found ourselves bonding over experiences and stories from the world of real patients, with of course the traditional Party Night marking the halfway point, including some memorable performances from both students and faculty!
So overall, a very good experience, which I feel has been of huge potential benefit to my practice. I say "potential" because, to paraphrase Colin Dove in his closing comments, knowledge stays with you, but skills disappear very quickly if neglected. I look forward to the journey ahead.
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W. G. Sutherland’s Approach to the Body as a Whole, 16 - 20 May 2007
Review by John Lewis
Hawkwood College, near Stroud in Gloucestershire, provided a peaceful rural atmosphere for an excellent residential course directed by Sue Turner. The lectures and practical sessions, accompanied by birdsong, the lowing of cows and the rustling of wind in the trees, were facilitated by a knowledgeable and supportive SCC faculty.
The course was an exploration of the concept of Balanced Ligamentous Tension, William Garner Sutherland’s approach to the spine, trunk and periphery as taught to him by A. T. Still and passed on by Anne Wales.
Sometimes regarded as a bridge between structural and cranial approaches, BLT is closer to the latter for one important reason: it is about listening to the tissues rather than imposing upon them your ideas of what they need.
Because of that, in BLT you focus on palpation rather than technique. You listen to the tissues with, as Sutherland put it, seeing, feeling, thinking, knowing fingers. It is not you that provides the force to make the correction; the force comes from within. You learn to match the resistance of the tissues, exaggerate the lesion to the point of balance and give support as it self-corrects. Perceiving these subtle changes is not easy at first, but with practice you come to appreciate how the tissues retain the “memory” of past injuries and realise why simply loosening muscles and adjusting joints does not always solve the patient’s problem.
Still’s idea of osteopathic research was for all of us to share our experiences of treatment, to build a body of knowledge to enable us to better serve our patients. Following that principle, here is what I gained from the course.
I learned the importance of grounding myself in order to make the treatment more effective and more comfortable for the recipient. I gained a deeper appreciation of how the patient’s body knows far more than I do. Listening to the tissues as they self-correct gave me an inkling of what Still meant in this description of treatment:
"Solemnity takes possession of the mind, a smile of love runs over the face, the ebbs and tides of the great ocean of reason, whose depths have never been fathomed, swell to your surging brain. You eat and drink; and as you stand in silent amazement, suns appear where you never saw a star, brilliant with the rays of God’s wisdom, as displayed in man, and the laws of life, eternal in days, and as true as the mind of God himself."
Since returning to practice I have been incorporating the principles I learned on the course while working with the Tide, and am already seeing that it has enhanced the results of my treatment. I would recommend this course to everyone, regardless of how you currently choose to practice.
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In Reciprocal Tension, 9 -12 June 2006
Review by Warwick Downes
In the delightful surroundings of the valley of the Hérault near Montpellier lies the Hameau de l'Étoile, a converted monastery which now hosts courses and retreats. Equipped with a large swimming pool and an even larger chef, this venue could not fail to provide the ideal background to Module 5, "In Reciprocal Tension".
Students mainly came from the UK but nearly a third were from other parts of Europe. We mostly arrived by plane at Montpellier and then shared taxis to this peaceful place where the only thing to disturb your repose was the nightingale singing all night long...
"In Reciprocal Tension" is an exploration of reciprocal tension in the body, moving beyond Sutherland's original concept of the Reciprocal Tension Membrane to an inclusive view of the structure and function of connective tissues, intra- and extracellular relationships, tensegrity, and support of internal organs.
Every day began with Jeremy leading a simple Tai Chi session by the pool, to enhance everyone's awareness of their own internal and external environments. The practical sessions were designed to help develop subtle awareness of Reciprocal Tension in all tissues. As always, the guidance of the tutorial staff was sensitive and quietly authoritative.
In April 2005 Jeremy Gilbey and the SCC organised a seminar entitled The Intelligent Body, and many of the lectures were inspired by the material developed there. Clive and Liz Hayden used photographic material from their dissection work in America some years ago, and talked in detail about their experience of the quality of the dissected tissues.
The weather may have been hot, but much hard work was put in by both tutors and students. This was matched by some hard play, including a barn dance called by Lis Davies, and thrills and a few spills on the white water of the Hérault in canoes on the final afternoon.
Thanks to Jeremy Gilbey for organising yet another inspirational course, along with Clive and Liz Hayden, Tim Marris, Peter Cockhill, Lynn Haller and Lis Davies for their support for all their students.
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The Dynamic Basicranium, 2 - 4 March 2007
Review by Katie Brewster
Designed to explore, consider and push one’s boundaries on the understanding of the basicranium- its embryological origin, its effect on health in general and the cranial nerves in particular – the Dynamic Basicranium course held in early March at lovely Hawkwood college did precisely that. The excellence of the lecturing and tutoring by Liz Hayden and her colleagues challenged and encouraged us very gently into a revision and sometimes re-appraisal of our thinking in this area. Throughout the course, from pre-course preparation to the final lecture the attention to detail was amazing and demanded much of students in terms of an anatomical and embryological understanding and palpatory skill. The advantage of such a course is that it leaves one energised, inspired and gagging for more.
The course gave a different slant on a number of elements, which have enabled me to widen my work focus with some patients in practice already.
The first was revisiting the nature of bone – something we all deal with and think about on a daily basis. In one of the first lectures of the course Liz Hayden managed to expand the idea of the dynamism of bone, the concept of bone as having a fluidity and the potential that that fluid quality gives bone in its capacity to change.
The second was Colin Dove’s look at the occipito-atlantal joint and his assertion that in fact we should be less obsessed with the O/A and more interested with the way the axis (C2) comes into the equation – the O/A/A complex. This is a result of the axis having far more ligamentous and muscular connections to the occiput than does the atlas.
The third was looking at the reason why the cranial base is formed in cartilage (compression) and the vault in membrane (stretch). We were encouraged to understand the embryological progression of the expanding vault on the one hand and the pull of the mediastinal contents on the other with the cranial base plate in the middle.
The fourth was the role of the sphenoid which has changed the way I work. We so often think of the spheno-basilar symphysis or the occiput and I for one rather forget the function and influence of the sphenoid as a whole. Richard Allen’s lecture on the sphenoid was for me a bit of a eureka moment.
Finally the embryological importance of the sacrum and the origin of the notochord at S2 was the final element I have room to elucidate here, with the notocord, and thus the whole embryo, emerging from S2 like a genie from a lamp.
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The Spark in the Motor, 3 - 5 November 2006
Review by Matthew Shrock
If some of your patients have poor vitality or spark then this was the course for you. Whether chronically ill, chronically stressed, post-operative, post-partum or just worn down by life we were offered a strategy and a treatment approach which could make a difference to these patients.
With decades of clinical experience behind them our teachers were able to present relevant theory, rooted in anatomy and physiology, and guided us to apply new skills to make effective changes to the central nervous system. Being a hands-on course, it allowed us to feel the effectiveness of these changes in the practical sessions. For me this was a key experience; feeling my own body responding to these techniques fuelled an enthusiasm and confidence to apply this approach in my practice. While practising the techniques we were reminded to monitor how we were using our own bodies. It was extraordinary the difference it made to the quality of treatment outcome, and already my patients are benefiting.
Forty students enjoyed this three-day course and forty hands were raised when we were asked, "Have you experienced something new?"
My own experience informs me that this is a rarity, and I enjoyed a warm glow of osteopathic enthusiasm, as I negotiated my way home around weekend engineering works and the extraordinary large crowds in Oxford street.
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The Functional Face, 17-21 October 2007
Review by Karen Carroll
I nearly did this course 2 years ago when it was last run - but for various reasons could not attend. So when it was announced earlier this year, I knew straight away it was THE course I had to do this year. Now I don’t know whether I was just "ready" - but it just "fitted" right into my practice on the Monday morning following the long drive home. I could finally make sense of those adults and children whose faces just don’t function and could find some places to offer support.
It was great to arrive, get settled in to beautiful Dartington Hall, have dinner and then a lecture to start the course off by Cherry Harris who clearly loves both this area of Devon and this course. The body is a continual performance, she reminded us - and a functional face helps each and every one us in that performance.
As always on an SCC pathway course, content (lectures and practicals) was excellent. Lectures were informative with very detailed notes for further reading and there was plenty of time for practical work. The course organisation was great, the venue was fabulous and oh boy, the food was the best I’ve had on a course!
There were so many "ah-ha" moments for me and "why haven’t I seen that before?" moments - like Colin Dove reminding us all how important the relationship is between the sphenoid and ethmoid and how infrequently most of us consider it and then trying to impress into my brain in our tutorial group how very, very important the ethmoid is - if it doesn't breathe and move, the face is rendered less functional. To have the benefit of tutors with the wealth of experience that abounded on this module 8 was a real gift and worth every penny of the course fee.
Sue Turner saying how Anne Wales would often "lift" the zygomata before commencing further treatment on the face has stayed with me - as has our exploration of this important bone within our tutorial group when a colleague and I were amazed at how we had never before really appreciated the size and importance of the zygoma’s articulation with the sphenoid. Then the two of us had a chance to explore this in the practical following with gentle intra-oral release of the different articulations of this bone with profound results.
I was able to put our theory and explorations of the facial sinuses into immediate use as the whole of Buckinghamshire (well, the proportion that I see, anyway) kindly came trooping into the practice the week following the course with chronic sinusitis and upper respiratory tract infections.
The lectures and practicals also helped me to understand how important the embryological development of the face is - how important these "meeting places" are. Understanding the importance of the premaxilla and its role as a midline "meeting place" will be invaluable for me when treating little ones who seem very likely to end up with conventional braces. Also I really saw the importance of treating these faces early whilst the teeth are descending and emerging and have more "tools" to do this now as well as deepening my understanding of the role of osteopathic support throughout orthodontic treatment.
Mark Harris and André Hedger represented dentistry from an orthopaedic aspect rather than a traditional orthodontic approach. They gave us the language to communicate with dentists and some tools for assessing bite, the dental midline and the TMJ. Mark gave us some amazing examples of how the arches of the maxilla and mandible can be improved with osteopathic support alone - evidence based medicine in action!
Even though we covered a lot of ground on this course, I felt refreshed and able to put some of what I learnt straight into practice - thanks to the faculty and their gentle, supportive supervision. I know my patients will reap the benefits of my efforts to help support their mechanism towards a more functional face.
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Paediatric Osteopathy: Clinical Screening 20 -21 January 2007; Part I 16-18 February 2007. Review by Naval Mair
Having worked with babies and children in practice for some years I thought it only appropriate to attend a course that hinted additional insight into Paediatric Osteopathy.
It did! Led by Susan Turner, this course did not let me down. The course content and composition were user friendly and easily accessible. Lectures, timings and course organisation were perfect. Attend the SCC’s Paediatric Clinical screening and Osteopathy - I highly recommend it! It is in two parts:
Paediatric Clinical Screening was held at BCOM. Over two days Dr Amos Heller and Caroline Penn delivered engaging and well-founded lectures and practical work. Having met Dr Heller at BCOM some years previously I was interested to hear how paediatric osteopathy had influenced the work of this "paediatric medic". It was refreshing to hear his own amalgam of clinical screening for the paediatric patient. Listening to Dr Heller’s first hand experience in paediatric medicine as a doctor in the emergency room and as a naturopathic osteopath was invaluable. His application of protocol when it came to administering care for children was sharp and clear cut.
This clinical screening teaching was a "real-time" yet "non-reductionist" balance from someone who clearly used it every day in osteopathic practice. These lectures encouraged us to question and re-evaluate protocol concerning examination of the neonate, baby, child and adolescent.
Caroline Penn’s practical approach to developmental milestones was immediately implementable. Caroline’s approach flowed from what one should normally expect from primary and secondary reflexes in the child at different stages to possible developmental milestone implications for the child. Her practical guidance enabled easy inferences regarding retained or lost reflexes for a child.
Paediatric Osteopathy (Part I), an introduction to the treatment of children, was held at Hawkwood College, in the rolling hills around Stroud, Gloucestershire. Serene and pretty, it was a nice "getaway" as well as the perfect venue for the second session of module 9.
This course does represent a basic, standard foundation for anyone wishing to begin working in paediatric osteopathy. (Further insight can be found on the post-pathway Paediatric Osteopathy Part II - highly recommended!). The course structure for Part I was carefully thought out. It will have engaged the experienced but also inspired osteopaths new to the field.
The course faculty was fantastic, colourful and varied. I couldn’t fault a single lecture or tutorial. Tutorship from osteopaths like Colin Dove for me was invaluable. Exposure to the experiences of Mark Wilson, who works with the Osteopathic Centre for Children in neonatal osteopathy, was again reason enough to attend. Guidance from Susan Turner, who passed on experiences and approaches from time spent with Dr Anne Wales, was a real bonus for me.
I enjoyed otoscopic examination revisited by Hilary Percival and the discussion of asthma by Ian Wright. "Embryological development of the gastro-intestinal system and its relevance to osteopathic treatment" still rings pertinent in my ears today; this was taught by Clive Hayden, who also went on to demonstrate some fantastic techniques. His technical know-how was a real inspiration.
Incorporated in this course was the osteopathic approach to paediatrics according to the teachings of Dr W. G. Sutherland. All body systems ranging from gastro-intestinal, genito-urinary, endocrine, cardio-vascular, respiratory and neurological systems of neonatal, newborn, childhood and adolescent patients were covered. Yet more detail will be found in the SCC Post-Pathway course in Paediatrics.
I would say that this course is a "must" for all osteopaths interested in the field.
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The following comments are from students about their experiences on the last Ost Ed course:
"When I reflect on the Ost Ed course my overriding sense is of support and encouragement."
"The course forced several of us to confront past educational demons and stone clad role models . . . what I gained was deeper than I was hoping for."
"You have a gift, a way of teaching that is unique to you. This course is to help us find 'it', then helped us to find our strengths and work on our weaknesses."
"The models of learning offered me a framework for planning my teaching."
‘‘I realise that if I do my preparation, I can enjoy the teaching."
"I loved learning about reflection and this enabled me to be in touch with the inner voice ... the learning experience isn’t over at the end of the lesson."
"It feels as though a part of me has been nourished that in turn enables me to nourish my students better."
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