A History… – part 3
It then took a good ten years of development before a fully biodynamic training approach was grounded at Karuna. This was a humbling and painstaking process of trial and error, where a clearer and clearer layering of theoretical, perceptual and hands-on training was continually being developed and re-evaluated by the staff team. Changes to the curriculum were made in every new training year. Franklyn also introduced the work of Sutherland and Rollin Becker DO to the craniosacral community and helped people orient to what Becker called the inherent treatment plan. Franklyn and colleagues at Karuna developed perceptual exercises and contemplative practices that help attune students and practitioners to primary respiration and the different levels of mid-tide/fluid tide, Long Tide and Dynamic Stillness, and helped practitioners learn to generate a negotiated and holistic relationship to clients and their healing process. Franklyn included relationship and the healing of personal and interpersonal wounding, as a primary focus in training and session work. He coined the term craniosacral biodynamics and brought biodynamics into the craniosacral field. It is a term derived from Becker’s concept of biodynamic potencies. Franklyn also developed terms like the negotiated relational field, the holistic shift and the mid-tide to help clarify some of the perceptual territories that emerge in session work.
Over this period of time, Franklyn and his colleagues taught trainings in Switzerland, America , Spain and Germany and the biodynamic approach to craniosacral therapy has now spread around the world. Katherine Ukleja DO, Claire Dolby DO, Colin Perrow have been especially active in spreading the work.
Franklyn, along with Michael Kern DO, also helped start the Craniosacral Therapy Educational Trust (CTET) in London, which is now an important biodynamic training organization. Michael has also been very active in spreading the work around the world and has written an excellent introductory text on biodynamics. Other colleagues such as Paul Vick and Michael Shea have developed their own approaches to biodynamics and have also spread the work around the world in important ways. Michael Shea has also written a number of important texts on Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy with a clear orientation to embryonic unfolding. Other former assistants at Karuna, including Maria Offut and Mij Ferret, have also taught the work in various locations around the world. Maria has sadly passed on and is sorely missed by her loved ones, friends, students and colleagues. She was very active in spreading the work in Spain and Europe in general.