02/10/2026
Who was John Upledger and why craniosacral therapy?
1983. A book lands on shelves with a title most people can't even pronounce: CranioSacral Therapy.
The authors were osteopath Dr. John Upledger, and Jon D Vredevoogd, designer and architect.
Vredevoogd strongly believed that nature made the best designs, so Upledger challenged him to explain the design of the skull.
They spent years researching this, exploring and evolving aspects of Cranial Osteopathy that many of their wider colleagues insisted weren’t possible or didn't exist.
As anyone who met Upledger quickly discovered, he wasn't interested in being conventional. He was interested in what worked. And he discovered that working with an incredibly gentle touch, treating the cranial bones and working with subtle rhythms you could barely feel, had massive effects.
The medical establishment thought he was mad. But many, many people found relief when nothing else had worked. Then, many more wanted to know what he was doing and how could they do it too.
So they wrote the book: CranioSacral Therapy.
Over the next 25 years, he treated thousands of patients, established an institute, wrote multiple books, taught others his ideas and trained tens of thousands of practitioners worldwide, from every background imaginable....
Here's what made him different: he never stopped being curious. Never stopped questioning. He explored trauma release, how to work with the brain, the immune system, paediatric applications, even working with dolphins.
Along the way he literally created a new profession. The Upledger Institute has now trained over 160,000 healthcare practitioners in more than 60 countries.
He died in 2012, but his work and ideas live on and continue to develop.
He proved you didn't need to force healing. Sometimes the gentlest touch creates the deepest change. Five grams of pressure - about the weight of a 5p piece - can reorganize entire patterns in the body.
But perhaps his most radical contribution? Back then this type of work was reserved for doctors. He believed this work belongs to anyone willing to learn it properly.
Pre-requisites are an open heart and an open mind.
