Sutherland Cranial Teaching Foundation is dedicated to those practicing osteopathy in the cranial field.
read more >
“The goal with your patients is to find the way to healthy function within the mechanism that they bring to you. Study the Life principle and come closer to understanding what I mean by the “Breath of Life.” To the digger who will take time to dream and the dreamer who will wake up and dig, the science of osteopathy will unfold into a magnitude equal to that of the heavens.”—William Garner Sutherland, DO
William Garner Sutherland, D.O. (1873–1954) was an American osteopathic physician and important figure in American osteopathic medicine. Several of his manual therapy techniques are still practiced today by practitioners of osteopathic medicine. Sutherland was the first osteopathic physician to conceptualize the cranial approach and teach it systematically. However, Sutherland acknowledged Andrew Taylor Still as the developer of all osteopathy, including the cranial approach. Sutherland was the first person to claim to feel a rhythmic shape change in the bones of the cranium. He later applied this movement to all body tissues and this movement as the agent of change in dysfunctional tissues. He later named this motion the body’s “Primary Respiration.”
Dr. Rollin E. Becker was President of the SCTF (USA) for 17 years and was an important influence in cranial teaching in the UK in the 1970s and 1980s. The elder son of Dr. Arthur Becker, one of Still’s favoured students at the American School of Osteopathy in Kirksville, Rollin Becker started osteopathic practice in Michigan before relocating to Dallas, Texas in 1949.
As a physician practicing on the frontier of America in the 1800’s, Andrew Taylor Still discovered the science of osteopathy: a profound truth which dramatically advanced the practice of medicine. Dr. Still divorced himself from the toxic medicine of his day and pursued an approach to health and healing which honors the laws of nature: treating the body as a self-healing, self-regulating, comprehensive ecosystem. Through intense study of anatomy and the natural world, Dr. Still developed the science of osteopathy based on the interrelationship of anatomy (structure) with physiology (function). Dr. Still based medical practice on the body’s inherent ability to heal in tandem with the functional unity of the patient: both anatomically and from the perspective of the integration of mind, body and spirit. Patients were cured of all sorts of ailments from deadly infectious diseases (before the advent of antibiotics) to “incurable” lameness, to heart disease. This was and is a truly comprehensive system of health care. Still’s ideas met with great resistance from the medical profession at the time. His remarkable results, however, built Dr. Still an extraordinary reputation that attracted many students to study with him at his new American School of Osteopathy. Dr. Still’s brilliantly successful, hands-on work and insightful teaching at his new school ultimately led to the founding of the osteopathic medical profession.Join Our Email List!
Keep updated on the Sutherland Cranial Teaching Foundation’s upcoming courses.
Whether you are researching the founders, registering for a course, or choosing your own unique career path, we are here to encourage and enhance your growth.
About SCTF Courses
SCTF offers a 40 hour Basic Course as well as Continuing Studies courses.
Check back soon for our dates and locations of our 2026 courses.
Osteopathic Oath
I do hereby affirm my loyalty to the profession I am about to enter. I will be mindful always of my great responsibility to preserve the health and the life of my patients, to retain their confidence and respect both as a physician and a friend who will guard their secrets with scrupulous honor and fidelity, to perform faithfully my professional duties, to employ only those recognized methods of treatment consistent with good judgment and with my skill and ability, keeping in mind always nature’s laws and the body’s inherent capacity for recovery.