Treating the whole, not the part.
My work is a holistic, whole-person approach rooted in osteopathic principles — the understanding that the body is one interconnected system. Within that umbrella I draw on five distinct modalities, matching the work to what each individual body is asking for. Developed over three decades of practice and teaching, it now carries a name: The Ankrum Method.
The treatment plan is in each individual body — not in a formula.
Osteopathy asks one question above all: how do I look at you and treat you as a whole — not as a part? So much training hands you a protocol instead: this condition, that sequence of techniques. But bodies don’t read the protocol. The origin of a restriction often lives in a system far from where the pain shows up.
People often assume my work is “craniosacral therapy.” It’s one of five modalities I work with — all under the osteopathic principle of treating the whole person. I trained for five years in the osteopathic tradition at the Canadian College of Osteopathy; my work is manual and principle-driven (I’m not a physician). What I teach is how to read the body, follow it to the system holding the root, and work from there.
This is what The Ankrum Method means in practice: you don’t bring a plan to the body — you let the body show you the plan. And the work is a process, not an event. A treatment sets something in motion that keeps working long after the session ends.
The practitioner’s stance
- Treat the whole person — never a part in isolation.
- Read the body's language before deciding anything.
- Let the tissue lead you to the system that holds the root.
- Understand your own story; you cannot do this work without it.
The osteopathic modalities I work and teach.
These five live under the osteopathic umbrella. None is the whole of the work — each is a way of listening, chosen for the body in front of me.
Craniosacral
Working with the subtle rhythm and tissues of the cranium, spine, and sacrum — both structural and biodynamic.
Osteoarticular
Precise, principled work with the joints — restoring motion and alignment where the body has lost it.
Functional Normalization
Guiding the body's tissues back toward their natural, functional patterns rather than forcing them.
Muscle Energy
Using the body's own gentle effort — the client's own participation — to release, lengthen, and rebalance.
Visceral Manipulation
The organs, their motility, and their relationships — often where the true root of a problem lives.
Depth that goes beyond most curricula.
Over nearly forty years, certain territories have become where I go deepest — the places practitioners most often tell me their first training never reached.
- Organ work & visceral relationships
- Bone work & structural integrity
- Birth trauma & pediatrics
- Pregnancy & the pelvic floor
- The autonomic nervous system & trauma-informed care
- Concussion, TMJ & the cranial base
“One of the tenets of osteopathy is that we are a unified whole. Looking at the parts keeps us ill. It holds us back from truly getting well.”Leigh Ankrum
This is what I teach — in full.
The complete method lives inside the Ankrum Institute’s certification and, soon, an online body of work.