Google+ Massage Therapy Hangout with Guests:
Kelli Wise – http://massagetherapyworld.com/
Lu Mueller-Kaul – http://www.balanceorlando.com/
Mark Volkmann – http://massagebook.com
Jamin Rak – Host
After Introductions we discuss:
2:30 Massage therapy research. Why we are still considered “alternative medicine”.
27:45 ELAP report for massage therapy education requirements. Do we need more required hours of education? Reciprocity across the states?
36:30 Massage business and why therapists fail. SEO and website design. Massage skills vs practical business understanding.
I’m watching the research part, and I do want to see research on massage as treatment for specific diagnoses, but I also want to validate the importance of “feeling good”. What is the point of treatment of eg carpel tunnel syndrome if not to feel good/better? (And to the answer “to improve function”, why do we seek to be functional? Because NOT being able to do what we wish and what we think we should be able to feels awful!) What Lu says at ~27min I think is key: massage is PROFOUNDLY powerful in retraining neurology to be aware of and anticipate pleasurable over painful sensations and patterns. I’m not talking about woo woo energy work, though we could use that language as a metaphor for it, but real, science-based neurological effects.
In our pursuit of legitimacy, which I agree we need, we must not give in to the medical system’s current flaw of seeing persons as pieces (a hurt shoulder here, a bum knee there); that way misses out on everything we know, and don’t yet know, about the way mind shapes neurology shapes tissues and vice versa. Rather than, or perhaps in addition to, researching techniques and treatments for specific, isolatable diagnoses, we need to push for a deeper understanding of the role of neurology in pain and of touch’s affect on neurology.
Arwyn, I couldn’t agree more about the need to study Neurology more. I’m planning on taking a one year program on functional Neurology for this very reason. The brain is incredibly complex and powerful, the placebo effect demonstrates that clearly, that I want to at least attempt to start scratching the surface of my own understanding.