I guess you could say that I was classically trained as a Canadian massage therapist in the Swedish style techniques.
I practiced this way early on in my career, but quickly I became hungry for better education for the treatment of the more difficult, stubborn, long lasting issues in the tissues of the body.I took many courses in orthopeadic style assessment and techniques. I became very proficient in assessing various injuries and their various stages. Although this is an invaluable skill which takes years to develop, something was always missing – The Art of Manual Treatment. It seemed the same techniques were going round, being taught, but there was no finesse, no innovation, no flow, no connectedness, no interconnectedness. Treat the segment, not the organism.
Becoming frustrated, I looked to other similar manual therapies for guidance. I kept going back in time until I got to the late 1800’s and read the writings of the early Osteopaths of North America. This was my starting point and main influence in the research, development, enhancement and advancement of Ligamentous Articular Strain Technique courses and my practice.
20 yrs of practice and 16yrs of research (both historically and scientifically informed), self development and education has lead me away from the classical swedish massage techniques to the historically innovative manual therapy techniques.
We’ve lost something as massage therapists
I don’t know when it happened, but I suspect that it happened when we felt the need to compete and validate ourselves to the medical profession. Maybe it happened somewhere else, but nonetheless I feel that we’ve become stagnant in our education. The trend is to treat separate tissue from other separate tissue with a disconnect from the whole organism. We treat carpal tunnel at the wrist with out looking systemically to find that the wrist was only the last in a chain of events and compensations for something that happened months years, decades ago in a completely different area.
We’ve lost something as massage therapists
We’ve become focused on the political aspects of validating ourselves to prove ourselves for financial gain, status all in the name of helping the consumer, our patients. We’ve focused on becoming more scientifically evidence informed. It seems science tells us what we do, not intuition and common sense. Don’t get me wrong, scientific information has been a game changer for the Massage Therapy professional. In this aspect at this point I truly feel that our profession is advancing faster than most, due to this ever changing and evolving information. I can’t remember a time in my career when what we understand of the human body and what we do as therapists has changed so fast. This is an amazing time to be a therapist in that regard.
We’ve lost something as massage therapists
Daily we have patients who seem to have been seen by everyone, everywhere, and some how have come to us. We are in most cases the end of the road before surgery or they come to us decades after surgery with complaints you have never seen in a medical text book. A current patient complains of right shoulder adhesive capsulitis like symptoms with Sub-AC Bursitis. We’ve discovered that the shoulder was the final straw in the chain of events and compensations that began with a side impact MVA 7yrs ago. Not one medial professional looked away from her shoulder for answers.
A few suggestions
Sit quietly. Actively listen. Take far more time being inquisitive, asking questions which seem outside our scope, yet provide as close to the full story as possible. Talk with your patients, not at them. Their physical body is screaming information that many of us do not stop to hear or see. What ever makes up the soul, the spirit, whatever you want to call it, is also in pain. You can see it in their eyes.Charting at the end of the day or at the end of a session is the most difficult time of the day. Describing what was done, to fit into the status quo of describable techniques is difficult. Being lead by your patients tissues and physiological responses, working at various depths, with different densities and with various tissues, incorporating breathing techniques and or movement doesn’t have a specific term.. how do you chart that?
Manual Therapy is an ART and a science. Don’t forget the science, but maybe just put it on the back burner for a moment and bring back the ART of manual therapy.
Treat the organism rather than the segment. Instead of fumbling around performing the same old recipe of techniques, why not change your perspective to treating densities and temperatures. Treat stagnation of fluid or the excess of.
Aim for ever changing balance in an asymmetrical nonlinear feedback system. How’s that for double negatives!
When was the last time you looked for HEALTH?!
Anyone can find dysfunction, but finding true HEALTH in all the wonderful chaos is a skill!
Patients’ describe manual therapists who practice such as being intuitive and very passionate for helping/treating.
To watch a treatment such as this and to place technical terms to the manual flow of the therapists hands is nearly impossible.
The manual therapist cares. I know we all care, but what we care about differs.
Remove the financial aspect to your treatment and what is left?
Remove the politics from the profession and what is left?
Remove your ego, your preconceived ideas, your hatred, your perceptions, your expectations and what is left?
Remove the frustration that your patient is not getting better and what is left?
No matter what science tells us, no matter how or what we think we have influence on, no matter what we’ve been told what we can and cannot change in the human body, we still utilize the laying of hands to help someone in pain and discomfort. We are here to help, to serve, to listen with our hands, eyes, ears, heart, soul, intuition. We are here to connect with another organism to help it feel better be it a human, cat, dog, horse…
So…going forward today, make this change… aim to perform at your highest self! What ever that is. Use science to help you and your patient understand possibly what physiological process is currently occurring, but use your intuition and guidance from your patients physiology to dictate the rate, course and direction of the treatment. You’ll be amazed at where you go and what happens.
Go and be amazing today!