Issue link: https://www.massageandbodyworkdigital.com/i/1102144
science or biopsychosocial concepts into their approaches. And to be fair, the purpose of the San Diego Summits is not research (nor manual therapy) per se. None of the presenters at this year's summit claimed to be presenting radical new pain research or novel, game-changing ideas. Instead, the Pain Summit's role has been bringing people together to share their application and continuing refi nement of existing concepts. A question I heard several times while there was, "Why don't more massage therapists and bodyworkers attend the summit?" According to the event's organizer, Rajam Roose (featured last year in "Reframe Pain," Massage & Bodywork, May/ June 2018, page 80), most of the summit's attendees are physical therapists or physical therapy students. Massage therapists are indeed a minority (though interestingly, about half of the MTs in attendance traveled from a single Canadian province, British Columbia, where, I was told, pain science ideas have a strong following among massage therapists). But the BC exception aside, we saw this same phenomenon when Advanced-Trainings.com cosponsored an "Explain Pain" training (from the Australian NOI Group) in Colorado in 2015. Most attendees were physical therapists, with only a few Rolfers, structural integrators, and even fewer massage therapists attending. Could it be that the "science" emphasis in pain science isn't appealing to as many MTs as PTs? Though massage therapy is moving toward greater science literacy, none of the presenters at the summit were massage therapists or bodyworkers. There were no hands-on manual therapy preconference workshops, and only one presenter identifi ed himself as a manual therapist (physical therapist Mark Bishop). Or perhaps, as I also heard several times in my conversations there, it's not always obvious to massage therapists how they might apply pain science's education- or rehabilitation- focused material within their skill set and scope of practice (which is where my educator colleagues and I come in). NEXT YEAR'S SUMMIT With about 60 percent of this year's attendees being fi rst-time summit-goers, Roose is optimistic about next year's attendance. She says her focus in 2020 "is going to be more on the 'psych' in biopsychosocial (BPS)." As she sees it, "There is this pervasive idea that things like motivational interviewing or acceptance and commitment therapy are out of scope for the clinician, which really isn't true. It's not out of scope for us to understand how to communicate with our patients/ clients and give them a sense of self-effi cacy. There's also going to be a presentation on the limitations of the BPS model, which I think will be really interesting!" Whether you think the pain science trend in our fi eld is the next big thing, already passé, or maturing into an integral part of our fi eld's way of thinking, there is still plenty to learn together about pain and the many ways to work with it, both on and off the table. Special thanks to Ruth Werner for her contributions and collaboration. Notes 1. Antonio Damasio, quoted in Lenzen, Manuela, "Feeling Our Emotions," Scientifi c American Mind 16, no. 1 (April 2005): 14–15, https://doi. org/10.1038/scientifi camericanmind0405-14. 2. M. Miciak et al., "The Necessary Conditions of Engagement for the Therapeutic Relationship in Physiotherapy: An Interpretive Description Study," Archives of Physiotherapy 8 (2018): 3, https://doi.org/10.1186/s40945-018-0044-1. 3. University of Minnesota, "Therapeutic Touch," accessed March 2019, www.takingcharge. csh.umn.edu/therapeutic-touch. 4. M. D. Bishop, "What Effect Can Manual Therapy Have on a Patient's Pain Experience?" Pain Management 5, no. 6 (November 2015): 455–64, https://doi.org/10.2217/pmt.15.39. 5. M. D. Bishop, "Patient Expectations of Benefi t from Interventions for Neck Pain and Resulting Infl uence on Outcomes," Journal of Orthopaedic & Sports Physical Therapy 43, no. 7 (July 2013): 457–65, https://doi.org/10.2519/jospt.2013.4492. 6. M. E. Menendez and D. Ring, "Factors Associated with Greater Pain Intensity," Hand Clinics 32, no. 1 (February 2016): 27–31, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hcl.2015.08.004. 7. M. D. Bishop et al., "The Infl uence of Clinical Equipoise and Patient Preferences on Outcomes of Conservative Manual Interventions for Spinal Pain: An Experimental Study," Journal of Pain Research 10 (April 2017): 965–72, https://doi.org/10.2147/JPR.S130931. 8. Jack Chew, The Physio Matters Podcast, "Session 61—Looking Backwards and Forwards with Team TPMP," (January 6, 2019), http:// chewshealth.1devserver.co.uk/tpmpsession61. Til Luchau is the author of Advanced Myofascial Techniques (Handspring Publishing, 2016), a Certifi ed Advanced Rolfer, and a member of the Advanced-Trainings.com faculty, which offers online learning and in-person seminars throughout the United States and abroad. He invites questions or comments via info@advanced-trainings.com and Advanced-Trainings.com's Facebook page. For more info about next year's San Diego Pain Summit, visit www.sandiegopainsummit.com. Watch "Notes From the 2019 San Diego Pain Summit"