C h e c k o u t A B M P P o c k e t P a t h o l o g y a t w w w. a b m p . c o m / a b m p - p o c k e t - p a t h o l o g y - a p p 83
For More Learning
• Webinars: "Myofascial Techniques: Hands-On for the Hands" (New!) and "Working with
Inflammation" with Til Luchau in the ABMP Education Center (www.abmp.com/ce)
• Training: "Arm, Wrist and Shoulder" in the Advanced Myofascial Techniques series of workshops,
live-online, and recorded video courses (www.a-t.tv)
• Book: Advanced Myofascial Techniques, Vol. 1, Chapters 15 "The Wrist and Carpal
Bones" and 16 "The Thenar Eminence" (Handspring Publishing, 2015)
• Podcast: Listen to Til Luchau and Whitney Lowe discuss manual therapy and more on The
Thinking Practitioner podcast, sponsored by ABMP, at www.a-t.tv/ttp
Watch Now "The Hand in the Brain"
Much like a paper rubbing or tracing can reveal
and recolor the hidden pattern of a leaf beneath
the paper, think of your touch refining and
"recoloring" the hands' representation in the
brain. Image courtesy Advanced-Trainings.com.
The light-touch "brushing" technique stimulates
C-tactile afferents, and can be performed with
the fingertips or with a soft brush. Image courtesy
Advanced-Trainings.com.
involved in inflammation and its resolution (see "Understanding Inflammation
and Pain," Massage & Bodywork, January/February 2019, page 100). Light,
brushing touch can have surprising effects on swelling as well as pain.
FINAL THOUGHT
Our highly sensitive hands are the means by which we touch, feel, and
interact with the world. As hands-on practitioners, we're accustomed to
using our hands to help others. As an experiment, why not use your skilled
hands on yourself, with one hand refining, remapping, and recoloring
the other hand's large region in the brain? And when the time is right,
you can use this approach with others, to help their brains have different,
clearer, and more nuanced experience of the richness of the body.
Notes
1. Elise Hancock, "The Handy Guide to Touch," Johns Hopkins Magazine (April 1995), https://pages.jh.edu/
jhumag/495web/touch.html.
2. Francis McGlone, Johan Wessberg, and Håkan Olausson, "Discriminative and Affective Touch: Sensing
and Feeling," Neuron 82, no. 4 (May 2014): 737–55, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2014.05.001; Johan
Wessberg et al., "Receptive Field Properties of Unmyelinated Tactile Afferents in the Human Skin,"
Journal of Neurophysiology 89, no. 3 (March 1, 2003): 1,567–75, https://doi.org/10.1152/jn.00256.2002.
3. A. D. Craig, How Do You Feel? An Interoceptive Moment with Your Neurobiological Self (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2020).
4. Henry Tsao, Lieven A. Danneels, and Paul W. Hodges, "ISSLS Prize Winner: Smudging the Motor Brain
in Young Adults with Recurrent Low Back Pain," Spine 36, no. 21 (October 2011): 1,721–27, https://doi.
org/10.1097/BRS.0b013e31821c4267.
Til is the author of Advanced Myofascial Techniques (Handspring Publishing, 2016), a
Certified 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 and
Whitney Lowe host The Thinking Practitioner podcast. He invites questions or comments
via info@advanced-trainings.com and Advanced-Trainings.com's Facebook page.
3
2
