Issue link: https://www.massageandbodyworkdigital.com/i/1299745
66 m a s s a g e & b o d y w o r k n o v e m b e r / d e c e m b e r 2 0 2 0 The interviews revealed that it was the therapists' ability "to talk or to not talk" and to simply be with the patient that allowed them to feel connected and cared for. If you are researching massage therapy, it is essential to have a resource who understands massage therapy from the inside. It is unfortunate that much of massage therapy research has been designed and conducted without the input of massage therapists, and some of the research also involves interventions provided by nonmassage therapists. In our research, we explain that the intervention is provided by a practitioner of the discipline of massage therapy by referencing "specially trained massage therapists" throughout the paper. When data is published in a majority of massage therapy studies, there is little or no information about the training or experience of practitioners who worked on the study. This omission makes replication difficult, while also suggesting that the intervention has little or nothing to do with the practitioner. Many studies argue that the omission of practitioner training and experience is intentional to "control for therapist effect" (the idea that a personal connection might develop between patient and a practitioner), which could skew the data in an artificially positive or negative way. Of course, we know that when removing the person, the intervention is different. If we want to continue to put—and keep—humans at the center of caring for other humans, our efforts are better spent designing protocols that allow for the technical and interpersonal skills of a well-trained practitioner to shine. A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE In our study, we chose to look at the "usual" measures of pain and anxiety so often seen in massage therapy studies, but we also included a measure of "peacefulness" and a measure called "distress." Our understanding of pain and anxiety as multifactorial experiences has undergone a sea change in the past 10–20 years. Even so, the addition of these two more fluid states of peace and distress helped us discover the way that the whole perception of a person's experience affects the usual, less nuanced measures of pain and anxiety. Peacefulness is a relatively simple concept to grasp, but distress can be a bit tougher. The National Cancer Institute defines distress as "emotional, social, spiritual, or physical pain or suffering that may cause a person to feel sad, afraid, depressed, anxious, or lonely. People in distress may also feel they are not able to manage or cope with changes caused by normal life activities or by having a disease, such as cancer." 2 The Distress Thermometer 3 is a commonly used tool in patient experience and medical research. In our study, we used it to limit survey burden for patients (we did not have them complete the full "problem list") and learned that distress is similar to wind chill. You know in the winter when they say it's 28 degrees, but it "feels like" 19 degrees when the wind blows? The thermometer doesn't actually read 19 degrees when the wind blows, but you'd bet anything that it's colder than they're telling you it is.