Issue link: https://www.massageandbodyworkdigital.com/i/365665
SOMATIC RESE ARCH your local massage organization to create a research discussion group, just like a book group. Challenge each other to contribute effective critiques about what you read. If you have an area of expertise, sign up as a reviewer for the IJTMB! Thank you to Leon Chaitow and Antony Porcino for their insight and opinions. Both the Journal of Bodywork & Movement Therapies and the International Journal of Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork are indexed in PubMed (www.pubmed.gov) and include a focus on bodywork and massage. Notes 1. David Peters et al., Integrating Complementary Therapies in Primary Care (Elsevier, 2001). 2. Janet Kahn, Massage Therapy Research Agenda 1st ed., (Evanston, Illinois: American Massage Therapy Association, 2002), 1–17. The 1999 Massage Therapy Research Agenda is a list of five recommendations covering not only what kinds of research studies ought to be done, but also how they might best be done, and what conditions must be met in order to move the agenda forward. For more information, visit www.massagetherapyfoundation.org/ clientuploads/Research%20Agenda/MRAW_Outcomes.pdf. 3. Leon Chaitow and Judith DeLany, "Neuromuscular Techniques in Orthopedics," Techniques in Orthopaedics 18, no. 1 (2003): 74–86. 4. Leon Chaitow, "Breathing Pattern Disorders, Motor Control, and Low Back Pain," Journal of Osteopathic Medicine 7, no. 1 (2004): 34–41. 5. Leon Chaitow, "Chronic Pelvic Pain: Pelvic Floor Problems, Sacroiliac Dysfunction and the Trigger Point Connection," Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies 11 (2007): 327–39. 6. Leon Chaitow, Christopher Gilbert, and Dinah Bradley, Recognizing and Treating Breathing Disorders (Elsevier, 2014). 7. Donald Schon, The Reflective Practitioners: How Professionals Think in Action (Basic Books, 1984). Jerrilyn Cambron, DC, PhD, MPH, LMT, is an educator at the National University of Health Sciences and president of the Massage Therapy Foundation. Contact her at jcambron@nuhs.edu. effects, understanding the physiological mechanisms invoked by the different technique and therapy options available to us will help us refine our work, and perhaps make it more effective and efficient by allowing us to better understand when to use specific therapies or techniques. The other area that I think needs more focus is education—how is tactile competency and expertise development taught? Back in the mid-1980s, in The Reflective Practitioner, Donald Schön talked about the "messy swamplands" of everyday practice compared to the theoretical ideal. He proposed the idea of a practice-based (swamplands) way of knowing the world, compared to a research-based (theoretical ideal) way of interpreting what was being seen. 7 There is a dynamic tension between these two approaches, because one is experiential evidence, the other is "objective" research, and more work needs to be done to bridge the gap between these at the initial educational level of practitioners. One area I personally want to see more research done is in somatics (Thomas Hanna's original term, with an "s"), which is the subfield within therapeutic massage where the body-mind is conceived of as an integrated unit. It ranges from body-centered psychotherapy (psychotherapy using massage), to many forms of bodywork, including some deep-tissue work, but where the focus is integration of the experience of self and embodiment in the tissues. In 2007, Mary Koithan, PhD, in collaboration with other researchers, published an article on "unstuckness" and transformational healing. What struck me was how it was so similar to all the testimonials and writing of somatics colleagues in Rolfing, Rosen, Trager, Feldenkrais, and Aston Patterning. There is a rich wealth of knowledge and healing that is part of our therapeutic massage family where the research possibilities are still relatively untapped. Researchers need to catch up. WHAT SUGGESTIONS DO YOU HAVE FOR THERAPISTS WHO WANT TO GET INVOLVED IN RESEARCH? CHAITOW: Record your work. Keep details of what you observe and what you do—use SOAP notes or other means of recording as much as possible. Write case reports or case studies or case series; enter competitions and try to get published. Spread knowledge, and as you do so, you will acquire knowledge. PORCINO: I immediately think of two things: First, what are you really learning from your practice? Are you reflecting on what you are learning, client by client? Do you see things that you would like to discuss with others or think others may need to know about or be able to add to? Find options for making this dialogue happen. The IJTMB offers several options, including letters to the editor, case reports and case series publication, and our new column, Trigger Points. Second, get 54 m a s s a g e & b o d y w o r k s e p t e m b e r / o c t o b e r 2 0 1 4