Issue link: https://www.massageandbodyworkdigital.com/i/68178
find themselves flooded with students eager to erase the artificial border between massage, meridian based therapies, and other mind-body designs. INTEGRATIVE THERAPIES THAT COMPLEMENT MASSAGE The following modality families merge readily with massage, and they immediately add dimension and scope. The quality of the therapist's touch shifts when these modalities are introduced, communicating textural change; the client's connective tissue listens and responds. It can be beneficial for the therapist to articulate the intention behind this shift. Each situation creates its own contours and the aware therapist will feel what is appropriate in this regard. By its nature, bodywork is about immersion in sensation, but sensation has great intelligence and can also speak for itself. It is precisely this intelligence that creates a personal paradigm shift. Using multiple modalities is by itself conducive to stimulating somatic intelligence, because the body awakens when exposed to more than one language. This is what underlies and distinguishes integrative bodywork. CRANIAL THERAPIES All massage educators, I believe, should include a cranial treatment component in their curriculum. We know now that the development of the cranial structures and the brain influences everything in our minds and bodies. How the brain responds to each nuance of experience immediately feeds information to all the muscles, nerves, joints, tendons, and ligaments. When there is fluidity, resilience, elasticity, and spaciousness within the cranial structures, the body is free, open, and supple. Because cranial therapies can be manipulative, and especially because their designated purposes are alignment and balancing of craniosacral fluid, connect with your colleagues on massageprofessionals.com 39 By its nature, bodywork is about immersion in sensation, but sensation has great intelligence and can also speak for itself.