Issue link: https://www.massageandbodyworkdigital.com/i/81195
THE ART AND SCIENCE OF RESEARCH "Every clinician does research every day. Your client comes in, you make your observations, you make your hypotheses, you design your treatments, you apply the intervention, and you evaluate. That's research. It's also I think one of the obstacles we have in the massage therapy profession to creating an environment where research literacy is simply part of the job description is that people feel research is abstract and distant from their day- to-day decision making. But when massage therapists attend conferences like the International Research Congress they have opportunities to speak directly to the people who are really trying hard to gather information about how these things work. Conferences like these are important ways to disseminate information, but they also serve to be the fertile ground where new seeds of ideas can sprout. TF: I am an advocate of a gathering that combines researchers and clinicians, because the perspective of both is necessary to advance research in this fi eld. Researchers can look around for a project forever and not come up with a clinical practice." Thomas Findley critical issue, but if they listen to the clinicians and what the clinicians are observing, what they hear will guide them to more fruitful areas of investigation. I think a research congress is important, but you've got to have the clinicians there. One of the greatest challenges to research is forming teams of clinicians and scientists, and every year more and more of these teams come out of the Fascia Congress. M&B: Why has research been such a passion for you? RW: My relationship with research in the fi eld of massage therapy changes daily. I am not a professional academic, so not too long ago I was exactly the kind of person to whom I try to reach out to today: someone who was curious, but who was unclear about the whys and the hows of research impacting my career. I have two personal points of interest about massage therapy research. One has to do with the mechanisms of bodywork. I am fascinated to fi nd out why things happen the way they happen because to me, that means we can use massage on purpose, instead of by happy accident. My other interest has to do with the interaction of bodywork with mood and emotion. We have begun to put together a decent evidence base about massage in the context of anxiety and depression in lots of different populations, and it turns out to be a very effective way to help people deal with these kinds of diffi culties. Well, that's great, but it completely changes our scope of practice. But if that turns out to be a place our work is useful, and the risks are low and the benefi ts are big, then that's where we should be working. TF: I've been doing research for 60 years. According to my mother, I started when I was age 3. I stood with a honey jar in the window with the sun shining on it, and I stood still for 45 minutes. Finally she said, "Tommy, what are you doing?" and I responded, "I doing exerments." Changing the viscosity of fl uids is something I'm still doing today. My latest work is really looking at the hyaluronic acid layer between the deep fascia and the muscles, and how we can facilitate that to allow movement in the body, how we can measure it, how we can affect it. It's pretty exciting. PM: I've always been a critical thinker looking to get to the facts and to discern truth. I began studying meditation and yoga as a kid, and the more I practiced, the more I realized that real spiritual practice and the scientifi c method have a lot in common. The main distinctions are the inner versus the outer focus, and where they draw the line for accepting evidence. The idea of parking the mind in neutral, observing, documenting, and then contemplating your observations, not jumping to conclusions, is important to both spiritual self- development and research. Celebrate ABMP's 25th anniversary and you may win a refund on your membership. ABMP.com. 71