Massage

History of Massage

Massage therapy dates back thousands of years. References to massage appear in writings from ancient China, Japan, India, Arabic nations, Egypt, Greece (Hippocrates defined medicine as “the art of rubbing”), and Rome.

Massage became widely used in Europe during the Renaissance. In the 1850s, two American physicians who had studied in Sweden introduced massage therapy in the United States, where it became popular and was promoted for a variety of health purposes. With scientific and technological advances in medical treatment during the 1930s and 1940s, massage fell out of favor in the United States. Interest in massage revived in the 1970s, especially among athletes. http://www.medicinenet.com/massage_therapy/article.htm

I have been a featured speaker at the American Back Society’s symposiums for more than 25 years. The American Back Society is comprised of a large group of the country’s leading orthopedic surgeons, neurosurgeons, osteopaths, therapists, chiropractors and temporomandibular joint (TMJ) specialists interested in cutting-edge techniques. At each of my myofascial release lectures, I attempt to broaden these physicians’ focus to look beyond the symptom for the cause. I remind them that “a diagnosis is just a myopic description of a symptomatic complex.”

Symptoms are just the tip of the iceberg of a much deeper and complex problem. In my seminars, I emphasize, “Find the pain, look elsewhere for the cause!” Rarely are symptoms anywhere close to the real cause, the fascial restrictions.

The physicians’ training, as ours, considered the body as an object. We were taught logical techniques for an illogical body. We were taught linear techniques for a nonlinear system.

You and I were taught protocols, routines and formulas that are “one size fits all” and yet in therapy that is what is called individualized care. For every diagnosis and symptomatic complex, there are billions of possible fascial restrictions that can cause the effects we label as symptoms.

The narrowly focused reductionist theory told us we were just mindless, linear objects. Then, we were taught techniques based on this erroneous view of the human body that only produced temporary results for a couple of hours to a couple of days. This is too low of a standard and we must—and can!—do better.

Instead, our myofascial system is a three dimensional, nonlinear system that requires a whole array of different principles and techniques to be successful.

Sincerely,

John

John F. Barnes, P.T., L.M.T., N.C.T.M.B., is an international lecturer, author and acknowledged expert in the area of myofascial release. He has instructed more than 50,000 therapists worldwide in his Myofascial Release Approach, and he is the author of Myofascial Release: the Search for Excellence (Rehabilitation Services, Inc., 1990) and Healing Ancient Wounds: the Renegade’s Wisdom (Myofascial Release Treatment Centers & Seminars, 2000). He is on the counsel of advisors of the American Back Society, as well as on MASSAGE Magazine’s Editorial Advisory Board and is a member of the American Physical Therapy Association. For more information, including further details on the DVD mentioned in this article, visit www.myofascialrelease.com.

 This insightful book demonstrates the power of touch. Noting Touch as Food. The skin is our largest organ, it learns what we feed it. Neural development depends on touch to link our sensory world into a well balance being , ” The skin, offers an excellent means of influencing internal processes.Its sensory pathways unite the surface and the interior of the organism, and its surface does not shield any more than. exposes.”Deane Juhan