The Murkiness of Massage Therapy Research

“The great enemy of communication, we find, is the illusion of it.” 

—William H. Whyte

There were days when Mel regretted agreeing to write a case report. It seemed like a good idea at the time. 

The International Journal of Therapeutic Massage & Bodywork made a call for papers around the topic of mental health. Mel was employed by a university health-care system and was working with a patient whose mental health was negatively affected by strong touch aversion. So Mel’s manager put her in touch with one of the research leads in the health-care system at the university. The research lead thought the case report was a great idea. The patient agreed, hoping the case report could help others. Mel had been given a green light.

Learning Curve

The problem was that Mel often felt like she had no idea what she was doing when it came to research. She had been a massage therapist for 30 years, but until five years ago, she’d been focused on caring for clients and learning techniques. She knew research happened, had taken a few CE classes on the basics, and felt it was a positive thing for the profession. But that was where her involvement ended.  

Now, Mel was learning that the hardest part about writing the case report was communicating with everyone involved—her manager, the research lead, the patient, and even herself. Sometimes she couldn’t even think of what questions to ask because there was so much to know. There was so much more to writing a report than putting words to paper. On top of that, everyone around her had advanced degrees. They’d spent years in research and medicine, and that made Mel worry that her questions were so basic they made her look inept. 

Then one day, after confessing she didn’t feel like she knew what she was doing, the research lead replied, “You’re learning, that’s what you’re doing.” After that, Mel thought about the work differently.

There isn’t a direct match to other research because massage therapy is not medicine, nursing, or PT . . . And that means when it comes to research, the massage therapy profession is learning.

Mel came to understand that the communication challenges weren’t completely about her lack of research skills. When she struggled to describe how she thought her work was important for the patient’s experience, she realized some of the disconnect was because everyone around her had advanced degrees. The people she was working with listened to Mel and took her seriously, but what they understood went through their mental filters shaped by their education. Mel’s colleagues had been trained in medicine and nursing, not massage therapy. 

Massage Therapy Intersects Many Boundaries

Different disciplines within health care have different intentions, goals, ideas, and treatment methods. This means they all approach research with a unique eye. Massage therapy doesn’t have a defined identity the way medicine, nursing, or physical therapy (PT) does. Sometimes our research measures the feel-good hormone oxytocin, the way medicine might. Sometimes we try to look at the best practices for communicating with clients, the way nursing would. Sometimes we use range-of-motion measurements, like PT. But there isn’t a direct match to other research because massage therapy is not medicine, nursing, or PT; even if it has similarities to all of them. And that means when it comes to research, the massage therapy profession is learning, just like Mel.

Mel started to think about massage therapy research as “murky work.” Massage therapy offers something that the other health-care professions don’t, but we can’t put it into words yet. Much of massage research is an attempt to find and describe that something (and then figure out how to measure it). This makes massage therapy research exploratory at its heart. If you like to explore, this is very exciting, but if you’re only looking for answers, it can be frustrating. Regardless, it means there’s a lot of room for new ideas.

Unexpected Result

After 18 months, the case report was published, and Mel looked back and evaluated the experience. She realized the report hadn’t quite captured what she had intended. She had wanted to explore touch aversion and the patient’s quality of life, particularly at home. But the focus of the report ended up being more about touch aversion and medical settings. All the effort to communicate hadn’t gotten her the result she wanted.

Mel felt that was OK. She grew a lot by writing the case report. The next time she worked on a project, she would learn more things. She would also be better at describing her vision for massage therapy research. She’s looking forward to diving back into the murk.