How Massage May Complement Mental Health Therapies
Posted by Todorasa | Filed under Mental Health
“Clients are better able to make cognitive connections in psychotherapy sessions that follow bodywork sessions. In most cases, the client’s characteristic resistances are lowered and she or he is more available for therapeutic insight.”
Relaxing the Brain:
Brain-muscle work is a very efficient way for a patient to process old tensions because a) muscles literally hold tension, b) muscles are easy to reach, and c) under the right conditions muscles may release tension very quickly.
What are the right conditions for muscles to release tension? First, it is important to note that muscles contract only when, and to the degree that, the brain signals contraction. “Muscle guarding” is ongoing contraction, enacted by the cerebellum (hindbrain) when it feels there is some danger. The cerebellum’s decision to guard could be because of information that arrived from higher up in the brain, such as mental and emotional states of distress. The cerebellum also calculates safety from proprioceptive information arriving from the muscles and tendons, and sensory information throughout the body. The cerebellum does not sleep; once it has decided to guard, it guards day and night, for weeks or decades, until it makes a different decision. However, in the guarded state, tense muscles feel sore and painful, and tendons live under tensile stress. Therefore, while guarding, proprioceptive information to the brain continue to indicate that guarding continues to be appropriate. Bodywork techniques that trigger muscle relaxation do so by setting the brain at ease.
Specialty courses are now available to teach how to invite the brain to reduce contraction. Even without this training, the hands of countless massage therapists have rediscovered that “less is more.” Any muscle work that leads in seconds to palpable muscle softening, likely works because it triggers the brain to relax the muscles. It is like massaging the brain by working on the muscles. Ten thousand bodyworkers may now be massaging the brain without even realizing this. Brains feeling safe enough to relax muscles also feel safe enough to move forward mentally and emotionally.
Local Work Has Systemic Effect
Once the cerebellum feels safe enough to relinquish guarding in any one muscle, the hypothalamus also begins to feel safe enough to switch the nervous enervation and hormone signaling from “fight or flight” sympathetic programs to “rest and digest” parasympathetic. This means the person’s pulse and blood pressure lower, adrenaline and cortisol productions reduce, peristalsis resumes, and a hundred other pro-healing changes.
Brain-Muscle Relaxation Progressive and Finite:
Tensions released by brain decision remain relaxed. If similar tensions arise again, this likely indicates that the patient’s brain has made a new decision to guard-an interesting event that allows a fresh look at the person’s current issues.
Soon after the brain has experienced the benefits of one muscle relaxation session, dormant tensions seem to get in line to be the next to surface. The brain will not allow all the tensions to surface at once. Massage is a comforting, non-overwhelming way to welcome tensions as they surface and move on.
The next tension pattern in line may use the same muscle group that the last tension pattern used, as if this muscle group is now known to be a safe path to freedom, like the underground railroad. Still, the next tension pattern may use different muscle groups if these would be more meaningful to the way this tension pattern was originally stored.
This process is not forever. There are only a finite amount of tensions stored. As tensions leave, quality of life progressively improves. I believe it is not the scope of a bodyworker to bring the patient to perfection, only to give assistance until skills and quality of life are sufficient for the person to continue her process without professional assistance.
Bodywork as Nonverbal Communication:
Alliance: Guarding implies that the brain is actively trying to contract muscle. Contraction implies the cerebellum intends to shorten muscle (when this “reptilian” brain feels threatened, the opposite of reaching out, curling up, seems the safest solution). A bodyworker who uses force to lengthen shortened muscles, or to “open” guarded joints, communicates his disagreement to the cerebellum. A bodyworker who uses no force, but moves joints only gently in directions of greater comfort, wins status as an ally to the hindbrain. Trust begins, and in this safety, the cerebellum may voluntarily repeal its guarding programs.
Independence: Many a patient seeks and finds relief from force-oriented bodywork. His relief reinforces the belief that his change requires someone else to force him. A dependence on a therapist begins. On the other hand, a patient who feels safe and then chooses to change, comes to realize she has always possessed the capability for relaxation. Self-awareness and self-sufficiency increase.
Partnership skills: Rather than one person fixing another, brain-muscle work is an invitation to change. Who is the cause of relaxation, the therapist or the patient? Both play necessary roles.
Relationships: A therapeutic relationship that includes touch that is safe, healthy, and nurturing restores a trust in human relationships.
Optimism:
After a brain-muscle treatment, a patient who feels dramatically different than he felt an hour ago experiences optimism, which assists mental and behavioral progress. The patient waking the next day without any new soreness, experiencing continuing effects of relaxation for days, experiencing progressive plateaus with each session, begins to create new optimistic patterns in a web of unbreakable support.
Finding an Effective Muscle-Brain Therapist:
How does a Doctor or Counselor find a bodywork therapist who triggers the brain to relax the muscles, if most therapists don’t even know they’re doing it? First compile a list of Massage Therapists and/or Physical Therapists in your area. The AMTA and NCBTMB websites provide referrals for accredited and certified practitioners in your area. If your State licenses therapists, it may provide online access to practitioners.
By phone, ask each bodyworker how much time is required for a guarded muscle to noticeably soften. Some can initiate palpable softening within twenty seconds. Can they soften muscle through clothing? Those bodyworkers who feel confident that muscles relax quickly, may be doing brain-muscle work.
Would any of these bodyworkers be available for a short demonstration on a patient (or yourself)? It is important for you to meet the bodyworker you will refer to, for several reasons; one, you want to see for yourself that muscles can relax dramatically in a short period of time, and two, you want to assess how safe your patients will feel with this person.
Managing Appointments:
Brain-muscle work can have results within the first minute. However, bodyworkers prefer to work longer with each patient.
If you would like a therapist to come to your office, many own an “onsite chair” that requires little space, so the therapist can do 15-30 minute clothed treatments in your waiting room.
If you refer patients, realize that most commonly, massage treatments occur in the intimate setting of a closed massage room with hands applied to unclothed skin, using a sheet to drape the nude body. If some of your patients would benefit initially from a) working through clothing rather than disrobing, b) leaving doors open, and/or c) the patient bringing a spouse or friend to sit in the room, then do instruct the bodyworker how you would like your patients to be treated.
Of course you know that if you want to communicate with the bodyworker about a patient’s bodywork sessions, the patient’s written permission would be necessary.
Photo Credit: Mental Health Therapies
Patrick would like to organize a fan club for the obliquus capitis inferior muscle. Melting Muscles technique at: http://MeltingMuscles.com Class dates and new classes at Patrick’s blog; http://meltingmuscles.blogspot.com
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