How's The Pressure?

This week I am bringing in Carole Osborne to talk about the emotional component of massage. A little bit about Carole, she is a practitioner, author, course developer and instructor and mentor. Her articles have appeared in many professional and mainstream publications since 1980. In 2008 she was the AMTA teacher of the year. She published a deep tissue textbook in 1990, and a book about infant massage in 1998. She is a continuing education provider, and is passionate about the material and spiritual connection inherent in bodywork.

I really appreciated the conversation with Carole, because I have noticed my tendency to pick guests that fall more in the medical and orthopedic massage end of the spectrum. With Carole our conversation came back to more of the human element inherent in our work. We talk about the trend of avoiding the emotional component of massage, and about how we can find a better balance with that while still staying within our scope of practice. It was an interesting topic, and I appreciated the way Carole presented her thoughts considering that it is not an easy subject to be articulate about. As always with emotions, its more messy and gray area than it looks on first glance.

This week I am bringing in Dr. Ben Benjamin to talk about being an expert witness in massage court cases. I have been curious about how massage therapists and massage businesses get sued and why for a long time now and when I think about it there is always a twinge of fear. I think mostly that fear comes from not knowing how often it actually happens, and worrying that because I am not completely informed on the topic, that I am more at risk. Anyway, for those of you who know me, if I have fear or anxiety around a subject then it won’t be too long before I find a way to have a public conversation about it. So here we are, and I thought it would be good to bring in Ben to talk about the topic because he has extensive experience in the massage room, the classroom, and the courtroom.

Ben has been in the field for over 3 decades now. He regularly called upon to be an expert witness for massage legal cases, and I have been searching for quite some time to find someone in his position to interview about this subject. I am grateful for his honesty and forthcoming nature, as I have had several individuals tell me that they don’t want to be on the record for this subject matter. So I really appreciated his candor, and it helps me remember that it takes some resolve and a degree of risk to be willing to put your opinions out into the public sphere.

A conversation with Ben Benjamin about massage court cases

This week I am bringing in Irene Lyon to talk about working with trauma. A little bit about Irene, she is a nervous system specialist and therapeutic coach who helps everyone — from the mom next door to the next big thought leaders — transform their bodies, businesses, relationships and lives through regulating their nervous systems. Irene has intensively studied and practices the work of Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais, Peter Levine (founder of Somatic Experiencing) and Kathy Kain (founder of Somatic Practice). Irene has a master’s degree in research in the fields of biomedical and health science. She regularly appears on podcasts and online summits teaching all things nervous system health, healing trauma and neuroplasticity.

In this episode we cover what got her working in the field of trauma, and then dive into the subject of procedural memory. I was fascinated by the mechanics of procedural memory and ever since that conversation I have been paying attention to how it might play into my life and the lives of my clients. She also talks about the fight, flight, or freeze response. And we learn about the ACE study, which stands for Adverse Childhood Experiences, and the implications from that body of work.

Here are some resources she mentioned:

1) Dr. Mate's first book,When The Body Says No - Understanding The Stress-Disease Connection

2) Dr. Mate's website https://drgabormate.com/

3) The Need For Authenticity. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUGGNPAK6uw

4) https://soundcloud.com/irenelyon/origins-of-the-ace-study

5) https://www.ted.com/talks/nadine_burke_harris_how_childhood_trauma_affects_health_across_a_lifetime

The second half of my conversation with Karin Gurtner about movement therapy.

I am bringing in Karin Gurtner to talk about Movement Therapy and how we as bodyworkers can learn from that practice and add value to the work we do with our clients. Karin is the founder of the art of motion, training in movement®, a renowned training organization for Contemporary Pilates & Slings Myofascial Training based in Switzerland and Australia. Her resume is quite impressive with certifications in massage, gyrokenisis, pilates, yoga, personal training and many many more. Without taking the next several minutes to list off all of her accomplishments and accreditations, hopefully it is suffice to say she is incredibly experienced, and a motivated learner through and through.

This is Part 1 of our conversation, as we had so much content to cover that I thought it best to break it up in to two episodes. That being said, we do cover quite a bit in this first part, everything from what it means to move and how that effects our relationship with our body, to the value of conscious movement training, and finally we get more technical and discuss the difference between proprioception and interception. I really enjoyed my conversation with Karin, she has so much energy and excitement around learning about the body and how it works. Not only is her work inspiring, but her zest for life is contagious as well.

She also has the honor of being my first guest to lead my audience through some movements during the episode. I’m curious to hear how that lands for you, so please send me an email through the website www.howsthepressure.com and let me know if it worked for you. I give you my conversation with Karin Gurtner.

A conversation with Karin Gurtner about movement therapy

This week I am bringing in Tom Myers to talk about bringing anatomy trains to the larger healthcare community. We also talk about how he is using it to connect different health care providers within a common language. For those of you who don’t know Tom, I imagine that is a very small percentage of you out there, he is the founder and cartographer of Anatomy Trains. His work has literally changed our industry and understanding of not only how the body is put together, but how it functions from a myofacial perspective. Needless to say it is a great honor to talk to Tom about his work.

When preparing for this conversation I can say that I was certainly a bit nervous, and wasn’t sure what to expect. What I found was that Tom is not only smart, articulate, and embodied, but he is also a truly kind human being. This is not always the case when someone comes into the kind of prominence that Tom has risen too. I immediately felt that he was open and welcoming. We covered a lot of ground, from his work facilitating conversations between different healthcare providers, to the way he helped his daughter develop kinetic intelligence before she could walk. It was, as I hoped it would be, an engaging and inspiring conversation.

A conversation with Tom Myers about Anatomy Trains and spacial medicine

This week I am talking to Allissa Haines about client confidentiality. Now I know that all, or hopefully all of us believe that client confidentiality is an important factor in running a practice ethically. However I thought it would be good to bring in someone to talk about where there might be some grey areas for some therapists. How far do we take it? What is the ethical standard we are shooting for? Are there circumstances where it doesn’t really apply? Where do we commonly make mistakes in on this topic?

I ask some of these questions and more of Allissa, who also has a massage podcast called “Massage Business Blueprint”. She has written articles in many publications, including a regular column in Massage and Bodywork Magazine. She teaches all over the country, has been running a thriving private practice for over 13 years, and is a big advocate of online marketing for massage. Producing the podcast has allowed her to cultivate a community of massage therapists who are passionate about growing their business and being the best therapists they can be. For those of you not familiar with it, I would highly suggest you check it out.

Now despite how it might see that the topic of client confidentiality is pretty narrow, the conversation actually covers quite a bit of ground. From handling multiple family members, to handling the death of your client. Because Allissa runs an online forum for bodyworkers, I also had to get her two cents on how to get the most out of social media and online communities. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Allissa.