Massage Therapy Journal Fall 2025

Fall 2025 • 47

get from massage therapy. Having difficulty speaking up about traumatic events often carries over into other aspects of life. Feeling silenced about painful and sometimes life changing events often makes speaking up about anything else difficult. Trauma, Neuroplasticity and Brain Function Trauma, an extreme stress reaction to a frightening situation, can actually change brain function, and the term to describe the capacity of the brain to change itself is called neuroplasticity. 109 Over the past several decades, neuroscientists and brain specialists have discovered that the brain is not “hardwired” as was originally thought. Instead, research in more recent years suggests the brain is changeable, malleable and modifiable. The brain’s capacity for plasticity occurs primarily in three distinct areas . 110 Hypothalamus : Function —Regulates instinctive behaviors and implicit memory. Participates in the Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal Axis (HPA Axis). Encodes or accesses —Learned motor skills like running or playing tennis are encoded here. Knowledge stored and accessed unconsciously. Amygdala: Function —Processes emotion, anxiety and memories of emotionally-laden events. Encodes or accesses —Anxiety, fearful events and sensory stimuli are encoded here. Functions well during moments of extreme stress or trauma. Hippocampus: Function —Processes long-term and narrative memory. Controls breathing, sensation and pain. Encodes or accesses —Long-term and narrative memories. Cannot integrate information in moments of extreme stress. The degree to which someone reacts traumatically depends, in part, on the degree of severity and duration of the stress, as well as how each individual processes information and emotions in the moment, or how they learned to manage frightening circumstances as children.

People with PTSD may remain on alert, in a state of readiness to flee, or they may freeze, incapable of moving forward in their lives. 111,112,113 Clients who have traumatic histories often exist in a perpetual state of hyper-stress. Evidence suggests that massage therapy reduces symptoms of anxiety and depression, 114 and it’s logical to assume that massage therapy would be a good way to address post-traumatic symptoms. However, one’s perception of touch is subjective, a recollection of other attitudes and experiences of touch. Viewed from this perspective, it becomes obvious that massage therapy has the capacity to harm clients who are not prepared for the power of touch to invoke traumatic memories.

Over the past several decades, neuroscientists and brain specialists have discovered that the brain is not “hardwired” as was originally thought. Instead, … the brain is changeable, malleable and modifiable.

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