Massage Therapy Journal Summer 2025

12 • Massage Therapy Journal

Massage has a complicated and complex history with regard to communicating through this lens, which can increase barriers across health professions and ultimately to our clients. Many within health care or the health professions consider massage therapy as external to clinical work, or not necessarily part of health care. I had the personal experience of providers ignoring me until I shared research with them. Over the years, sharing peer-reviewed, large scale research studies transformed some skeptics into massage advocates—and some of my biggest referring partners. I believe that education and research give the therapeutic massage field credibility. While research isn’t the “end-all-be-all” (I believe massage is both an art and a science), being able to speak in terms of evidence base, outcomes, specific dosing, technique variation and impact is critical for massage therapy’s credibility in health care environments. Even for those who do not directly work in a health care environment, doing the research, dissemination and interpretation work is still impactful. Take, for example, working in a spa environment in which a massage clinician is talking to and treating a client with a specific condition. Speaking from an evidence informed standpoint and relating evidence back to the work regardless of environment demonstrates the discipline’s “root” and training within research. That’s a game changer. Q What is one common misunderstanding you hear about research, and how might MTF’s work help to bridge some of those gaps in understanding? A I think that many think that “every study is a good study.” Just because one reads something that begins with the phrase “A study suggests/ says …” doesn’t make it research. Having basic research literacy is critical. I also think that many people may inappropriately generalize personal experiences over research. One’s own clinical experience

is valuable within an evidence-based practice paradigm, but on its own, is not statistically or potentially even clinically a robust piece of the evidence puzzle. MTF can help bridge the study applicability gap in a few ways. For the LMT, utilizing our BRL (Basic Research Literacy) class is just one critical first step. Reading research in trusted places is also another ( IJTMB , for example). The other way that MTF makes an impact in the world of massage research is that it works diligently to support research reflective and relevant to the therapeutic massage field. Such research is also conducted systematically, utilizes rigorous methodology designed and performed by competent and skilled researchers, is objective, and produces reliable and valid results that can be replicated and appropriately generalized. Research proposals submitted to the MTF are rigorously peer reviewed following several criteria of the National Institutes of Health. Meritorious proposals to the MTF are reviewed, provided developmental feedback, and potentially get presented for funding, either to the MTF board or to the AMTA board, depending on the source of the funds. Q You’re talking with a massage therapy student nearing graduation. What do you tell them about the role research can play in their building a long and successful career in the massage profession? A In school, your instructors give you context, content, information and research … but once out of school and in practice, you must know where to go to find the most current information to both be a better practitioner and to help you know best practices. Research is key in helping massage therapists learn what works and, of equal importance, what doesn’t. And it can also help you stay safe as a practitioner. Knowing how to read research, knowing where to go to look up modalities and impacts, or to look

Research is key in helping massage therapists learn what works and, of equal importance, what doesn’t. And it can also help you stay safe as a practitioner.

DID YOU KNOW? The Massage Therapy Foundation was signed into being by the Secretary of the State of Illinois on August 3, 1990. Since then, the MTF has provided more than $1 million in research grants studying the science of therapeutic massage!

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