Massage Therapy Journal Summer 2025

26 • Massage Therapy Journal

M assage therapy is not just a modality to help with physical aches and pains. It also provides many benefits for mental well-being, such as decreasing stress, anxiety and depression. Many massage techniques that your clients might request for help managing physical symptoms of illness, injury or stress, for example, can also help their overall emotional and mental well-being.

emotional actions over and over again, it can cause distress in the tissues—muscles and fascia that were used to hold back the reactions become tight or taut.” Massage therapy can be used to help relax and release the taut tissues, releasing the “emotional energy” being held. “Almost any massage modality can cause an emotional release during a session, but there are certain types of massage that lend themselves well to emotional processing and healing,” says Ariel F. Hubbard, LMT. “Lymphatic massage is especially effective because it does tend to directly affect emotions through the lymphatic system.” According to Hubbard, other factors that influence more fluid emotional processing include: • Specific massage modalities that address the nervous, limbic or endocrine systems • Modalities that facilitate a higher level of client safety, relaxation and calm • Massaging regions of the body where emotions are stored and using massage modalities that process them directly. Techniques such as reflexology, craniosacral therapy and Tui Na massage are also particularly effective in helping with emotional well-being. “Reflexology affects the nervous system and the endocrine system, and via these systems, all regions of the body wherever emotions may be stored,” Hubbard says. “Craniosacral therapy is also very effective because it treats the central nervous system and limbic system directly. Tui Na massage is effective because it can be used to address acupoints that treat certain emotions, but also because the movement in this modality can calm and reset the nervous system.” Carlton also mentions using craniosacral therapy, as well as somatic emotional release (SER), even during sessions that may be primarily using deep tissue, Swedish and myofascial release techniques. “Using the gentle touch techniques from craniosacral therapy/SER and energy work helps one to tune into the more subtle holding patterns in a person’s body. It’s in the ‘holding space’ for the tensions to release that the emotional energy can also be released,” Carlton says.

“The biopsychosocial model posits that the experience of health is multidimensional, composed of interdependent factors,” says Erika Larson, LMT. “Physical well-being and emotional well-being are interwoven. While some clients may seek treatment primarily focused on one dimension of health, treatment effects cannot be restricted to a single dimension.” Sometimes emotions are discussed in relation to massage therapy as being “trapped.” One goal of massage is to release these trapped emotions, which can have both physical and mental/emotional benefits. “When an emotion is trapped, what is really being held is the actions or reactions the person wanted to take at the time the emotion was felt,” says Cindy Carlton, LMT/Intuitive Healing Facilitator. “If someone holds back those

Craniosacral Therapy

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