Massage Therapy for Healing: A Medical Practitioner's Guide

Question
Dear Abby
I am a medical practitioner and run my own private clinic. I am just wondering what sort of diseases could possibly be recovered by massage therapies. Also I would like to know where I may obtain much more and comprehensive information.
regards
David

Answer
Hi, David.

I'm not sure what type of medical practitioner you are, so this may or may not be helpful-but here goes. As far as disease and pathology-the book "The Massage Therapist's Guide to Pathology" (the title may differ slightly, but if you go to Amazon it should be no problem to find). Anyway, that's a great book for helping identify contraindications to massage. Massage can be helpful for fibromyalgia, some types of lymph drainage and so on, but when it comes to most disease,especially if it is one you know nothing about, consulting the client's physician probably will be necessary-with your client's permission, of course. If you want to know more about massage therapy and want to practice massage, you should look into going to a good massage therapy school-there's probably a school in your state, they are building everywhere. You can access the AMTAmassage.org site or the ABMP website (sorry, don't have that addy)to get a better idea of what you want to do and then what type of schooling to look for, as every massage school is different. I know that some universities are offering B.A.'s in the massage arena (I don't recall what the courses are called-again, look at the websites I wrote down, they'll help). So, your choices are many. I'd suggest going to a school that has a well rounded approach to the healing arts, teaching injury rehab as well as the spa and relaxation massage, with a balanced approach to hands on teaching and theory. I hope this helps you! Good luck. Oh, just so you know-there are states that require certain accomplishments before you are allowed to practice massage therapy.  There are also states that do not have any specific laws regarding massage, but in those states the rules will vary from city to city. You might try calling your city clerk's office for more information.
Abby