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Body Cells Carry Emotional Memory

                      By Boris Prilutsky

I found the theory that body cells carry emotional memories to be a true one. During my 38 years of clinical experience, numerous times I have witnessed the emotional reactions of my patients/clients to soft tissue mobilization. To more clearly explain this phenomenon, I would like to share one of my most interesting clinical experiences with you that support the theory of emotional memory being carried body cells.

Over 20 years ago, I treated one of the world-renowned boxers of the time from a shoulder injury. The right shoulder had a severe sprain/strain case with suspicion of possible rotator cuff tear. As with all such cases, after 24 hours of cold application procedures (cold application must be applied no more than 10-15 minutes and must be repeated every two hours) we started intensive massage therapy on the unaffected side in order to awake vasomotor reflex that will express by increasing blood supply to the injured extremities. I began to follow the treatment protocol for the above-mentioned purposes, starting to mobilize all groups of rotator cuff muscles layer by layer, as well as the anterior, posterior, and middle part of the deltoid muscles. As he was receiving the massage therapy, suddenly this big, tough, extremely strong man started crying, vocalizing sounds like that of a little boy. He was confused and expressed his embarrassment at breaking down in tears.

Being familiar with the theory that body cells carry emotional memory, I suggested to him to cry out whatever this emotional memory was. The sport clinical psychologist was informed of the incident. During his evaluation, this professional athlete, with the help of the psychologist, recovered a memory from his deep subconscious of an event that happened to him when he was eight years old.

Briefly, the story was that the boy's grandfather (his mother's father) once interrupted the constant fight between the boy's father and alcoholic mother; his grandfather attacked his father with a hammer. Afterward, the father was delivered in critical condition to the hospital and the grandfather was arrested. During this period of time, the little boy future boxing champion fell, off his bicycle and hurt his left shoulder. Crying, he came to his mom who was screaming into the phone, and asked her to comfort him because of the pain in his shoulder. His mother reacted in anger, and took his pleas as just whining for attention and she hit him with the phone a few times on this painful shoulder. All these years, on a subconscious level, this man carried difficult baggage of these memories of events related to losing the most important people in his life; his grandfather and father; and related to rejection by his mother. This kind of crying, emotional release tremendously helped this athlete to get rid of this subconscious trauma. This heavy emotional baggage was terribly disturbing and robbed him of a lot of happiness all these years, without him even knowing it existed. My experience has taught me that usually these emotional releases happen with people at the time when we perform massage (including deep tissue mobilization) in the inhibitory regime. Please be aware that emotional release may not be expressed by crying. Many clients may report to you that they have trouble sleeping and experience worry, or they may start shaking during the massage. Some of them will report unusual emotional sensitivity. Please explain to your clients that all above-mentioned reactions are very positive reactions and within the next few days of going through these reactions, they will feel a great deal better. Regarding the boxer whose case I presented to you, he later reported to me that he never thought that this subconscious baggage could destroy the quality and happiness of his life so much. He told me that thanks to this innocent massage therapy on the healthy shoulder, he was able to find peace within himself.

It's reasonable to assume that the memory of the emotional experience is stored somewhere in the brain - the system that is specialized in memory handling and remained inaccessible, as many other memories a human being experiencing during the life. But the shoulder cells hold the bookmark or a memory address of where the actual memories of the incident were stored in the brain. Thus by activating the shoulder cell you triggered the process of loading the content of that remote memory in the active memory, causing the aforementioned reaction.

As you can see from this episode, clinical psychology approach alone wouldn't be sufficient, because of the emotional memories carried by the cells of his body. Presently, I receive professional referrals from clinical psychologists.

Dear colleagues, I would like to encourage you to contact clinical psychologists in your neighborhoods and to offer them your services to incorporate massage therapy in their treatments. The Latin word "doctor" means educator. After being involved in many cases,at US it is clear to me that we should educate not only our clients about the power and importance of massage therapy, but also other health care practitioners.

www.medicalmassage-edu.com

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The discussion has moved on since I was last here, but I want to bring closure to a couple points I raised previously.

 

"It doesn't matter if they are open- or close-minded. If they do the work honestly, the process brings the facts to light, and the person's tendencies have nothing to do with it."


It does matter.  Researcher’s bias is one of the best known obstacles in research.  There are several problems with bias, ranging from failing to see data when it’s there, to interpreting data in a way that is consistent with bias.  Of course we would not want it to happen, but it does and it is well documented.

 

You haven't shown any evidence that Chris is closed-minded, just your interpretation of what he writes.

Not only has it been self-evident with various statements on this board, but Christopher said it himself in (1) yes, it is true that there are certain ideas that I am comfortable ruling out based on the available evidence”. Is the objective of science to only take data and explain it with what we already know? What do you do when data is inconsistent with known theories - do you throw the data out, or do you move to explore new theories?  In my opinion, an open-mind person would exhaust existing theories and move to test new ones.  An open minded person would never say ‘reiki never works, whenever will, send bad energy my way’ as Christopher provoked in another post; he would say “I am not aware of any studies that have shown reiki to work, but I am keeping an open mind, I would encourage someone to show me the data”; there would be no emotion, no antagonizing, there would not be a need for it. 

 

“Given the way Chris and Bodhi are routinely vilified on this board, I don't think that asking you to stick to the facts and evidence instead of just throwing personal attacks is unreasonable at all. “

Perhaps you should consider that many of the posts about Christopher and Bodhi are nothing but a result of the action-reaction rule.  When someone tells you (as Bodhi did)  that entry-level requirement for massage therapy should be a four-year degree and you ask “show me the umbers” and he skirts the question by only repeating the mantra, of course that is going to be ill-received.  We do not live in Jonestown and do not drink the cool-aid.  Show us the numbers.

 

“To ask for a number is to oversimplify how science works..”

If there is no magic threshold, at which point would you claim that, let’s say, energy work does not work? Because there are several people who have claimed this.  In science, replication and the accumulation of results increases the confidence that we have in the results.  For example, if I polled ten households and found they have 8 boys and 2 girls, I would be led to conclude that the ratio of boys and girls is 80%-20%, but if I repeated infinitely with different samples, etc I would come closer to the 51/49 that we know be true, correct?  The reason this is important, is because when you come out and say “this does not work”, I am always curious – did you conduct one study and moved on or not?

 

And no, a meta-analysis is not ever going to reverse previous results. A meta-analysis is a summary of the most solid studies that have been performed on the subject, and will only reflect the results of those previous studies.”

You were incorrect on this, as you admitted.  As a matter of fact, meta-analysis are excellent tools in evaluating previous studies.  15 studies showing that taking aspirin did not have effects on heart disease were reversed in a single meta-analysis 2 years later.   And you did not write “sloppily” as you said, you actually wrote/write beautifully, this was no sloppy writing.   It’s okay for a researcher to be misinformed nobody is going to hold that against you.   What is worth noting here is something else. See how Christopher responded to your replied with This is not entirely true.” ?  A statement “a meta-analysis is not ever going to…” is a true or false statement because of the ‘not ever going’ part.  It could have been a “shade of gray” statement, but you made it a true or false statement with the certainty you put in it.  A true or false statement cannot be ‘not entirely true’.  Christopher could have said 'this is false' or 'this is not true', but he tried to soften his approach by saying "this is not entirely true" (by the way, it's entirely false).  The reason I am even bringing it up is because this is one of the complaints that some of us have here: while our evidence-based leaders are quick to attack someone’s views, they are just as quick to let some other ones slide.  

Take your response to Ty’s post for example: “I guess that's an actual somatization experience I've had, come to think of it. I processed the info of the death in my central nervous system, but it was too much for me at that level, so I had to express it physically at some random location in order to deal with it, including depicting a good and sympathetic friend as a violent physical attacker.”  I wonder what Christopher’s response would had been had Boris said that.  I mean, how do you know? What is the evidence to suggest that what you just wrote is actually true? What is the amount of information that can safely pass through the nervous system before this information is expressed at random locations?  And is there any predictability in the randomness or is there true randomness, and so one and so forth.  Can this statement pass a scientific test?  I don’t think so, but it made it past Christopher’s radar. 

 

I mentioned Dean Radin and his book “Conscious Universe”; I am plugging him/it again to raise awareness that there is a whole other side to science than what Christopher, Ravensara, and few others here may want us to believe.  Scientific herding and ostracizing of people whose views are ‘out there’ exists, and lumping Bozo and Galileo in the same sentence because they both made us laugh can explain how it can happen.  Scientists are as prone to making mistakes as anyone else, they are not super-human.

 

You said When you can show us that he has really done that, then I will check him out. “. I do not need to show you anything, you do.  And you do, because chances are that any research you do is done with my (or someone else’s) money.  If you want to convince us, you should at least make an effort to be informed.  There have been calls -even on this forum- for contributions to organizations supporting massage research.  Who conducts the research, whether those individuals are biased or have an agenda or particular views (as the 'split' that you mentioned that is coming, several times), are all valid questions.  That is why I write here, not because I dislike Christopher or you or anyone else, but because I know there are people who read these discussions even if they don't participate. There is so much riding on the research/evidence-based concept that it's too important not to question certain things.

 

 

 



Ravensara Travillian said:

So, if I think that a researcher is closed-minded, it is because I do not like him?  It cannot be of what he has said on this forum? That’s a new one.

 

It doesn't matter if they are open- or close-minded. If they do the work honestly, the process brings the 

etc.....

I did speak sloppily; he certainly didn't say that what I said was totally false, either. I just didn't draw the boundary carefully.

 

And the person who said research should be in the hands of "the right people" talking to me of bias is rich.

 

But, you know what, I'm not interested in doing this particular approach anymore. This is destructive, in addition to being boring.

 

I'm going to find a more constructive approach; in my absence, feel free to call me "dishonest", declare that anything you want to can store memory, that the second law of thermodynamics, the inverse-square law, and anything else you don't like or understand has been suspended, down is up, whatever you want, and declare victory.

 

There's got to be a better way than this.

Emmanuel Bistas said:

The discussion has moved on since I was last here, but I want to bring closure to a couple points I raised previously.

 

"It doesn't matter if they are open- or close-minded. If they do the work honestly, the process brings the facts to light, and the person's tendencies have nothing to do with it."


It does matter.  Researcher’s bias is one of the best known obstacles in research.  There are several problems with bias, ranging from failing to see data when it’s there, to interpreting data in a way that is consistent with bias.  Of course we would not want it to happen, but it does and it is well documented.

 

You haven't shown any evidence that Chris is closed-minded, just your interpretation of what he writes.

Not only has it been self-evident with various statements on this board, but Christopher said it himself in (1) yes, it is true that there are certain ideas that I am comfortable ruling out based on the available evidence”. Is the objective of science to only take data and explain it with what we already know? What do you do when data is inconsistent with known theories - do you throw the data out, or do you move to explore new theories?  In my opinion, an open-mind person would exhaust existing theories and move to test new ones.  An open minded person would never say ‘reiki never works, whenever will, send bad energy my way’ as Christopher provoked in another post; he would say “I am not aware of any studies that have shown reiki to work, but I am keeping an open mind, I would encourage someone to show me the data”; there would be no emotion, no antagonizing, there would not be a need for it. 

 

“Given the way Chris and Bodhi are routinely vilified on this board, I don't think that asking you to stick to the facts and evidence instead of just throwing personal attacks is unreasonable at all. “

Perhaps you should consider that many of the posts about Christopher and Bodhi are nothing but a result of the action-reaction rule.  When someone tells you (as Bodhi did)  that entry-level requirement for massage therapy should be a four-year degree and you ask “show me the umbers” and he skirts the question by only repeating the mantra, of course that is going to be ill-received.  We do not live in Jonestown and do not drink the cool-aid.  Show us the numbers.

 

“To ask for a number is to oversimplify how science works..”

If there is no magic threshold, at which point would you claim that, let’s say, energy work does not work? Because there are several people who have claimed this.  In science, replication and the accumulation of results increases the confidence that we have in the results.  For example, if I polled ten households and found they have 8 boys and 2 girls, I would be led to conclude that the ratio of boys and girls is 80%-20%, but if I repeated infinitely with different samples, etc I would come closer to the 51/49 that we know be true, correct?  The reason this is important, is because when you come out and say “this does not work”, I am always curious – did you conduct one study and moved on or not?

 

And no, a meta-analysis is not ever going to reverse previous results. A meta-analysis is a summary of the most solid studies that have been performed on the subject, and will only reflect the results of those previous studies.”

You were incorrect on this, as you admitted.  As a matter of fact, meta-analysis are excellent tools in evaluating previous studies.  15 studies showing that taking aspirin did not have effects on heart disease were reversed in a single meta-analysis 2 years later.   And you did not write “sloppily” as you said, you actually wrote/write beautifully, this was no sloppy writing.   It’s okay for a researcher to be misinformed nobody is going to hold that against you.   What is worth noting here is something else. See how Christopher responded to your replied with This is not entirely true.” ?  A statement “a meta-analysis is not ever going to…” is a true or false statement because of the ‘not ever going’ part.  It could have been a “shade of gray” statement, but you made it a true or false statement with the certainty you put in it.  A true or false statement cannot be ‘not entirely true’.  Christopher could have said 'this is false' or 'this is not true', but he tried to soften his approach by saying "this is not entirely true" (by the way, it's entirely false).  The reason I am even bringing it up is because this is one of the complaints that some of us have here: while our evidence-based leaders are quick to attack someone’s views, they are just as quick to let some other ones slide.  

Take your response to Ty’s post for example: “I guess that's an actual somatization experience I've had, come to think of it. I processed the info of the death in my central nervous system, but it was too much for me at that level, so I had to express it physically at some random location in order to deal with it, including depicting a good and sympathetic friend as a violent physical attacker.”  I wonder what Christopher’s response would had been had Boris said that.  I mean, how do you know? What is the evidence to suggest that what you just wrote is actually true? What is the amount of information that can safely pass through the nervous system before this information is expressed at random locations?  And is there any predictability in the randomness or is there true randomness, and so one and so forth.  Can this statement pass a scientific test?  I don’t think so, but it made it past Christopher’s radar. 

 

I mentioned Dean Radin and his book “Conscious Universe”; I am plugging him/it again to raise awareness that there is a whole other side to science than what Christopher, Ravensara, and few others here may want us to believe.  Scientific herding and ostracizing of people whose views are ‘out there’ exists, and lumping Bozo and Galileo in the same sentence because they both made us laugh can explain how it can happen.  Scientists are as prone to making mistakes as anyone else, they are not super-human.

 

You said When you can show us that he has really done that, then I will check him out. “. I do not need to show you anything, you do.  And you do, because chances are that any research you do is done with my (or someone else’s) money.  If you want to convince us, you should at least make an effort to be informed.  There have been calls -even on this forum- for contributions to organizations supporting massage research.  Who conducts the research, whether those individuals are biased or have an agenda or particular views (as the 'split' that you mentioned that is coming, several times), are all valid questions.  That is why I write here, not because I dislike Christopher or you or anyone else, but because I know there are people who read these discussions even if they don't participate. There is so much riding on the research/evidence-based concept that it's too important not to question certain things.

 

 

 



Ravensara Travillian said:

So, if I think that a researcher is closed-minded, it is because I do not like him?  It cannot be of what he has said on this forum? That’s a new one.

 

It doesn't matter if they are open- or close-minded. If they do the work honestly, the process brings the 

etc.....

Emmanuel, eloquently explained. Thank you for the input.

Good morning to everybody.

I really couldn't understand why both Christopher and Raven so vigorously attacked my article. Thanks to your post Emmanuel agenda is  obvious .because of my age I am almost in the end of my career,they are not  threat to me personal but for the future of my occupation. This agenda have to be stoped ,otherwise with little but time  massage therapist instead of to be healing  artist will be technocrats with master degree.it is obvious that this technocrats seeking authority, legal power and control. I hope it will never happened.


Best wishes.

Boris

PS.Emmanuel can you please provide link to Christopher's board you mentioned in your statement.Thanks.

Emmanuel Bistas said:

The discussion has moved on since I was last here, but I want to bring closure to a couple points I raised previously.

 

"It doesn't matter if they are open- or close-minded. If they do the work honestly, the process brings the facts to light, and the person's tendencies have nothing to do with it."


It does matter.  Researcher’s bias is one of the best known obstacles in research.  There are several problems with bias, ranging from failing to see data when it’s there, to interpreting data in a way that is consistent with bias.  Of course we would not want it to happen, but it does and it is well documented.

 

You haven't shown any evidence that Chris is closed-minded, just your interpretation of what he writes.

Not only has it been self-evident with various statements on this board, but Christopher said it himself in (1) yes, it is true that there are certain ideas that I am comfortable ruling out based on the available evidence”. Is the objective of science to only take data and explain it with what we already know? What do you do when data is inconsistent with known theories - do you throw the data out, or do you move to explore new theories?  In my opinion, an open-mind person would exhaust existing theories and move to test new ones.  An open minded person would never say ‘reiki never works, whenever will, send bad energy my way’ as Christopher provoked in another post; he would say “I am not aware of any studies that have shown reiki to work, but I am keeping an open mind, I would encourage someone to show me the data”; there would be no emotion, no antagonizing, there would not be a need for it. 

 

“Given the way Chris and Bodhi are routinely vilified on this board, I don't think that asking you to stick to the facts and evidence instead of just throwing personal attacks is unreasonable at all. “

Perhaps you should consider that many of the posts about Christopher and Bodhi are nothing but a result of the action-reaction rule.  When someone tells you (as Bodhi did)  that entry-level requirement for massage therapy should be a four-year degree and you ask “show me the umbers” and he skirts the question by only repeating the mantra, of course that is going to be ill-received.  We do not live in Jonestown and do not drink the cool-aid.  Show us the numbers.

 

“To ask for a number is to oversimplify how science works..”

If there is no magic threshold, at which point would you claim that, let’s say, energy work does not work? Because there are several people who have claimed this.  In science, replication and the accumulation of results increases the confidence that we have in the results.  For example, if I polled ten households and found they have 8 boys and 2 girls, I would be led to conclude that the ratio of boys and girls is 80%-20%, but if I repeated infinitely with different samples, etc I would come closer to the 51/49 that we know be true, correct?  The reason this is important, is because when you come out and say “this does not work”, I am always curious – did you conduct one study and moved on or not?

 

And no, a meta-analysis is not ever going to reverse previous results. A meta-analysis is a summary of the most solid studies that have been performed on the subject, and will only reflect the results of those previous studies.”

You were incorrect on this, as you admitted.  As a matter of fact, meta-analysis are excellent tools in evaluating previous studies.  15 studies showing that taking aspirin did not have effects on heart disease were reversed in a single meta-analysis 2 years later.   And you did not write “sloppily” as you said, you actually wrote/write beautifully, this was no sloppy writing.   It’s okay for a researcher to be misinformed nobody is going to hold that against you.   What is worth noting here is something else. See how Christopher responded to your replied with This is not entirely true.” ?  A statement “a meta-analysis is not ever going to…” is a true or false statement because of the ‘not ever going’ part.  It could have been a “shade of gray” statement, but you made it a true or false statement with the certainty you put in it.  A true or false statement cannot be ‘not entirely true’.  Christopher could have said 'this is false' or 'this is not true', but he tried to soften his approach by saying "this is not entirely true" (by the way, it's entirely false).  The reason I am even bringing it up is because this is one of the complaints that some of us have here: while our evidence-based leaders are quick to attack someone’s views, they are just as quick to let some other ones slide.  

Take your response to Ty’s post for example: “I guess that's an actual somatization experience I've had, come to think of it. I processed the info of the death in my central nervous system, but it was too much for me at that level, so I had to express it physically at some random location in order to deal with it, including depicting a good and sympathetic friend as a violent physical attacker.”  I wonder what Christopher’s response would had been had Boris said that.  I mean, how do you know? What is the evidence to suggest that what you just wrote is actually true? What is the amount of information that can safely pass through the nervous system before this information is expressed at random locations?  And is there any predictability in the randomness or is there true randomness, and so one and so forth.  Can this statement pass a scientific test?  I don’t think so, but it made it past Christopher’s radar. 

 

I mentioned Dean Radin and his book “Conscious Universe”; I am plugging him/it again to raise awareness that there is a whole other side to science than what Christopher, Ravensara, and few others here may want us to believe.  Scientific herding and ostracizing of people whose views are ‘out there’ exists, and lumping Bozo and Galileo in the same sentence because they both made us laugh can explain how it can happen.  Scientists are as prone to making mistakes as anyone else, they are not super-human.

 

You said When you can show us that he has really done that, then I will check him out. “. I do not need to show you anything, you do.  And you do, because chances are that any research you do is done with my (or someone else’s) money.  If you want to convince us, you should at least make an effort to be informed.  There have been calls -even on this forum- for contributions to organizations supporting massage research.  Who conducts the research, whether those individuals are biased or have an agenda or particular views (as the 'split' that you mentioned that is coming, several times), are all valid questions.  That is why I write here, not because I dislike Christopher or you or anyone else, but because I know there are people who read these discussions even if they don't participate. There is so much riding on the research/evidence-based concept that it's too important not to question certain things.

 

 

 



Ravensara Travillian said:

So, if I think that a researcher is closed-minded, it is because I do not like him?  It cannot be of what he has said on this forum? That’s a new one.

 

It doesn't matter if they are open- or close-minded. If they do the work honestly, the process brings the 

etc.....

Dear Gary.

thanks to your post I understood a lot   about what is going on with our industry. this understanding is very important for me and I would like to thank you very much for helping me out.

Have a great day.

Boris



Gary W Addis said:

Emmanuel, eloquently explained. Thank you for the input.

Hi Raven.

before you go you should to extend your statement in regards of   ;" not to explain to clients possible outcomes of treatment because this is breach of scope of practice"I mean you have to explain why this is breach of scope of practice,  and what in your opinion we can and we cannot to say. Just to say good for you..... did you not feeling comfortable to explain to clients, isn't not answer what to do.



Ravensara Travillian said:

I did speak sloppily; he certainly didn't say that what I said was totally false, either. I just didn't draw the boundary carefully.

 

And the person who said research should be in the hands of "the right people" talking to me of bias is rich.

 

But, you know what, I'm not interested in doing this particular approach anymore. This is destructive, in addition to being boring.

 

I'm going to find a more constructive approach; in my absence, feel free to call me "dishonest", declare that anything you want to can store memory, that the second law of thermodynamics, the inverse-square law, and anything else you don't like or understand has been suspended, down is up, whatever you want, and declare victory.

 

There's got to be a better way than this.

Emmanuel Bistas said:

The discussion has moved on since I was last here, but I want to bring closure to a couple points I raised previously.

 

"It doesn't matter if they are open- or close-minded. If they do the work honestly, the process brings the facts to light, and the person's tendencies have nothing to do with it."


It does matter.  Researcher’s bias is one of the best known obstacles in research.  There are several problems with bias, ranging from failing to see data when it’s there, to interpreting data in a way that is consistent with bias.  Of course we would not want it to happen, but it does and it is well documented.

 

You haven't shown any evidence that Chris is closed-minded, just your interpretation of what he writes.

Not only has it been self-evident with various statements on this board, but Christopher said it himself in (1) yes, it is true that there are certain ideas that I am comfortable ruling out based on the available evidence”. Is the objective of science to only take data and explain it with what we already know? What do you do when data is inconsistent with known theories - do you throw the data out, or do you move to explore new theories?  In my opinion, an open-mind person would exhaust existing theories and move to test new ones.  An open minded person would never say ‘reiki never works, whenever will, send bad energy my way’ as Christopher provoked in another post; he would say “I am not aware of any studies that have shown reiki to work, but I am keeping an open mind, I would encourage someone to show me the data”; there would be no emotion, no antagonizing, there would not be a need for it. 

 

“Given the way Chris and Bodhi are routinely vilified on this board, I don't think that asking you to stick to the facts and evidence instead of just throwing personal attacks is unreasonable at all. “

Perhaps you should consider that many of the posts about Christopher and Bodhi are nothing but a result of the action-reaction rule.  When someone tells you (as Bodhi did)  that entry-level requirement for massage therapy should be a four-year degree and you ask “show me the umbers” and he skirts the question by only repeating the mantra, of course that is going to be ill-received.  We do not live in Jonestown and do not drink the cool-aid.  Show us the numbers.

 

“To ask for a number is to oversimplify how science works..”

If there is no magic threshold, at which point would you claim that, let’s say, energy work does not work? Because there are several people who have claimed this.  In science, replication and the accumulation of results increases the confidence that we have in the results.  For example, if I polled ten households and found they have 8 boys and 2 girls, I would be led to conclude that the ratio of boys and girls is 80%-20%, but if I repeated infinitely with different samples, etc I would come closer to the 51/49 that we know be true, correct?  The reason this is important, is because when you come out and say “this does not work”, I am always curious – did you conduct one study and moved on or not?

 

And no, a meta-analysis is not ever going to reverse previous results. A meta-analysis is a summary of the most solid studies that have been performed on the subject, and will only reflect the results of those previous studies.”

You were incorrect on this, as you admitted.  As a matter of fact, meta-analysis are excellent tools in evaluating previous studies.  15 studies showing that taking aspirin did not have effects on heart disease were reversed in a single meta-analysis 2 years later.   And you did not write “sloppily” as you said, you actually wrote/write beautifully, this was no sloppy writing.   It’s okay for a researcher to be misinformed nobody is going to hold that against you.   What is worth noting here is something else. See how Christopher responded to your replied with This is not entirely true.” ?  A statement “a meta-analysis is not ever going to…” is a true or false statement because of the ‘not ever going’ part.  It could have been a “shade of gray” statement, but you made it a true or false statement with the certainty you put in it.  A true or false statement cannot be ‘not entirely true’.  Christopher could have said 'this is false' or 'this is not true', but he tried to soften his approach by saying "this is not entirely true" (by the way, it's entirely false).  The reason I am even bringing it up is because this is one of the complaints that some of us have here: while our evidence-based leaders are quick to attack someone’s views, they are just as quick to let some other ones slide.  

Take your response to Ty’s post for example: “I guess that's an actual somatization experience I've had, come to think of it. I processed the info of the death in my central nervous system, but it was too much for me at that level, so I had to express it physically at some random location in order to deal with it, including depicting a good and sympathetic friend as a violent physical attacker.”  I wonder what Christopher’s response would had been had Boris said that.  I mean, how do you know? What is the evidence to suggest that what you just wrote is actually true? What is the amount of information that can safely pass through the nervous system before this information is expressed at random locations?  And is there any predictability in the randomness or is there true randomness, and so one and so forth.  Can this statement pass a scientific test?  I don’t think so, but it made it past Christopher’s radar. 

 

I mentioned Dean Radin and his book “Conscious Universe”; I am plugging him/it again to raise awareness that there is a whole other side to science than what Christopher, Ravensara, and few others here may want us to believe.  Scientific herding and ostracizing of people whose views are ‘out there’ exists, and lumping Bozo and Galileo in the same sentence because they both made us laugh can explain how it can happen.  Scientists are as prone to making mistakes as anyone else, they are not super-human.

 

You said When you can show us that he has really done that, then I will check him out. “. I do not need to show you anything, you do.  And you do, because chances are that any research you do is done with my (or someone else’s) money.  If you want to convince us, you should at least make an effort to be informed.  There have been calls -even on this forum- for contributions to organizations supporting massage research.  Who conducts the research, whether those individuals are biased or have an agenda or particular views (as the 'split' that you mentioned that is coming, several times), are all valid questions.  That is why I write here, not because I dislike Christopher or you or anyone else, but because I know there are people who read these discussions even if they don't participate. There is so much riding on the research/evidence-based concept that it's too important not to question certain things.

 

 

 



Ravensara Travillian said:

So, if I think that a researcher is closed-minded, it is because I do not like him?  It cannot be of what he has said on this forum? That’s a new one.

 

It doesn't matter if they are open- or close-minded. If they do the work honestly, the process brings the 

etc.....

Have a nice life, Boris.

Boris Prilutsky said:

Hi Raven.

before you go you should to extend your statement in regards of   ;" not to explain to clients possible outcomes of treatment because this is breach of scope of practice"I mean you have to explain why this is breach of scope of practice,  and what in your opinion we can and we cannot to say. Just to say good for you..... did you not feeling comfortable to explain to clients, isn't not answer what to do.



Ravensara Travillian said:

I did speak sloppily; he certainly didn't say that what I said was totally false, either. I just didn't draw the boundary carefully.

 

And the person who said research should be in the hands of "the right people" talking to me of bias is rich.

 

But, you know what, I'm not interested in doing this particular approach anymore. This is destructive, in addition to being boring.

 

I'm going to find a more constructive approach; in my absence, feel free to call me "dishonest", declare that anything you want to can store memory, that the second law of thermodynamics, the inverse-square law, and anything else you don't like or understand has been suspended, down is up, whatever you want, and declare victory.

 

There's got to be a better way than this.

Emmanuel Bistas said:

The discussion has moved on since I was last here, but I want to bring closure to a couple points I raised previously.

 

"It doesn't matter if they are open- or close-minded. If they do the work honestly, the process brings the facts to light, and the person's tendencies have nothing to do with it."


It does matter.  Researcher’s bias is one of the best known obstacles in research.  There are several problems with bias, ranging from failing to see data when it’s there, to interpreting data in a way that is consistent with bias.  Of course we would not want it to happen, but it does and it is well documented.

 

You haven't shown any evidence that Chris is closed-minded, just your interpretation of what he writes.

Not only has it been self-evident with various statements on this board, but Christopher said it himself in (1) yes, it is true that there are certain ideas that I am comfortable ruling out based on the available evidence”. Is the objective of science to only take data and explain it with what we already know? What do you do when data is inconsistent with known theories - do you throw the data out, or do you move to explore new theories?  In my opinion, an open-mind person would exhaust existing theories and move to test new ones.  An open minded person would never say ‘reiki never works, whenever will, send bad energy my way’ as Christopher provoked in another post; he would say “I am not aware of any studies that have shown reiki to work, but I am keeping an open mind, I would encourage someone to show me the data”; there would be no emotion, no antagonizing, there would not be a need for it. 

 

“Given the way Chris and Bodhi are routinely vilified on this board, I don't think that asking you to stick to the facts and evidence instead of just throwing personal attacks is unreasonable at all. “

Perhaps you should consider that many of the posts about Christopher and Bodhi are nothing but a result of the action-reaction rule.  When someone tells you (as Bodhi did)  that entry-level requirement for massage therapy should be a four-year degree and you ask “show me the umbers” and he skirts the question by only repeating the mantra, of course that is going to be ill-received.  We do not live in Jonestown and do not drink the cool-aid.  Show us the numbers.

 

“To ask for a number is to oversimplify how science works..”

If there is no magic threshold, at which point would you claim that, let’s say, energy work does not work? Because there are several people who have claimed this.  In science, replication and the accumulation of results increases the confidence that we have in the results.  For example, if I polled ten households and found they have 8 boys and 2 girls, I would be led to conclude that the ratio of boys and girls is 80%-20%, but if I repeated infinitely with different samples, etc I would come closer to the 51/49 that we know be true, correct?  The reason this is important, is because when you come out and say “this does not work”, I am always curious – did you conduct one study and moved on or not?

 

And no, a meta-analysis is not ever going to reverse previous results. A meta-analysis is a summary of the most solid studies that have been performed on the subject, and will only reflect the results of those previous studies.”

You were incorrect on this, as you admitted.  As a matter of fact, meta-analysis are excellent tools in evaluating previous studies.  15 studies showing that taking aspirin did not have effects on heart disease were reversed in a single meta-analysis 2 years later.   And you did not write “sloppily” as you said, you actually wrote/write beautifully, this was no sloppy writing.   It’s okay for a researcher to be misinformed nobody is going to hold that against you.   What is worth noting here is something else. See how Christopher responded to your replied with This is not entirely true.” ?  A statement “a meta-analysis is not ever going to…” is a true or false statement because of the ‘not ever going’ part.  It could have been a “shade of gray” statement, but you made it a true or false statement with the certainty you put in it.  A true or false statement cannot be ‘not entirely true’.  Christopher could have said 'this is false' or 'this is not true', but he tried to soften his approach by saying "this is not entirely true" (by the way, it's entirely false).  The reason I am even bringing it up is because this is one of the complaints that some of us have here: while our evidence-based leaders are quick to attack someone’s views, they are just as quick to let some other ones slide.  

Take your response to Ty’s post for example: “I guess that's an actual somatization experience I've had, come to think of it. I processed the info of the death in my central nervous system, but it was too much for me at that level, so I had to express it physically at some random location in order to deal with it, including depicting a good and sympathetic friend as a violent physical attacker.”  I wonder what Christopher’s response would had been had Boris said that.  I mean, how do you know? What is the evidence to suggest that what you just wrote is actually true? What is the amount of information that can safely pass through the nervous system before this information is expressed at random locations?  And is there any predictability in the randomness or is there true randomness, and so one and so forth.  Can this statement pass a scientific test?  I don’t think so, but it made it past Christopher’s radar. 

 

I mentioned Dean Radin and his book “Conscious Universe”; I am plugging him/it again to raise awareness that there is a whole other side to science than what Christopher, Ravensara, and few others here may want us to believe.  Scientific herding and ostracizing of people whose views are ‘out there’ exists, and lumping Bozo and Galileo in the same sentence because they both made us laugh can explain how it can happen.  Scientists are as prone to making mistakes as anyone else, they are not super-human.

 

You said When you can show us that he has really done that, then I will check him out. “. I do not need to show you anything, you do.  And you do, because chances are that any research you do is done with my (or someone else’s) money.  If you want to convince us, you should at least make an effort to be informed.  There have been calls -even on this forum- for contributions to organizations supporting massage research.  Who conducts the research, whether those individuals are biased or have an agenda or particular views (as the 'split' that you mentioned that is coming, several times), are all valid questions.  That is why I write here, not because I dislike Christopher or you or anyone else, but because I know there are people who read these discussions even if they don't participate. There is so much riding on the research/evidence-based concept that it's too important not to question certain things.

 

 

 



Ravensara Travillian said:

So, if I think that a researcher is closed-minded, it is because I do not like him?  It cannot be of what he has said on this forum? That’s a new one.

 

It doesn't matter if they are open- or close-minded. If they do the work honestly, the process brings the 

etc.....

Hi Laura.

You described very significant phenomena of emotional memory release .The point is that a lot of our clients releasing emotional memories at the time of massage and after procedure. This emotional memories is an other source of  emotional stress/higher sympathetic activities. This releases changing people’s life to better and sometime saving peoples life. I'm not blowing it out of proportion. Panic attacks can lead to end of life. I brought this subject of emotional memory storage because I believe that massage therapists must be aware about it, and of course in schools we have to mention this phenomena.

Best wishes.

Boris



Laura Allen said:

Boris said:

It's reasonable to assume that the memory of the emotional experience is stored somewhere in the brain - the system that is specialized in memory handling and remained inaccessible, as many other memories a human being experiencing during the life. But the shoulder cells hold the bookmark or a memory address of where the actual memories of the incident were stored in the brain. Thus by activating the shoulder cell you triggered the process of loading the content of that remote memory in the active memory, causing the aforementioned reaction.

 

This reminded me of something that happened very early in my massage career. I used to have a client who is a clinical psychologist and has been practicing over 40 years. One week she came for her massage, and there was a heinous-looking bruise on her arm. I asked her what had happened, and she said "Laura, I don't want you to get upset. That happened during our massage last week." I almost croaked at the thought that I had bruised a client like that, it was black and blue.

 

She told me that while I was working on her arm, she had experienced a memory of her childhood and her alcoholic and abusive father, who would always grab her by that arm and say "You are really in trouble now" just prior to whatever punishment he was doling out. She said she felt that bruise was a badge of honor for her finally being able to forgive him after years of harboring resentment about it. Scientific, not at all. But an example of the kind of things that happen all the time.

It is interesting (ok maybe just to me) that this thread which I am characterizing as "fear of saying the wrong thing" in a shorter time has almost as many posts as another which (again I am characterizing) is about "fear of nudity". Both say a lot about our culture, perhaps more than about massage.

Boris

 

thanks so much for putting this subject up for discussion:)

 

who could have guessed we would  all learn so much about the potential of meta analysis results........I'm so glad Chris did not "get  lost" as without his contribution we could well have gotten the wrong idea :) 

 

Emmanuel   you rock:)

 

 

Stephen -

 

I'm glad that you're glad I didn't get lost.  :)

 

The next couple days are going to see me being very busy, so I don't think I'll be keeping up with this or other threads for a little while.

 

-CM

Christopher.when men accepting apology he does mean it, and never go back"I didn't get lost".you want to cry this is will be your decision. I cannot help.good luck with your busy days. Honestly I will not miss you, as well if you will not come back to discuss with me subjects of my posts will be not angry on you.in any case we cannot discuss  nothing because misunderstandings is must to happen and you know why.of course I cannot tell you to not come back but hoping that at least little bit self-respect is in your possession.

Christopher A. Moyer said:

Stephen -

 

I'm glad that you're glad I didn't get lost.  :)

 

The next couple days are going to see me being very busy, so I don't think I'll be keeping up with this or other threads for a little while.

 

-CM

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