College of Mind-Body Medicine

As one of the most often used complementary treatments, massage is increasingly positioned as an essential component of integrative medicine. Recent studies evaluate the clinical efficacy of massage therapy, but few studies explore how massage therapists (MTs) execute their work and exercise clinical reasoning in natural settings. To gain foundational knowledge about clinical reasoning and applied knowledge, this study examined how 10 MTs executed an entire session with established clients. Results support translational research design and inform educators. Ethnomethodology and phenomenology informed the qualitative design. Data were collected by videotaping actual sessions and interviewing the participants immediately afterward while viewing the videos. Computer-aided analysis identified data patterns for thematic interpretation. The MTs shared tacit knowledge that directed their work: a) maintaining a primarily biomechanical focus, b) prerequisite safe touch, c) multitasking not allowed, d) MTs assume physical risk, and e) the work affects multiple bodily systems. The MTs sensed effectiveness experientially by adopting common tactics: a) visualizing the manual engagement points, b) assuming the client controlled the physiological release, and c) educating the client. Within these commonalities, they operationalized their work in complex and singular ways, with the particular client relationship critical to structuring the session and evaluating the outcome. MTs viewed their work primarily as a biomechanical intervention, but understood therapeutic massage as serving multiple functions. Process-oriented clinical reasoning mirrored models found in psychotherapy and was informed by experience, intuition, and training, which resulted in an intentionally holistic approach.

ABSTRACT Somatic awareness is bodily sensation imbued with consciousness. Directing and cultivating somatic awareness is a practice fundamental to many therapeutic and spiritual enterprises. Recent developments in neuroscience attempt to explain the operational aspects of somatic awareness. But it has long been a topic of conversation in other paradigms, from philosophy to health care. Somatic input provides information for use in wellness treatment applications, including therapeutic bodywork. Yet few massage therapy scholarly investigations aim to capture the quality of body awareness experience. The essence of the experience and its associated language remain imprecise and under-explored holistically. This article implements the therapeutic practice technique of the Body Scan to capture the essence of an inner body exploration (proprioception and interoception). Based on a narrative collected during a verbally self-directed exercise, a phenomenological description is explicated to represent one incident of internal body experience. The pilot study suggests that the Body Scan offers potential as a research tool, as well as a modality for therapeutic intervention.

Educational literature claims that interdisciplinary inquiry offers an important pathway for addressing contemporary critical issues. In the summer of 2009, Fielding Graduate University (FGU) offered a course called Embodiment of Knowledge. A collaborative effort between students and faculty in the School of Human and Organizational Development, this doctoral level course consisted of an online group forum, face-to-face workshops, and an independent study component. The course literature survey took a multidisciplinary approach, in that it was structured to explore literature drawn from several separate disciplines. In addition to literature from traditional disciplines of biology, psychology, sociology, and anthropology, one portion featured literature from phenomenology in order to draw in content from philosophy related to the embodiment of consciousness. The course experience exemplifies how multidisciplinary conversations can build on each other progressively and synergisticall...

In this paper, I describe Bentz and Rehorick’s Transformative Phenomenology, the approach that is represented in a book of the same name. Transformative Phenomenology, with its theoretical ties to classic phenomenology and the work of Alfred Schutz, claims several essential characteristics: collaboration, an inner spaciousness, embodied awareness, and consciousness of typifications as they are applied in the lifeworld. Today, Transformative Phenomenology exerts wide-ranging influence through numerous multidisciplinary research projects including scores of doctoral dissertations and its promotion of the scholar-practitioner model. Here I also describe how Transformative Phenomenology has shaped my work as a scholar-practitioner, particularly through its cornerstone of embodiment. Classic phenomenological literature repeatedly cites the need to affirm the sentient body, the first purveyor of lived experience, through reflection and exploration. But from my initial starting point as a ...

DESCRIPTION According to phenomenological tradition, particularly Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961) and his followers, the body is the first purveyor of lived experience. Our corporeal bodies can inform our process and interpretation as researchers. As a researcher concerned with bodily topics as well as process, my work intentionally includes concrete techniques geared to collect embodied data. Yet in an experimental design study, where I carefully structured my framework to include somatic techniques, I discovered that somatically geared data collection alone failed to reveal the full depth of the findings. I was able to tap into a fuller range of whole body insights by reorienting the phenomenological stage of imaginative variation by using labyrinth walking to inform my interpretation. This presentation is based on my recent research that investigated the work experience of massage therapists. Here I describe how attending to my own somatic markers resulted in my conducting a second and...

This paper will present results of original research that explored the lived experience of mid-life professionals who recently earned a PhD and did not subsequently take up an academic post. Framed as a hermeneutic phenomenological study, this research adhered to principles expressed in Transformative Phenomenology (Rehorich & Bentz, 2008) and employed s design according to stages as outlined by Moustakas (1994). The inquiry focused on how persons who have successfully completed their dissertations in a non-technical discipline experienced their transition to post-doctorate scholar-practitioners. Data is based on recorded and transcribed interviews with three participants, with interpretation and discussion grounded in principles from social and developmental psychology and sociology. By focusing on PhDs who continue to work in non-academic roles, this study elucidated insights beyond the vocational value of earning a higher degree. The results are intended to inform educators, grad...

DESCRIPTION Presented at the 7th Annual Meetings of the Interdisciplinary Coalition of North American Phenomenologists (ICNAP) May 22, 2015 This paper employs a hermeneutic phenomenology to explore how one family member with care-taking responsibilities for her elders contributed to a system and cycle of medicalized aging. Data consisted of archives from journal entries, care directive documents, and protocols developed by the researcher from 2001 to 2015 in conjunction with caretaking responsibilities. The results are intended to inform a generation that is now caring for elderly loved ones, for those fortunate to reach that inevitable phase themselves, and to the various professionals who support the aging process.

Somatics has long been a topic of conversation in phenomenology. Recent biological science treatments have evolved to expand these conversations from describing the Brain to suggesting how the Mind operates to construct reality. This paper builds on the framework provided by neuroscience to explore potential partnerships with phenomenology for investigations of embodiment. Invoking operational descriptions of how somatic awareness is constructed, the discussion identifies neuroscience language and constructs applicable to multiple disciplinary investigations. It considers aspects of somatosensory processing that can integrate body-based perceptions into consciousness, memory, intentionality, and other higher mental aspects of individual identity through an interdisciplinary approach to understanding experience from inside the body. Keywords: body awareness, embodiment, somatosensory, interoceptors, interdisciplinary, phenomenology

Introduction: Despite recent scientific contributions that evaluate massage therapy's clinical efficacy, there is limited research that explores how massage therapists (MTs) construct their work and exercise clinical reasoning. Objectives: This study explicates how some MTs understood their work process. This foundational understanding can contribute to improved translational research design in massage therapy studies. To identify fundamental assumptions, this exploratory, in-depth study examined how 10 MTs executed a whole treatment with established clients. Methods: Ethnomethodology and phenomenology principles framed this qualitative study. Data collection occurred by videotaping sessions, replaying videos to prompt stimulated recall, audio recording participant interviews, and analyzing researcher fieldwork journal entries. Computer assisted analysis identified patterns for thematic interpretation. Results: Analysis identified shared tacit understandings that were fundamenta...

This pilot study examined the potential stress reduction benefits produced by both play and exposure to a novel forest condition in five average dogs. Studies on the effects of Shinrin-yoku (forest-bathing) on urban city dwellers have described significant decreases in cortisol, blood pressure, heart rate, and sympathetic nerve activity after only 20 minutes of exposure. Comparable reductions in canine cortisol levels have been reported after short play sessions in working and shelter populations. Based upon these health outcomes, this study considered the potential health benefits for dogs gained from playing in a novel forest setting compared to their urban home settings. Salivary cortisol measurements were taken from five canines pre and 20-minutes post play in each condition. Statistical analyses revealed no significant effect (p >.05) from either the forest intervention or play. While the results were unable to support the current findings and the initial assumptions of this...