ENERGY AND THE INTEGRATIVE VISION
ENERGY AND THE INTEGRATIVE VISION - A MANIFESTO
energy - 1590s, "force of expression," from M.Fr. énergie (16c.), from L.L. energia, from Gk. energeia "activity, operation," from energos "active, working," from en "at" (see en- (2)) + ergon "work, that which is wrought; business; action" (see urge (v.)). Used by Aristotle with a sense of "force of expression;" broader meaning of "power" is first recorded in English 1660s. Scientific use is from 1807.
Energy and Integrative Massage in Recent History
When I began as a therapist in 1977, Swedish massage, Shiatsu, Rolfing, Aston Patterning, Reiki, Feldenkrais, Alexander work, Polarity, and Cranio-sacral therapy were what one mostly encountered. There was a broad umbrella under which they all easily co-existed.
As the massage and bodywork field grew, its proliferation gave rise to new modalities, new educational standards, more schools, organizations, and various interest groups. It has been sometimes difficult to see the forest through the trees; but it’s still there!
Lately the tree of science or evidence-based massage has been somewhat overshadowing other approaches. We have seen an emphasis on science and evidence-based massage and a relative de-emphasis on the artistic and the energetic side of bodywork. This is partly due to the excitement the field has had to attain clinical competence and get respect from the medical industry. In addition, through more than just national interactions, massage in the U.S., which has traditionally been accepting of an eclectic mix of therapies, has been confronted with, for instance, the Canadian model, which is more of a European physiotherapy, allopathic model of massage.
Another influence is that of testing, national certifications, and licensing. It is vastly easier to test for scientific knowledge, than for art and hands-on skills. National exams do not contain, understandably(!), an examination of hands-on skill, energetic sensitivity, palpatory literacy, or actual therapeutic benefit – because it is recognized as nearly impossible to objectively judge hands-on work. But the deeper insight here is that what constitutes the highest skill level in our field is indeed something that has as much to do with art as with science. We just don’t test for the art. That doesn’t mean it isn’t of equal or greater importance.
Progress in both the art and science, both energy and structure, is a precious legacy of modern massage therapy. Of late the scientific perspective has been wonderfully emphasized. It is the purpose of this article to contribute to balancing this emphasis with an understanding of the essential role energy, art, and integration play in our knowledge and therapy.
Energy Work Defended Against its Devotees and Detractors
Energy is too important a subject to be, on the one hand, defined only by its devotees – some of whose ideas or practices have been shown to be false or dangerous or with claims made for scientific validity where there is insufficient scientific evidence or disproof.
On the other hand, energy work has been negatively defined by its detractors, people who who act as if anything that is not scientifically proven or evidence-based is false and/or offensive to the rational mind.
Energy and energy work, to some extent, must be defended from both its devotees and its detractors!
In this article, though we primarily explore the energetic standpoint, we will be often reminded that “both-and” thinking, integrating both structure and energy, is more accurate than describing something as structure or energy alone.
There is so much polarization these days in politics and in healthcare. But health means whole. If we make the whole bigger, all sides benefit. Let us see how we can cultivate a more inclusive vision, not take sides.
The Union of Energy and Structure or Massage Therapy with Two Eyes
From the start, let us note that energy work and structural work are two sides of the same coin. Most likely, the most effective therapy will arise from an approach that respects and unites the structural and energetic aspects of both therapist and client. The various arguments for and against energy work, for and against excessive insistence on evidence-based therapy are certainly passionate.
But the best answer to most passionate “either-or” debates is often the more overriding vision of “both-and”. The assumption that the scientific/structural view of massage is the correct one is as one-sided as the assumption that the artistic/energetic approach to massage is correct.
It is like arguing which one of your two eyes you ought to see out of.
Each person is both physical and more than physical (e.g. having also mind and emotions). Therefore, an approach which is most likely to foster the deepest experience of health will be one which takes the whole person, physically and more than physically into account.
So, as we explore the realm of energy below, please note: the goal, at least my goal, is to clarify the energetic realm and to make it more likely that massage therapists and bodyworkers2 be even more empowered to join art and science in their work. The separation or antagonism between energy work and structural work often seems a waste of time and at worst a real tragedy. It would be like separating health from care. We practice healthcare. We are responsible both for caring which is energetic and for being skilled in promoting health through soft tissue manipulation.
The union of art and science, of energy and structure, of health and care is a triumph of historical proportions. Our field and the whole world need this triumph in the realm of the union of clinical excellence with palpable care for life on earth* *
Energy in Physics
The concept of energy in bodywork has historically, and I think wisely, had a wide definition.
In physics it is understood that phenomena can be looked at in terms of being particles or matter vs. waves or energy. Energy, to some extent, can be measured. It is commonly defined as “work done.”
In general this view leads us to say that energy is more connected to action, waves and movement, than to particles, and matter. Commonsensically, since mass and energy are in fact a unity – and no-thing would exist without both - we can see that they are simply two ways of looking at or describing the same thing. You may look in the ocean and say, “Look at that wave!” or you can also say, “Looking at the water waving.” So is the wave a thing or a process, a noun or a verb? Well…it is both-and, not either-or. When we think we see a thing, we are looking at the phenomenon from the particle standpoint. When we think we are looking at a process or motion, we are looking at it from an energy standpoint.
Energy in Bodywork
The broadest use of the term energy in bodywork has been applied to bodywork that consciously aims at more than just soft tissues.
The scientific method is empirical. It looks at and works with what is there. In the case of a human, what is there is a body, and certainly mind and emotions as well. Many people include soul and spirit as well – though some find their existence somewhat less obvious.
Generally a consummate physician or therapist who consistently earns the trust of his or her patients will be someone who relates not just to the anatomy and physiology of the patient/client, but also their personhood. They care about their patients/clients – how they feel, what stresses they are under, what knowledge they have about what’s going on with them – in addition to having great skill in effectively addressing disease and injury.
Another way to say this is that they consider both structure and energy in their practice.
What is Structure? What is Energy?
When we think about structure, it includes:
Particles
Matter
Mass
Anatomy
Physiology
Generally, the physical aspect of the person
Structure may also be thought of as objective, tangible, palpable, and visible.
Energy, most broadly defined, is the entire realm of experience beyond just the physical. It may be thought of as subjective, intangible, not necessarily palpable, and not necessarily visible.
Energy includes then:
Waves
Action
Vibration
Movement
Force
It also includes the realm of sensation, emotion and mind:
Consciousness
Sensing
Feelings
Beliefs
Thoughts
And the realm of spirit:
Soul
Spirit
Some of these of course can be described in the language of neurological and endocrine processes. The autonomic nervous system is in many ways an energetic system, responding to feelings, thoughts, sensations, etc. by changing the overall energetic and physical state of the organism. Other energetic phenomena, particularly associations we may have with given sensations, may be described in terms of activities within the limbic system (hypothalamus, amygdala, etc.) in the diencephalon of the brain and then affecting the whole person through the neuro-endocrine response.
The Languages of Energy
Certainly languages other than physiological have been used, often fruitfully, to describe energy3:
Kundalini
Nadis
Chi
Prana
Meridians
Bioenergy
Élan vital
Chakras
Fields
The language of psychology
The language of beauty & aesthetic philosophy
Poetry
Each of these are like lenses we may choose to use or not, in order to see our clients more clearly. In that sense each way of describing energy uses – like language itself – metaphors to try to capture the facts and feel of reality.
Energetic and Integrative Modalities
Some of the many bodywork modalities that explicitly use energetic lenses as part of their theory include (in no specific order):
Thai massage
Reiki
Therapeutic Touch
Chi Nei Tsang
Chakra balancing
Acupressure
Cranio-sacral Therapy
Shiatsu
Acupuncture
Reichian Bodywork
Polarity therapy
Zero Balancing
Hakomi Bodywork
Lomi Lomi
and many others
Some of these are more “pure” energy works. Others – such as Zero Balancing – are more explicitly integrative bodyworks than fundamentally link structure and energy in their practice. This is NOT an exhaustive list of all the bodywork forms claiming an energetic component; that would be very long indeed!
Many primarily structural modalities also acquire an energetic dimension when a practitioner aims at helping the client in ways more than just physical
The Limits of Provability and Evidence
Many of these bodymind works have been questioned as to how much of their success is due to the placebo effect, how much actual therapeutic efficacy. Certainly the offhand dismissal of the placebo effect, the power of belief, and the power of suggestion is too extreme. Many studies have shown that belief plays a powerful role in health and healing4.
Some subscribers to evidence-based therapy claim that many energetic practices have been disproven because their good results may not be objectively demonstrable, consistent or reproducible. When we are looking at the art of massage (not just its science), we are looking at a more subjective realm. Just as a piece of music or painting may have a life-changing impact on one person and not on the next – so a given massage session may have similarly unpredictable and irreproducible results. This doesn’t disprove its premise – it just goes to show that actual therapeutic results are not always predictable.
Saying that a therapeutic result should be reproducible or the method is false, wrongly applies objective standards to a situation that is both objective and subjective – the way the client integrates the therapist’s input.
To paraphrase the philosopher, Martin Buber, it is not the therapeutic intention that is fruitful, but it is the meeting that is therapeutically fruitful. Every session is an improvisation in the moment – naturally guided by forethought, prior study, intuition, taking a good history, session design. However, the proof is in the putting and the art is in the fascinating moment-to-moment improvisation that constitutes the therapy session.
Research and logic is valuable for guidance - so is imagination! If we weren’t meant to combine the logical and the imaginative sides of ourselves, nature wouldn’t have given us the two cerebral hemispheres!
Therapeutic Model
In most US states’ laws, it is explicitly stated that massage is not the practice of medicine and does not involve diagnosis or treatment. Rather than being a limitation, we can see this as an enormous opportunity. In the U.S. and in many countries around the world, massage therapists practice as health-care professionals; not disease-care professionals (of course unless you have dual licensure as a medical professional and massage therapist). We are required to look at health and what promotes it especially through the physical and energetic effects of touch. There are very few therapies whose mission explicitly is health promotion.
Years ago, Jeff Maitland, former Faculty Chairman of the Rolf Institute, proposed a model of the levels of healthcare in our field. I think it very helpful to be reminded of these. I’ve reworded them somewhat:
1. Wellness – this includes the basic and powerful effects of caring touch as manifest in Swedish massage, spa massage, etc.
2. Orthopedic – this includes skill in understanding injuries, postural issues, and the ways massage/bodywork may help or not with various diseases. Orthopedic massage ideally includes a respect and knowledge of wellness massage.
3. Holistic/Integrative – this includes an understanding of psychology as well as anatomy and physiology; a unified therapeutic approach that addresses the whole person. This ideally includes of course excellence with respect to wellness and orthopedic massage; and skills in touch that contact and positively affect energy as well as structure.
Next Steps
What next steps can our field take to match the momentum in the science of massage with a balanced progress in the art of massage?
Define more clearly the realm of energetic work and integrative work.
Define more clearly what constitutes the art of massage. People commonly say massage/bodywork is an art and a science but almost never explain in any detail how or why is it an art.
Utilize research to ground energetic and integrative work, in so far as it is possible or appropriate, in science.
Recognize that, likely, the most effective therapy will combine a knowledge and attention to the energetic as well as the structural aspect of the client.
Encourage massage education to take the whole more into account – and resist the tendency to be subsumed under a reductionist version of medicine practiced by the medical industry and insurance companies.
Provide more clear guidelines for the teaching and practice of energy work, the art of massage, and integrative bodywork that unites structure and energy.
Add questions regarding energy, energetic and integrative bodywork, and the art of massage to school and national exams.
See a greater commitment among therapists, educators, and organizations to a re-vision of massage that explicitly honors art as well as science and commits equally to making progress in the art as much as in the science.
It is time for the field to recognize, rejoice in and welcome our next steps. It is high time is to proceed in a balanced way, honoring the legacy of massage therapy as the explicit union of care and knowledge, art and science in touch.
1. A little on my background - I am approaching this subject as person with curiosity about energy since childhood. I recall writing a paper on “What is Thinking?” when I was 12. Around that time, I began an involvement with folk, rock and classical music, for most of the first 30 years of my life. This involved as well forays into poetry, philosophy (particularly aesthetics), yoga, spirituality, bodywork, psychotherapy and social change). In the mid-1970’s this coalesced into a career in massage therapy and then teaching massage/bodywork for the last 40 years in the U.S., U.K. and Costa Rica. I edited The Massage Therapy Journal, published the books: Putting The Soul Back in the Body”, “The Deep Massage Book”, “Life in the Bones”, “The Memory Palace of Bones” (with Dr. Jeff Rockwell). I started with John Conway, the Lauterstein-Conway Massage School in Austin, Texas in 1989. I teach primarily Zero Balancing and Deep Massage: the Lauterstein Method, both bodyworks that consciously and simultaneously engage energy and structure.
2. In this article the terms massage and bodywork are used interchangeably.
3. I do think much of use of the term energy is subject to what the philosopher, Alfred North Whitehead, called “the fallacy of misplaced concreteness”. I don’t think chakras exist in the sense of wheels or spheres of energy spinning in a certain direction. However, I find them very useful as a language for talking about the role different parts of our body play in our lives. And I have had experiences of energy flow or kundalini that I have no doubt were real experiences. I treasure some of these experiences and learn from them to this day. I have found no way more clear than speaking of them as experiences of energy flow in the body.
4. The Power of Belief – Peter Halligan, Mansel Aylward (editors) – Oxford University Press, 2006
