Healing Massage Techniques: Holistic, Classic, and Emerging Methods, 2nd ed.

The art of massage was first described around 2000 BC. Since that time, massage has been one of the most consistently used tools for relief of pain in both the East and West. The science of massage is constantly being expanded through research and continued observation. Eastern medicine explains the benefits of massage with an emphasis on energy, whereas Western medicine bases its explanations on anatomical and physiological effects.

The author, Dr Francis Tappan, is certainly qualified to write on the topic of massage. Her experience spans 30 years and includes work in the United States, Europe, and the Orient. She believes that massage should be an integral part of the healing process. In this text she attempts to increase physical therapists' awareness and understanding of massage, as practiced in both the East and the West. She is assisted in her endeavor by five contributors, who wrote four of the chapters.

The first edition of this book is already used by many in the physical therapy profession. It is especially useful to students as a text for massage classes. This second edition has been expanded; it includes more material on shaiatsu and new chapters on jin shin do, polarity therapy, and body therapies.

The author divides her material into five sections. The first covers general information about massage, such as its history, its effects, and how endorphin production helps reduce pain. The second section covers the application of basic Western massage, and the third section covers the use of massage for various healing purposes. In the fourth section, the author compares and explains various massage techniques. Discussed and illustrated are techniques such as Chinese acupuncture, Japanese jin shin do, Dickie's bindegewebsmassage from Germany, and Cyriax's deep friction massage from London. The author ends her book with supplemental learning and teaching material.

This text is much broader in scope than most books on massage. For example, both this text and Beard's Massage, which is currently used in many physical therapy curriculums, provide excellent information about the effects of massage, but Beard discusses only the Swedish massage technique for general massage and the Hoffa system for local massage.

In our profession there continues to be controversy about craniosacral and myofascial release techniques. The recently published Myofascial Release Manual by Mannheim and Lavett provides physical therapy practitioners with information and illustrations on some of these techniques. The polarity techniques described by Tappan bear striking similarities to myofascial and craniosacral therapy. Studying all of these systems may help bring us closer to achieving definitive research results on these approaches to reducing pain.

The photographs and drawings used throughout this text help the reader learn about new massage techniques. I found that the two supplemental videos described in the text are no longer available. That is unfortunate, because many of the massages described are intricate, and a video would have been helpful.

The weakest section of this book is Part 3, on the use of massage for various healing purposes. The chapters are short and not well-developed. Much material that should have been included in these chapters is found in other parts of the book. This section could have been deleted.

This book on massage should be useful to all physical therapy practitioners. In this age of ever-more-elaborate (and expensive) equipment for the physical therapy office, this text will serve to remind us that one of the most valuable tools we as therapists may have is our hands.