by David Palmer | Feb 28, 2016 | Touch
What are the evolutionary roots of massage. Is there a genetic basis?
by David Palmer | May 15, 2012 | Bodywork, Politics, Touch
Reading the impressive 58-page paper entitled Massage Therapy Body of Knowledge (MTBOK) was both exhilarating and disappointing. Developed by a coalition of six national massage organizations, Version 1 of this effort was published in 2010 and is a landmark document...
by David Palmer | Feb 27, 2012 | Business
The first professional massage I ever received was around 1970 in an old Russian Banya on the near-North Side of Chicago called the Luxor Baths. The clientele was a mix of the old Jewish expats who had moved to the suburbs (Nelson Algren used to hang out here) and the...
by David Palmer | Jan 9, 2012 | Bodywork, Politics
For as long as people have been paying for therapeutic massage services, practitioners have feared being mistaken for prostitutes. That fear was the primary driving force that, in 1983, led the American Massage Therapy Association to re-brand “massage” into “massage...
by David Palmer | Nov 28, 2011 | History, Politics
The year was 1983 and the oldest national association of massage practitioners was about to change the face of an industry by turning “massage” into “massage therapy.” This is the story of what led up to that moment. The association making this pivotal shift was...
