The Rub: a podcast about massage therapy

Healwell
  • 4.8 (12)
  • MEDICINE
  • UPDATED MONTHLY

Join Healwell in examining and bringing context to the world of massage therapy beyond the table. We have ideas. We have opinions. We want change, and that will only come with an understanding of who and what massage therapy truly is. A variety of topics are up for grabs: history, philosophy, development, and all the other shiny things that fascinate us.Healwell is a non-profit based out of the Washington DC area.  Check us out at www.healwell.org 

  1. FEB 5

    Substack: Massage Isn’t Complicated, It's Complex

    Send us a text Why we don’t need to get along to get along. Not all problems are created equal, and the methods that will solve one kind are very different from what you need to solve the other. Oftentimes problems are a combination of simple, complicated, or complex; or vacillate between the distinctions with time. Thinking about the features of each can help us decide how to approach them. This article is a companion to this one written by Cal. These articles represent each author’s independent perspective, and were written without our usual collaborative input. We are super excited about them.  Most of the information and images in this article come from the Complex Systems Framework Collection website. It’s delightful and simple, and I highly recommend you explore it. You can read the original article here. Support the show Subscribe to our Substack: "More Than Hands" Send us an email: podcast@healwell.org Leave us a voice message: 703-468-1799 Check out our interview-style podcast: Interdisciplinary You can support Healwell and the cool things we make by donating here! Ways join in: Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts Check out Healwell’s live and online classes Continue the conversation with a free 3-day trial of the Healwell Community Find a copy of Rebecca Sturgeon's book: "Oncology Massage: An Integrative Approach to Cancer Care" Thank you to ABMP and AMTA for sponsoring us! Healwell is a 501(c)(3) non-profit based out of the Washington DC area. Check us out at www.healwell.org

    11 min

  2. FEB 5

    Substack: Why Massage Therapy Needs a Divorce, Not Another Debate

    Send us a text It’s Time to Stop Going to Aunt Tricia’s This article is a companion to this one written by Corey. These articles represent each author's independent perspective, and were written without our usual collaborative input. We are super excited about them.  Every technical debate in massage therapy is displacement activity. Every. Single. One. We argue about measurement systems (clock hours vs. credit hours), terminology (but we call it taxonomy… all fancy-like). Is it bodywork or is it massage? And don’t get me started about how our knickers twist when it comes to credentialing language. We have online arguments that last longer than some people’s actual training programs. All of this “activity” allows us to keep evading the fundamental questions: What does this field want to be? And what will we do when we realize that, perhaps, it’s a field that actually contains more than one distinct pathway? Read the original article here.  Support the show Subscribe to our Substack: "More Than Hands" Send us an email: podcast@healwell.org Leave us a voice message: 703-468-1799 Check out our interview-style podcast: Interdisciplinary You can support Healwell and the cool things we make by donating here! Ways join in: Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts Check out Healwell’s live and online classes Continue the conversation with a free 3-day trial of the Healwell Community Find a copy of Rebecca Sturgeon's book: "Oncology Massage: An Integrative Approach to Cancer Care" Thank you to ABMP and AMTA for sponsoring us! Healwell is a 501(c)(3) non-profit based out of the Washington DC area. Check us out at www.healwell.org

    20 min

  3. JAN 15

    Substack: The Myth of the Gift

    Send us a text Recently several of Corey's projects have come across the same stumbling block: a lot of people believe many skills can’t be taught. This has come up in my poking around the topics of therapeutic relationships, compassion, supervision, writing, and emotional labor.  In each of these areas, there is a pervasive fallacy that the reason a person is good at a skill is the result of a mystical innate genius. Some je ne sais quoi. Some indefinable essence. This is not only untrue, it’s a limiting perspective. Read this article here Support the show Subscribe to our Substack: "More Than Hands" Send us an email: podcast@healwell.org Leave us a voice message: 703-468-1799 Check out our interview-style podcast: Interdisciplinary You can support Healwell and the cool things we make by donating here! Ways join in: Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts Check out Healwell’s live and online classes Continue the conversation with a free 3-day trial of the Healwell Community Find a copy of Rebecca Sturgeon's book: "Oncology Massage: An Integrative Approach to Cancer Care" Thank you to ABMP and AMTA for sponsoring us! Healwell is a 501(c)(3) non-profit based out of the Washington DC area. Check us out at www.healwell.org

    6 min

  4. JAN 1

    Going Forward

    Send us a text What's the plan for The Rub and Healwell in 2026? Support the show Subscribe to our Substack: "More Than Hands" Send us an email: podcast@healwell.org Leave us a voice message: 703-468-1799 Check out our interview-style podcast: Interdisciplinary You can support Healwell and the cool things we make by donating here! Ways join in: Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts Check out Healwell’s live and online classes Continue the conversation with a free 3-day trial of the Healwell Community Find a copy of Rebecca Sturgeon's book: "Oncology Massage: An Integrative Approach to Cancer Care" Thank you to ABMP and AMTA for sponsoring us! Healwell is a 501(c)(3) non-profit based out of the Washington DC area. Check us out at www.healwell.org

    4 min

  5. JAN 1

    Substack: Broadcasting Safety

    Send us a text Read this article here “Everyone who is engaging with humans—as a teacher, a psychotherapist, as a bodyworker—should be aware of the state of the other,” Porges explained.  It’s not dismissive to say this. It’s foundational. Take a moment to consider how often you truly do this in your work. I’m not talking about structural or postural assessment, at least not in the way that many manual therapists typically do. I’m talking about sensing and feeling the level of autonomic reactivity your client [and you!] experience. When you become polyvagal-informed, you’re evaluating your client’s autonomic state through observation: their muscle tone, their breathing patterns, the quality of their voice, how they hold themselves in space. You’re noticing who’s tightly wrapped and who’s more accessible, and these cues are often quite subtle.  Support the show Subscribe to our Substack: "More Than Hands" Send us an email: podcast@healwell.org Leave us a voice message: 703-468-1799 Check out our interview-style podcast: Interdisciplinary You can support Healwell and the cool things we make by donating here! Ways join in: Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts Check out Healwell’s live and online classes Continue the conversation with a free 3-day trial of the Healwell Community Find a copy of Rebecca Sturgeon's book: "Oncology Massage: An Integrative Approach to Cancer Care" Thank you to ABMP and AMTA for sponsoring us! Healwell is a 501(c)(3) non-profit based out of the Washington DC area. Check us out at www.healwell.org

    15 min

  6. JAN 1

    Substack: It's Not Magic, It's Emotional Labor

    Send us a text Read this article here Emotional labor is work that involves managing your and other people’s emotions. Emotion management (also known as emotion work) is how you actively shape and direct your feelings. Emotion management happens internally and is a private activity. It becomes emotional labor when that private activity becomes public work. This distinction matters.  Support the show Subscribe to our Substack: "More Than Hands" Send us an email: podcast@healwell.org Leave us a voice message: 703-468-1799 Check out our interview-style podcast: Interdisciplinary You can support Healwell and the cool things we make by donating here! Ways join in: Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts Check out Healwell’s live and online classes Continue the conversation with a free 3-day trial of the Healwell Community Find a copy of Rebecca Sturgeon's book: "Oncology Massage: An Integrative Approach to Cancer Care" Thank you to ABMP and AMTA for sponsoring us! Healwell is a 501(c)(3) non-profit based out of the Washington DC area. Check us out at www.healwell.org

    8 min

  7. JAN 1

    Substack: Massage Therapy Has a Labor Problem

    Send us a text Read this article here The Work We Do But Won’t Name Scholars who study labor have a term for work that involves “particularized knowledge and sustained personal attention.” They call it intimate labor. According to scholar Viviana Zelizer’s framework, this work includes things like shared secrets, bodily information, awareness of personal vulnerability, interpersonal rituals, and private languages. Read that list again. Now think about what happens in a massage therapy session. We know our clients’ bodies in ways that even their partners may not. We hold their secrets about pain, about stress, about the divorce they haven’t told anyone about yet. We know things about our clients we don’t even realize we know, the way a janitor knows what a household discards, learning private details from what people throw away. Support the show Subscribe to our Substack: "More Than Hands" Send us an email: podcast@healwell.org Leave us a voice message: 703-468-1799 Check out our interview-style podcast: Interdisciplinary You can support Healwell and the cool things we make by donating here! Ways join in: Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts Check out Healwell’s live and online classes Continue the conversation with a free 3-day trial of the Healwell Community Find a copy of Rebecca Sturgeon's book: "Oncology Massage: An Integrative Approach to Cancer Care" Thank you to ABMP and AMTA for sponsoring us! Healwell is a 501(c)(3) non-profit based out of the Washington DC area. Check us out at www.healwell.org

    14 min

  8. JAN 1

    Substack: Research Networks- Not Just for People Who Wear Lab Coats

    Send us a text Read this article here Welcome to Practice-Based Research Networks (PBRNs); a simple idea with big potential! The Massage Therapy Foundation is building MassageNet, the largest (and only) international PBRN dedicated specifically to therapeutic massage. And they’re building it for you. Support the show Subscribe to our Substack: "More Than Hands" Send us an email: podcast@healwell.org Leave us a voice message: 703-468-1799 Check out our interview-style podcast: Interdisciplinary You can support Healwell and the cool things we make by donating here! Ways join in: Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts Check out Healwell’s live and online classes Continue the conversation with a free 3-day trial of the Healwell Community Find a copy of Rebecca Sturgeon's book: "Oncology Massage: An Integrative Approach to Cancer Care" Thank you to ABMP and AMTA for sponsoring us! Healwell is a 501(c)(3) non-profit based out of the Washington DC area. Check us out at www.healwell.org

    9 min
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4.8
out of 5
12 Ratings

About

Join Healwell in examining and bringing context to the world of massage therapy beyond the table. We have ideas. We have opinions. We want change, and that will only come with an understanding of who and what massage therapy truly is. A variety of topics are up for grabs: history, philosophy, development, and all the other shiny things that fascinate us.Healwell is a non-profit based out of the Washington DC area.  Check us out at www.healwell.org 

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