The Use of Massage Therapy in the Treatment of Anxiety

The Use of Massage Therapy in the Treatment of Anxiety

According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manuel of Mental Disorders Fourth Edition Text Revision (DSM IV-TR) (APA, 2000), Anxiety Disorders can manifest in a number of different ways including Panic Attacks, Phobias, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, and Generalized Anxiety. Common threads of symptoms among these disorders include heighted autonomic response, shortness of breath, excessive worry, and of course anxiety. The treatment of Anxiety disorders has included Cognitive Behavior Therapy (Saavedra, Silverman, Morgan-Lopez, & Kurtines, 2010; White, Ollendick, Scahill, Oswald, & Albano, 2009), Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (Wilde, 2008), and Pharmacological treatments such as benzodiazepines (Sher, 2009). Based on empirical support, many consider these treatments to be the first line of treatment of anxiety related disorders. However, there is a growing line of research of effectiveness of alternative treatments such as Massage Therapy (MT). The following is a brief review of the history of MT, an investigation of the physiology of how or why MT works, and finally an examination of the application of various Massage Therapies in the treatment of Anxiety Disorders.

Brief History of Massage Therapy

The application of massage to promote comfort and healing is not a new concept. According to Moyer, Rounds, and Hannum (2004) the practice of MT is traceable back to Ancient Greek and Chinese cultures, as well as Hindu, Japanese and Roman cultures. As early as 400 BC, Hippocrates used rubbing to treat patience with stiffness and even earlier still; the use of MT is recorded in the Chinese tradition as early as the second century (Field, 1998). Although considered a part of...

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