It was a moment of distinct insight, where wisdom hung heavily in the air. The legendary, feisty, 92-year-old Detroit osteopath Clarence Harvey was about to share his unusual but profound mantra for assessing neck-and-back dysfunction with a classroom packed with students. Wearing a slim smile on his wizened face, he slowly turned to the chalkboard and boldly wrote in large letters, "Don't chase the pain." Though initially the intent of his statement seemed vague and somewhat cloudy, it stirred memories dating back 20 years, when the queen of fascial work, Ida Rolf, Ph.D., made a strikingly similar comment that supported Harvey 's advice. Throughout an Esalen Institute presentation I attended in the early '70s, she had bluntly stated, "Get 'em aligned and balanced. If the pain goes away, that's their tough luck."

Years of clinical experience had seemingly brought these two manual-therapy legends to the same conclusion. Since neck/back dysfunction typically involves many pain producing structures and referral patterns, simply chasing the pain by addressing clients' bodies where they hurt is, at best, a temporary quick-fix. Both Harvey and Rolf agreed that trying to decide exactly which structures are causing client's neck and low back pain was basically a waste of time.

Although muscles are partly to blame, advanced diagnostic equipment proves their theories as new research implicates other pain generating soft tissues, such as:

• Ligaments


• Discs


• Nerve dura


• Fascia


• Joint capsules

Earlier thought of as only mechanical structures, clinical researchers today substantiate the presence of neural innervation in all these soft tissues.

Holistic alleviation of pain is mainly dependent on restoration of proper body alignment, range of motion and proprioception. According to the notable biomedical researcher Nikolai Bogduk, M.D., "Pain upon movement is not a criteria from which a biomechanical assessment can be made. To reach an accurate assessment, we need to evaluate function according to a dynamic structural model." As manual therapists learn to integrate alignment techniques into their clinical practices, clients' aches and pains begin to disappear without the therapist ever having to know exactly which of the soft tissues caused the pain. The trick is developing a simple and effective structural model that is easily adaptable to a normal massage therapy pain management session.
Eight Procedures

By incorporating a wide assortment of new and old manual therapy modalities, the Myoskeletal Alignment Techniques (MAT) method helps manage the neck/back pain puzzle by addressing all soft-tissue back structures in one formula.

Manual therapists trained in the MAT method of deep tissue therapy find success in assessing and correcting a wide range of chronic pain conditions by integrating the following eight procedures:

1. Observe for lower and upper crossed syndromes upon the client's entrance.

2. Conduct a five-minute structural assessment on the therapy table with the client draped.

3. Lengthen short, hypertonic muscles by way of deep-tissue, myofascial release and assisted-stretching techniques.

4. Tone weak, reserved muscles with fast-paced spindle-stimulating maneuvers.

5. Fibroblast-friction hypermobile ligaments and release hypomobile ligaments using finger, fist and elbow procedures.

6. Massage fibrotic transversospinalis muscles to release stuck facet joints or to stimulate spindles if weak and inhibited.

7. Bring back joint play and capsular flexibility with co-activating receptor techniques.

8. Relieve disc compression and dural drag with gentle distraction maneuvers.

Many of today's rapidly evolving massage schools teach students various methods for visually assessing distorted postural patterns. Extraordinary attention is usually given to obvious anterior/posterior body asymmetries, such as forward-drawn heads, swayed backs and rounded shoulders.

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