Table Of Content
Massage and
Aromatherapy
Massage and
Aromatherapy
A guide for health professionals
Andrew Vickers
Research Council for Complementary Medicine
with contributions from
Steve Van Toller
and Caroline Stevensen
I~nl
SPRINGER-SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, BV.
First edition 1996
© 1996 Andrew Vickers
Originally published by Chapman & Hall in 1996
Typeset in 10/12 pt Palatino by Mews Photosetting, Beckenham, Kent
ISBN 978-1-56593-349-1 ISBN 978-1-4899-3130-6 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4899-3130-6
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This book is dedicated to Caroline Batzdorf, for the best back
rub ever, June 1993.
Contents
Preface x
Acknowledgements xv
Part One: Introduction 1
1 Introduction to complementary medicine 3
What is complementary medicine? 3
Complementary medicine and health care 12
Summary 14
2 Introduction to massage and aromatherapy 16
Introduction to massage 16
Introduction to aromatherapy 27
Introduction to the sense of smell 32
Steve Van Toller, Director Warwick Olfaction Research Group,
Warwick University
Summary 35
3 Massage and aromatherapy: an overview of practice 37
Who practises massage andaromatherapy? 37
Core beliefs in massage and aromatherapy 41
Conclusion: what are the implications for practice? 70
Summary 72
4 Research on massage 74
Clinical research on massage 74
Basic research on massage 93
Research on touch 110
Research on massage and touch: a summary
of the main findings 124
viii Contents
5 Research on aroma therapy 127
Clinical research on aromatherapy 127
Basic research in aromatherapy 143
Research on olfaction 161
Research on aromatherapy and essential oils:
a summary of the main findings 167
Part Two: Practice
6 The therapeutic use of massage and aromatherapy:
an overview 173
7 Disability 177
Physical disability 177
Children with disabilities 182
Severe learning disability and profound disability 188
8 Disease 193
Cancer care 193
Caroline Stevensen, MacMillan Clinical Nurse
Specialist in Complementary Therapies, Royal London
Homoeopathic NHS Trust, London, and Andrew Vickers
HIV and AIDS 197
Cardiovascular rehabilitation 202
9 Special health care settings 206
Primary care 206
Midwifery: pregnancy and the first months of life 211
Mental health 216
Hospice care 222
Intensive care 227
Caroline Stevensen, MacMillan Clinical Nurse Specialist
in Complementary Therapies, Royal London Homoeopathic
NHS Trust, London, and Andrew Vickers
Massage and aromatherapy: the autonomous practitioner 231
Part Three: Management 237
10 Organizing massage and aromatherapy in
conventional health settings 239
Ensuring safe and competent use of massage
and aromatherapy 240
Management of massage and aroma therapy in
day-to-day practice 244
Contents ix
Introducing massage and aroma therapy into new settings 248
Limitations and exceptions to management 252
Conclusion 253
11 Safety of massage and aroma therapy 255
Adverse effects and drug interactions of essential oils 255
Adverse effects of massage 262
Summary: safety of massage and aromatherapy 264
Epilogue 266
Appendix A: Training in massage and aromatherapy 268
How to choose a course 269
Addresses 270
Appendix B: Further reading 272
Books on massage and touch 272
Books on aromatherapy and the sense of smell 273
Books for the health professional 273
General books on complementary medicine 274
Appendix c: Other organizations 275
References 276
Author index 301
Subject index 307
Preface
This book aims to give health professionals a balanced and indepen
dent overview of massage and aromatherapy. I have written it because,
despite growing interest, there is a dearth of professional literature on
this subject. This book aims to cover a number of topics which are
under-represented in existing publications. These include:
• scientific research in massage and aromatherapy;
• the use of the therapies in medical settings;
• the knowledge base of massage and aromatherapy;
• professional and managerial issues;
• safety.
Understanding of these subjects is essential for any reasoned evalu
ation of massage and aromatherapy. Yet this book is probably the first
to provide information suitable for this task. At the current time of
writing, almost all books on massage and aromat herapy have been
written with the lay public in mind. The texts recommended to
students and practitioners by the foremost schools and institutions are
exactly the same as those available in health food shops as general
introductions for prospective patients. Not surprisingly, such books
generally fail to include in-depth discussions of professional issues.
A CRITIQUE OF MASSAGE AND AROMATHERAPY
I am broadly supportive of massage and aromatherapy. In researching
this book I have been impressed by the experiences of patients and
their practitioners. Health professionals who have worked alongside
practitioners have generally been extremely positive and the scientific
evidence, discussed at length in Chapters 4 and 5, does seem to lend at
least some support to current practice. That said, I do not believe that
everything practitioners claim is correct. Moreover, I do not believe
that the therapies are beyond improvement. The current state of
Preface xi
knowledge in massage and aromatherapy is likely to fall short of the
optimum. This is something which could and should be said of any
therapy: presumably no-one believes that doctors are always correct or
that conventional medicine is perfect and could not possibly progress
any further.
I will be offering a critique of massage and aromatherapy in this
book and it is possible that some of what I write will upset practition
ers. For example, in Chapter 3, I analyse the writings of a number of
leading aromat herapy authors and argue that much of what they say is
incoherent. Authors make claims which are unusual, or simplistic, or
just plain inaccurate, and there is profound disagreement between
texts as to the properties and indications of the essential oils. It is worth
re-stating that the rationale of the book is to provide a reasoned exam
ination of massage and aromatherapy written by an independent
observer. It is quite definitely not my intention to debunk massage or
aromatherapy. But neither is it my intention to offer them unqualified
support. When I say that I offer a 'critique' of massage and aromather
apy, I use this word in the sense of analysis rather than in the sense of
denigration.
I do hope that practitioners will not take this book as an 'attack'on
massage or aromatherapy. On the contrary, I see the aim of this book as
aiding the progress and development of the therapies. There can be no
progress without constructive criticism: we not only need to generate
new ideas, we also need to evaluate them. I hope that this book will
help kick-start the process of critical evaluation in massage and aro
matherapy.
HOLISM AND INDIVIDUALISM
The very process of writing this book has involved going against two
principles emphasized by practitioners of massage and aromatherapy.
Firstly, that it is misleading to look at symptoms out of context of the
whole person (holism) and secondly, that each whole person is a
unique individual (individualism). So while I am tempted to agree that
conventional distinctions between mind and body are often simplistic,
it has sometimes been necessary to use those distinctions in order to
write coherently. I have used conventional health-care language in the
main because I am aiming to communicate with people who under
stand that language.
The main aim of this book is to help identify the role and scope of
massage and aromatherapy. This has often entailed identifying .. the
health problems that patients, practitioners and others have reported
to be helped by treatment. If those problems have been predominantly
psychological (for example, in cancer) it seems worth saying so,
