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Rusty Poulette

MASSAGE THERAPY

for body and mind

Grunge

"Every muscular contraction contains the history and meaning of its origin" -Wilhelm Reich

Body-Centered Psychotherapy (free consultation)

Polarity (free trial session)

Massage Therapy

I include a combination of modalities in my massage practie, including Deep-Tissue massage, Sweedish relaxation massage, and Neuromuscular Therapy.Neuromuscular therapy is an advanced form of massage that aims to solve the root of the problem, rather than the symptoms. The technique involves manipulation of the soft-tissues for balancing the body’'s central nervous system with the musculoskeletal system, and thus reversing tension patterns.
Both physical and emotional tension is held in the body. "We live in a society whose whole policy is to excite every nerve in the human body and to keep it at the highest pitch of artificial tension." -Thomas MertonMassage is helpful in treating:-Anxiety-Depression-PTSDMassage can also be an effective form of psychotherapy. If you are struggling and would like to discuss whether massage may be an appropriate treatment for you, contact me at (561) 236-0523.

Polarity therapy is an alternative medicine system developed in the 1940's by Doctor Randolph Stone that combines Eastern and Western philosophies of health. The theory is that healing can be achieved through the manipulation of complementary (or polarized) forces. In a typical session, the client may experience a strong or subtle release of emotions that have been blocked by muscular and energetic tension patterns. Used alone, or in conjunction with Nuero-Muscluar Therapy, Polarity can be a great tool for healing both the mind and body.

About Rusty

Rusty Poulette, LMT

Education

Florida School of Massage

Gainesville, FL

670-hour/COMTA-accredited

Rusty continues to explore the mind/body connection through workshops and research in pyschosomatic theory and Bioenergetics.

Rusty is also the facilitator of The Gainesville Icarus Project , and editor of Alt Health , a collective publication that highlights alternative and affordable healthcare options in Gainesville, FL.

License # FL MA 62947

Rusty is also trained in Sports Massage and Hydrotherapy, and is available for chair massage events.

Articles and Resources

Article 1
Article 3
Depression and Massage
Who is Wilhelm Reic

Article 1

Alternative Providers in Gainesville

Brandi Adair- Wellness Coachhttp://thevibrantalternative.com/Brandi coaches her clients through the process of achieving their health goals with ongoing support, compassionate accountability and a constantly evolving expertise in the ever changing world of wellness, supporting clients in making holistic and gradual yet lifelong changes at a pace they feel comfortable with. Brandi focuses on all aspects of wellness, from nutrition to relationships. Hibiscus House Rehab- Specialty Therapy and Educationhttp://hibiscushouserehab.com/Occupational TherapyPhysical TherapyMassage TherapyRooted Remedies- Herbal Medicines by Leann Averellhttp://www.rootedremedies.wordpress.com/aboutLocally prepared herbal forumlas and teas!

Cristy C. Road www.croadcore.org

Article 3

Links and Suggested Reading

Suggested Reading:Character Analysis by Wilhelm Reich Depression and the Body by Alexander Lowen, MD The Language of the Body by Alexander Lowen, MDThe Body Reveals: An Illustrated Guide to the Psychology of the Body by Ron KurtzBody-Centered Psychotherapy by Ron KurtzWebsites:http://www.bioenergeticspress.comhttp://somadocumentary.comhttp://www.hakomiinstitute.com/

Depression and Massage

by Rusty Poulette, LMT

It may seem intuitive that massage would relieve depression. Massage is both relaxing and stimulating, which are good therapeutic qualities. But I would like to demonstrate in this article that massage therapy shouldn’t be dismissed as merely a supplemental treatment in the road to recovery, but that it may in fact be an essential element. It may hold the keys to doors long forgotten. In our scientific age of disassociation, we have seen the body and mind as separate. Yet working directly with the body has proven to yield psychological benefits for the depressed client. Here’s why.Depression immobilizes. It causes one to lack the vital energy needed to move through life, to even perform the normal tasks of every day. Part of this immobilization is a lack of emotion, a loss of the ability to feel. If feelings and emotions are the body’s energetic reaction to external stimuli, then the depressed person has lost the ability to react. A healthy person can usually be cheered up by good company when they are sad, but a depressed person seems unable to react. This is symptomatic of the loss of feeling, the loss of vital energy, a suppression of emotion.Suppression of emotion can be stated more directly as an inhibition in the expression of emotion. The depressed person is unable to respond to the world around them. Their ability to express emotion is blocked. But what is blocking this emotion? Is it purely psychological? When a person experiences a trauma, whether it be a physically or emotionally based trauma, the body reacts by stiffening it’s musculature- freezing. This is a natural defense mechanism that we have evolved to benefit from. When the immediate threat or perceived threat is gone, the healthy individual would then release the muscular tension and the body would mobilize for action- flight or flight. Yet it doesn’t always work that way. Sometimes the body doesn’t fully release, and the muscular tension becomes chronic. This locks our muscles in place, and it also locks the trauma inside our body. This is not a metaphor. It is a felt reality. Yet for the most part, this is all taking place unconsciously, and as the muscles remain locked, the ability to feel the associated emotion gets buried deep within. The depressed, chronically-stiffened person then begins to lose the ability to feel any emotion, and depression begins to take its full course, with the source hidden deep within the musculature. Depression often has an unconscious driving force that can be consciously identified through therapy. In fact, what characterizes depression is the inability to immediately identify the source. Those suffering from depression are often confused because they can’t rationally understand why they are depressed, which only leads to a deeper feeling of hopelessness. This is why talk therapy can be beneficial. Yet when dealing with a depressed person who has lost the ability to respond to the world, who has lost the energy to care even about their own recovery, talk therapy can become effectively synonymous with pulling teeth. This is where massage comes in. Massage can release the muscular tension that is inhibiting the clients ability to feel. In releasing this tension, the client is free to express the emotions and feel the trauma that they have been suppressing for so long. This then allow the client to process the associated trauma and empowers them to express their feelings about it, which they had previously been unable to do.Another way that massage can relieve depression is in it’s ability to increase respiration. The low energy levels associated with the depressed mood can be linked, almost directly, to the diminution of respiratory activity. Massage activates the respiratory system, and specific massage work can dramatically increase respiratory function. In this way, massage has the ability to loosen the grip of depression as it loosens the grip of the muscles that are inhibiting the respiratory system. For these reasons and more, massage can be seen as effective therapy for depression. I speak from personal experience as a massage therapist and as a client. Yet if you need more objective proof, studies have shown that massage increases serotonin and dopamine, neurotransmitters that help reduce depression. And more recently, a series of studies* have been done consistently demonstrating the antidepressant effects of massage. In our culture we learn at an early age to suppress our feelings. In order to assimilate into modern civilized society we are taught to suppress our wild nature, and in our religiously dominated culture, we learn to attach moral meaning to this process. As soon as we can speak we quickly learn which words and phrases are morally and socially acceptable to our parents and teachers. This learning process is little more than a lesson in suppressing our instincts and feelings. The “trauma” that we hold in our bodies does not necessarily have to be a grand event, but can be as simple as a negative feeling. That being said, every one of us has quite of bit of “trauma” being held in our bodies. Massage therapy is effective treatment for us all, regardless of whether we are chronically depressed or not. *Hou WH, Chiang PT, Hsu TY, Chiu SY, Yen YC. Treatment effects of massage therapy in depressed people: a meta-analysis. J Clin Psych 2010; 71:894-901.

Who is Wilhelm Reic

Who Was Wilhelm Reich?

“"Marriage as a tie, family as a duty, fatherland as a value in itself, morality as authority, religion as an obligation deriving from eternity.The rigidity of the human musculature could not be more accurately described!”" -Wilhelm Reich, The Mass Psychology of Fascism” ______________________________________“… The purpose of therapy is to restore health. But what constitutes health, and how does this dominant society affect our mental and physical well-being? These are the questions that were raised by a handful of revolutionary psychoanalysts in the latter half of the last century. Each was born into a particular political context that had an undeniable influence on their work as therapists. For Wilhelm Reich, the Austrian-born contemporary of Freud, Nazi Germany’s decline into fascism was his over-arching influence. For Roberto Freire, a Brazilian doctor and psychiatrist, the violent 20-year dictatorship of Brazil, during which Freire was part of the counter-insurgency, was the overwhelming context out of which sparked his revolutionary ideas about the body and the therapeutic task. The western world seems to be making a necessary shift to holism, seeing health as a multiplicity of factors including body, mind, and spirit. But in order for our view on health to truly be holistic, it must also include an understanding of how society, politics, and our everyday relationships affect our well-being. Humans are born with a natural drive to pursue pleasurable situations and activities, and with the intrinsic knowledge of how to achieve this goal. Freire called this idea spontaneous self-regulation. Yet as we grow up, various factors become roadblocks in our attempts to live according to our desires. We live in what Freire called a “hetero-regulated society” in which certain norms and stand-ards regulate our actions. We learn this at an early age from our parents, and later from our teachers, bosses, and authoritarian offi-cials. Being a species that naturally adapts to our environment, we often play along strictly as a means of survival. We learn and inter-nalize the various life-lessons that we are taught, from not burping at the dinner table, to not voicing our opinions too loudly in school. We quickly learn that if we live according to our desires it will get us in trouble. In popular psychology this survival mechanism is called the Reality Principle, which is the natural antithesis of the Pleasure Principle. In a strangely sick and mysteriously misguided way, mainstream therapy has become focused on the Reality Principle. The goal is to help clients assimilate into the “reality” of every-day life and to cope with the various struggles and oppressions that somehow seem inevitable to modern people. Massage therapy is no exception. In my experience, the main complaint of the overwhelming majority of clients is stress. Massage is too often sought out as a quick fix, allowing the client to find relaxation amidst the outpouring of stressors and oppressions that plague daily life without addressing these oppressions head on. Humans are born with a natural drive to pursue pleasurable situations and activities, and with the intrinsic knowledge of how to achieve this goal. Freire called this idea spontaneous self-regulation. Yet as we grow up, various factors become roadblocks in our attempts to live according to our desires. We live in what Freire called a “hetero-regulated society” in which certain norms and stand-ards regulate our actions. We learn this at an early age from our parents, and later from our teachers, bosses, and authoritarian offi-cials. Being a species that naturally adapts to our environment, we often play along strictly as a means of survival. We learn and inter-nalize the various life-lessons that we are taught, from not burping at the dinner table, to not voicing our opinions too loudly in school. We quickly learn that if we live according to our desires it will get us in trouble. In popular psychology this survival mechanism is called the Reality Principle, which is the natural antithesis of the Pleasure Principle. In a strangely sick and mysteriously misguided way, mainstream therapy has become focused on the Reality Principle. The goal is to help clients assimilate into the “reality” of every-day life and to cope with the various struggles and oppressions that somehow seem inevitable to modern people. Massage therapy is no exception. In my experience, the main complaint of the overwhelming majority of clients is stress. Massage is too often sought out as a quick fix, allowing the client to find relaxation amidst the outpouring of stressors and oppressions that plague daily life without addressing these oppressions head on. Wilhelm Reich was the first not only to talk about this elephant in the room, which in his case was Nazi Fascism, but he was also the first to talk about the body as the mechanism of mental well-being. Muscles have two basic functions- expansion and contraction. Through a bit of awareness, it will become obvious to anyone that contraction creates an unpleasant feeling (a sudden gasp of breath), and that expansion creates a feeling of pleasure (a sigh of relief). Reich showed that the restrictions placed on us by society cause the contraction of our musculature. Over time, if we accept the Reality Principle as our reality, our muscles will become chronically contract-ed. This contraction is the roadblock that I spoke of earlier. It disables the free expression of the individ-ual and what before was a choice in the interest of survival is now an unconscious process happening within the body. What binds these muscles is the energy that is being withheld from expression. Sup-pose you really, really want to tell your boss how you feel, but you know that it would cost you your job. So instead you clench your jaw, bite your tongue, and hold it in. These are bodily expressions. The ener-gy that you are “holding in” is what is causing the contraction of your jaw muscles, and most likely in this situation, your abdominal muscles as well. If “holding it in” is your every day reality, then the con-striction will become chronic. Releasing this tension, by means of massage therapy, will release this bound up energy. Often the release will produce the sensations and feeling associated with the original constriction, allowing them to be consciously processed. Much work has been done to identify which muscle contractions are associated with which feelings.*Massage has the opportunity to be revolutionary. It allows us to release and process the con-strictions literally placed on us by society. Holistic therapy is political. We exist in a social context, and that context invariably affects our health and well-being. The therapeutic process allows us to break through our hindrances and scream loudly for our freedom. As Reich, Freire, and others have shown, we must create a culture of unhindered expression if we want to live in a truly healthy society!*See The Language of the Body by Alexander Lowen, MDWritten by Rusty Poulette, LMT
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The Icarus Project

navigating the space between brilliance and madness

About Icarus

The Icarus Project envisions a new culture and language that resonates with our actual experiences of 'mental illness' rather than trying to fit our lives into a conventional framework. We are a network of people living with and/or affected by experiences that are often diagnosed and labeled as psychiatric conditions. We believe these experiences are mad gifts needing cultivation and care, rather than diseases or disorders. By joining together as individuals and as a community, the intertwined threads of madness, creativity, and collaboration can inspire hope and transformation in an oppressive and damaged world. Participation in The Icarus Project helps us overcome alienation and tap into the true potential that lies between brilliance and madness.

theicarusproject.net/

Gainesville Icarus Project

The Gainesville Icarus Project is a community support group that meets weekly in hopes of creating a safe space where folks can gather to talk about whatever is on their minds, free from judgment, and free from the stereotypes of the psychiatric system.

Meetings are held on the 1st and 3rd Thursdays of each month at the Civic Media Center from 7-9pm.

433 S. Main Street

Gainesville, FL

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"What does it mean to be called crazy in a world that is clearly insane?"

Schedule Appointment

Schedule your appointment today!

PricingMy clinic is located at Hibiscus House Rehab. It's a beautiful atmosphere full of great people. I am also available for house calls, and am more than willing to offer substantial discounts to low-income clients. Hibiscus House: $60/hourHouse Calls: $30-50/hourLow-income discounts available based on need, as low as $15/hour!Barter, trade, skillshare: make an offerMassage TherapyBody-Centered Psychotherapy (free consultation)Polarity Healing (free trial session upon request)To schedule a session call (561) 236-0523Rusty is also trained in Sports Massage and Hydrotherapy, and is available for chair massage events. Hibiscus House Rehab1338 NW 13th StreetGainesville, FL 32601

Phone: (561) 236-0523 Rusty Poulette, LMT Gainesville, FL

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