What’s a “Journal Club”?

Journal clubs are widespread in academic scientific and medical fields. Usually it is an informal meeting of students to discuss the scientific literature in their common areas of interest. One of the students takes the responsibility for presenting one or more articles, which the group then discusses.

I chose the name “Massage Journal Club” for my book as well as for this blog for several reasons. First of all, the nonhierarchical structure of a traditional journal club encourages egalitarianism and discussion among peers. Although I usually—not always—present the articles (simply because of having more experience with the literature, and that familiarity can help when meeting time is limited), it is most definitely not a lecture, but an interactive discussion. Together we develop visual diagrams of how the ideas fit together. Out of this cooperation emerge unexpected and striking insights and connections, which in turn serve to stimulate the discussion.

The term “club” reinforces this sense of a group of people who enjoy coming together to discuss shared interests, without, I hope, any negative sense of exclusion or personal judgment. There is no required set of opinions anyone has to have to participate in the discussion, and in fact, controversial and dissenting opinions are welcome for what they add to the discussion by stimulating and organizing thought. Evaluation of the limitations of science in studying a holistic discipline such as massage is a topic which often comes up, and recognition of those issues is encouraged as a springboard for finding creative ways to address those limitations.

The only discussion rules are that 1) criticisms must be of ideas or methods—not of people—and that 2) any opinion or contribution is welcome, but you need be prepared to explain it further and back up what you base it on. We follow the tradition of academic discussion of ideas, and we attempt to tie it to our real-world practice as much as possible as well. I've expanded a little bit on these rules in "A few ground rules", below, but basically this is what it comes down to.

Finally, with the name’s conscious echoes of the scientific and academic world, joined to “Massage”, I hope to advocate for reconciliation of the holistic and the scientific domains in an appropriate and mutually respectful way. This topic will be discussed in more detail in the following chapter, but I believe the bottom line is that massage is secure and has nothing to fear from science, properly practiced. Both domains have important knowledge to offer, and our patients can only benefit from a proper and principled integration of the two.