Job's Body: A Handbook for Bodywork

This book was required reading at the Brian Utting School of Massage when I attended in 1994. The ENTIRE book, and we were tested on it. I still refer back to the chapter on muscle physiology frequently, especially when I am writing articles and teaching procedures. Here is where you will find what you need to know about how actin and myosin overlap, how muscle cells respond only to the signals provided from the brain and spinal reflexes (which means your only hope of relaxing muscle is by appealing to the brain or reflexes, using indirect techniques!) Here you will learn which spinal reflexes cause the "let go" reflex (golgi tendon organs) and which proprioceptors (annulospiral) communicate two-way with the brain for profound accuracy of movement and options for subtle therapy. Here you learn what organ (cerebellum) controls whether the muscles will rest or guard. I have not yet seen a book to replace this one as a required text, but I am reviewing one soon... I think a massage therapist could get away with reading only the muscle chapter though the skin, connective tissue, parasympathetic response vs sympathetic reaction, nerve chapters are interesting if you are interested (like I was). Remember, this information is about twenty years old now. In addition, I recommend all massage students and practitioners read Laura Bruno's If I Only Had a Brain Injury that came out earlier this year, 2008. It is far easier to read than Job's Body. It is not intended to be a "med school" approach to healing. Instead, you'll learn a symbolic/intuitive approach to healing. In the 80s, intuition was woo-woo but now with human telepathy predicted to begin in less than a decade, you see that Laura's symbolic/intuitive approach to the brain is even more subtle and effective than the connective tissue, indirect nerve/reflex techniques that Deane Juhan was doing back then.

If you are a doctor, physical therapist, massage or bodywork therapist of any kind with an appetite for in depth analysis and understanding of the human response to touch, this book is a MUST HAVE for you. It's technical and detailed, and it is also ground breaking, eye-opening and very exciting. Juhan covers the topic of the human response to touch from the micro-cellular level through to system responses all the way to the origins of the body/mind split in western philosphy and the consequences of pharmaceutical dominance in health care on touch therapies. He introduces many new perspectives that bring a rich vitality to anatomy. He shows the interactivity - the interconnectedness - the interdependence of all aspects of the human body, mind and being. He presents some of the latest theories about how the body mind are integrated and communicate - Candace Pert's molecules of emotion. Not only is Juhan's research fascinating and valuable to body workers, but also his method of inquiry, the questions he asks, and how he asks and seeks to answer them, are also very educational - modeling ways we can pursue the investigation ourselves. Here are a few examples of the kind of insight that Juhan offers in the Third Edition: Page 17 "This personal, sensory engagement with the self does not spring from a rebellion against scientific authority, but rather from a realization of the present inadequacy of that authority's conception of reality, a realization that is not contrived for the purpose of debate, but which is forced upon [us] by [our] own painful circumstances." "When the conceptions of reality that we maintain do not square with the things we are experiencing, it is not because we are flawed or because our experiences are wrong, but because our conceptions cannot contain all of the facts as we perceive them. And there is no constructive way out of this crisis but to enlarge our sense of reality to include our actual experiences." Page 142 "The goal of bodywork should not be to impose universalized standards of posture and movement upon an individual, but rather to help the individual to cultivate the mental awareness and the physical flexibility to continually adapt to the changing needs of the moment." Page 184 "Muscles that have fallen into disuse and flaccidity just don't provide enough pumping action for these intercellular fluids to adequately feed and bathe the nerve cells, and so the general strength of their functions is diminished." Page 412 "Subjective and objective are not two distinct ways I have of viewing reality; they are two sides of a continuous feedback loop which together make up that reality. How completely I sense my body and how I feel about it has everything to do with the particular course of events going on within it."

Absolutely the best bodywork book I've ever read, bar none. I read the first edition of this book about 15 years ago, and it was a big eye-opener for me; I saw the body in a whole new light, it gave me things to think about and apply for years. I wish Deane Juhan would write a lot more books.

Great overview of human anatomy and physiology from an integrative perspective. Brings together a lot of scientific information in an easily understood and relevant fashion that particularly explains many aspects of physiology as they apply to massage and bodywork.

I had bought this for a friend about to start massage school--but I'm KEEPING IT! The writing communicates a deep love and interest in the body and how it works, and how we respond to touch as healing. This is a wonderful way to learn about the anatomy and physiology of our living, working bodies.