It can be presented in a way that opens up useful applications. If it is not brought to life via the teaching, and related to the specific modality being studied, it reinforces the negative perspective of biology as irrelevant to the practical bodywork skills. This can be especially problematic in courses which have 'generic' anatomy, physiology and pathology designed to serve a number of different modalities. When I first ran a professional massage course, I had a colleague teaching the anatomy and physiology. I had to ask him to reduce the amount he covered in each session, to make his presentations more varied, and we had to do considerable planning together on how to make connections with the practical concerns of massage.
Information becomes useful for a bodywork student when it can be grounded in experience.
The teaching of the less directly palpable aspects, particularly physiological processes, can be made relevant by discussion, images, examples, and imaginative teaching. And in Holistic Massage, the concern is that students will discount intuition, and ignore the importance of the interpersonal connection between practitioner and client, coming instead to view themselves as experts armed with immutable knowledge which will allow them to 'fix' the passive client. The British Medical Association Complete Family Health Encyclopaedia Ed Dr Tony Smith. A Guide to Experiential Anatomy. How the Body Works.