The study, whose findings are published in the Bulletin of Siberian Medicine magazine, was conducted by researchers of Tyumen State University together with colleagues from Vernadsky Crimean Federal University.
Researchers have evaluated changes in body image perception after a course of medical massage in 50 patients with spinal diseases. Each of them took a 10-session course of treatment. After the massage, the neuropsychic stress either decreased significantly or was completely normalised. Depletion and fatigue in most cases were replaced by activity and a good mood.
Psychological indicators were evaluated before and after the course using the Max Lusher colour test and Igor Solomin’s Colour Metaphors technique. These methods allow you to get information from the unconscious, when a person connects life situations and needs with emotional reactions.
Psychosemantic analysis shows that after massage sessions, life values related to health and perception of oneself as more necessary and attractive are combined into one group. That is, a person ceases to “engage in disease” and opens up to the external environment, so their family and romantic relationships improve.
“In addition to the actual healing effect, a course of medical massage improves the general psychoemotional state of patients. Considering that the effect is obtained on patients with diseases, it will be easier to get it on relatively healthy people,” Inna Vasilyeva, the author of the study, associate professor of the Department of General and Social Psychology at Institute of Psychology and Pedagogy of Tyumen State University, said.
Vasilyeva noted that the commonplace belief that physiotherapeutic procedures have a positive effect on the psyche has already been proven. Therefore, to improve the emotional state, it makes sense to use the whole arsenal of available methods – not only psychological, but also psychophysiological and physiotherapeutic.
The TSU scientists want to evaluate the psychological effects of cosmetic procedures of varying degrees of invasiveness: face-building, “beauty injections” and cosmetic masks.