In Conversation with Teri Mayo

 May 1, 2025

Teri Mayo came to the massage therapy profession in the same way many other massage therapists do—she experienced the work for herself while recovering from knee surgery.

Her plans for a career in creative or technical writing stalled after graduation when an economic downturn meant even getting an internship was difficult. Remembering her previous experience with massage therapy, Mayo decided to go to massage school. “It was my prior rehabilitative impression, combined with being a very kinesthetic person, that made exploring massage as a clinician an intuitive choice.”

What originally was supposed to be a temporary stopgap turned into a more than 30-year career. “Once I began practicing massage therapy I loved every aspect of it,” she says. “And, I never looked back.”

Massage Therapy Journal had the opportunity to talk with Mayo about the experience she brings to her role as Executive Director, the role research plays in the massage therapy profession, and what she hopes for the Massage Therapy Foundation’s (MTF) future.

You bring a background of business, team management and professional mentoring, among other skills, to the Executive Director role. How will these skills help you bring your vision and hopes for MTF to reality?

Mayo: I think that all these things will help take MTF to the next level. But the through line for me in all of this is rooted in relationship building. It’s the component I love the absolute most in all my roles. With staff, stakeholders, researchers, colleagues and supporters, relationship building is where and how bridges manifest, and that is where I most want to engage and focus my efforts. Relationships through bridge building influences everything else.

We live, work and exist as humans and professionals in very complicated times right now; the political climate will impact the massage profession for sure. But it is important to remember these challenging times will have a unique impact on the nonprofit world, as well.

All massage stakeholders will have to work together to get through these tumultuous times if our field- and research-focused MTF nonprofit is going to thrive. The relationships we build within and external to our field will be the key to MTF’s ultimate sustainability, success and potential growth.

My cultivated skills in general business, therapeutic massage, rehabilitation and health care will help me to facilitate effective relationship bridge building efforts, and I’m excited for the challenge!

Research is the cornerstone of health care professions. In your view, what role does research play in building and maintaining the credibility of the massage profession?

Mayo: As both a solo massage practitioner and massage clinic owner, when I would meet with referring providers, research allowed me to speak a universal language. I think the ability to communicate through an evidence base is true across all disciplines. Massage has a complicated and complex history with regard to communicating through this lens, which can increase barriers across health professions and ultimately to our clients.

Many within health care or the health professions consider massage therapy as external to clinical work, or not necessarily part of health care. I had the personal experience of providers ignoring me until I shared research with them. Over the years, sharing peer-reviewed, large scale research studies transformed some skeptics into massage advocates—and some of my biggest referring partners.

I believe that education and research give the therapeutic massage field credibility. While research isn’t the “end-all-be-all” (I believe massage is both an art and a science), being able to speak in terms of evidence base, outcomes, specific dosing, technique variation and impact is critical for massage therapy’s credibility in health care environments.

Even for those who do not directly work in a health care environment, doing the research, dissemination and interpretation work is still impactful. Take, for example, working in a spa environment in which a massage clinician is talking to and treating a client with a specific condition. Speaking from an evidence informed standpoint and relating evidence back to the work regardless of environment demonstrates the discipline’s “root” and training within research. That’s a game changer.

What is one common misunderstanding you hear about research, and how might MTF’s work help to bridge some of those gaps in understanding?

Mayo: I think that many think that “every study is a good study.” Just because one reads something that begins with the phrase “A study suggests/says …” doesn’t make it research. Having basic research literacy is critical.

I also think that many people may inappropriately generalize personal experiences over research. One’s own clinical experience is valuable within an evidence-based practice paradigm, but on its own, is not statistically or potentially even clinically a robust piece of the evidence puzzle. MTF can help bridge the study applicability gap in a few ways.

For the LMT, utilizing our BRL (Basics of Research Literacy) class is just one critical first step. Reading research in trusted places is also another (our International Journal of Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork, for example).

The other way that MTF makes an impact in the world of massage research is that it works diligently to support research reflective and relevant to the therapeutic massage field.

Such research is also conducted systematically, utilizes rigorous methodology designed and performed by competent and skilled researchers, is objective, and produces reliable and valid results that can be replicated and appropriately generalized.

Research proposals submitted to the MTF are rigorously peer-reviewed following several criteria of the National Institutes of Health. Meritorious proposals to the MTF are reviewed, provided developmental feedback, and potentially get presented for funding, either to the MTF board or to the AMTA board, depending on the source of the funds.

You’re talking with a massage therapy student nearing graduation. What do you tell them about the role research can play in their building a long and successful career in the massage profession?

Mayo: In school, your instructors give you context, content, information and research … but once out of school and in practice, you must know where to go to find the most current information to both be a better practitioner and to help you know best practices.

Research is key in helping massage therapists learn what works and, of equal importance, what doesn’t. And it can also help you stay safe as a practitioner. Knowing how to read research, knowing where to go to look up modalities and impacts, or to look up pathologies being impacted by particular techniques or dosing schedules, is essential.

Along with continuing education, research is the thing that will help you continue to be a deeply knowledgeable practitioner and continue to grow as a massage therapist.

Research also helps you build rapport with your clients and increase referrals. Being able to speak to your clients about your evidence-informed practice is vital. Being able to answer questions such as “can massage help with _____?” builds trust and deepens the clinical relationship.

Lastly, it can help you build relationships with other integrative health providers.

As Executive Director, can you briefly give us an idea of some of your top priorities and how you see meeting some of the goals you and others have for the Foundation?

Mayo:The MTF is going through some big but exciting transitions regarding staff support and Board make-up. Such multiple transitions are a lot at once, so one of the first things I want to do is stabilize things, get everyone oriented and looking in the same direction, and then, together, look ahead.

I am approaching this as a new beginning for MTF and all our stakeholders, while also incorporating a growth mindset. I am also working to be smart and intentional with this moment and all its related contexts.

From your perspective, what is the future of the massage profession? What role do research and organizations like MTF play in this future?

Mayo: I think that the future of the massage profession will increasingly become focused on research and evidence-based practices. This is a good thing: as the massage therapy toolbox is filled with more effective treatments, consumer uptake will grow and our credibility as a field will increase.

We’re already becoming a viable treatment alternative for pain management, for example. I think that there are many, many ways we can continue to be a wonderful part of our client’s health management and, as the research in our field continues to reveal the impacts of what we do and the injuries, pathologies, diseases and rehabilitative impacts we can have, our influence will only grow.

MTF will be a critical participant in this as we drive funds toward the best research opportunities and continue to be a respected voice in the realm of legitimate research for our field.

We’re talking one year from now. What do you hope to be able to say about MTF? What is one goal you have that you hope is either achieved or well on its way in the coming year?

Mayo: From the operational side, I hope that the MTF is stabilized from a resources standpoint, with an effective staffing composite, board structure and volunteer cadre so we are poised for growth. And I hope that we’ve begun to deepen relationships with new stakeholders and perhaps reconnect with some old ones.

From a vision standpoint, I hope that MTF will have begun to forge some new paths and that we’ll feel “stretched” in some new ways. The year-out plans and ideas are just starting to be formed, but I think that we will continue to refine and more robustly define key goals and benchmarks for the good of the field and the MTF’s research support endeavors. If multiple new paths are forged, and MTF has maintained and perhaps expanded others, I’ll feel like it was a great year.

Bonus Questions

The shift to health care administration--that feels like quite a jump. Can you talk to us about what motivated you to move from massage therapy to health care administration?

As my own clinic continued to grow and I added great team members, my practice was becoming more self-sufficient. I had always told myself that if I could build a team that could exemplify excellence in all ways and maintain the culture of community and collaboration I had built, even when I wasn’t there, that would be the best definition of success.

That also meant my onsite, my daily presence became less essential for the success of the business. I became aware that I had done a good job of building a great clinic with a wonderful reputation, but I had also essentially worked myself out of a job.

I started to consider trying something else that would stretch me professionally. I ended up moving into a Clinic Administrator role for a specialty surgery group within a large hospital system that needed some help rebuilding.

Such a great opportunity felt intuitive, as I reasoned there were more similarities than differences between a medical/insurance-based massage clinic and a surgical care group clinic. Team building, hiring the right people, mentoring, managing provider contracts, schedules, insurance network challenges, and navigating health system bureaucracy, it’s all the same.

While I worked in the surgical care space, I continued off-site management/oversight of my therapeutic massage practice until I sold it in the summer of 2019 and returned to having a very small, private practice.

Your bio says you "love working with the clients, board, staff, and volunteers to help push MTF into the potential that lies ahead." In your view, how important is community to the work you are hoping to accomplish? What can people working together achieve and why is collaboration critical to maximizing MTF's potential?

The Massage Therapy Foundation really is for the whole massage therapy field, and while the Foundation is situated under AMTA’s umbrella, our focus has been and will continue to be for the benefit of every current and future massage therapist and end user.

Collaboration with other organizations is essential. Academic worlds, international organizations and associations, state associations, schools, and every other massage and integrative health group we can connect with, we must. To my knowledge, we’re the only massage specific group working to direct and support research about the therapeutic massage field and for the therapeutic massage field.

It is my deep desire to partner with everyone to push the massage profession forward, beyond where it is now, to the next level. Such efforts will take everyone: individuals, donors, researchers, clinicians, volunteers, teachers, end-users and more. I’m excited to leverage my collaborative work style and efforts toward the new MTF composite.

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