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Stop the Insanity!
I hope this gets everyone's attention, and I don't give a rip if anyone replies or not. I am posting this separately from the previous discussions on here that have deteriorated into the most vile insulting and mudslinging bunch of crap I have ever seen in my life.
It is distressing to me that massage therapists, researchers in the field, and anyone else associated with our profession in any way stoop to this kind of behavior. Not only is it not a productive discussion, it is starting to sound like a bunch of politicians on tv with their insulting of each other's credentials, standards, and abilities.
I am not interested in shame and blame, so who started it and who said what is irrelevant. I urge you all to remember that we are ALL in this profession because we have a desire to help people through the awesome power of touch, and that is what it is about.
We don't have to agree. We can all agree to disagree. The personal attacks, the character attacks, the arguing over which country does it better, is ridiculous, petty, and childish. This is not the first time this has happened. It is the main reason I avoid this site most of the time.
I am no better, or no worse than anyone else, and everybody is entitled to an opinion. That's what forums are meant for, so that people with differing opinions have a place to discuss those, but so much of what has gone on here is not a civil discussion. When I see people that I know to be hard-working, caring people, and people that I know to be brilliant minds and hard-working as well get into these mudslinging insulting arguments on here, I personally find that to be a bad reflection of what we are supposed to be about.
I don't have to be bad in order for you to be good. You don't have to be a failure just so someone else can be a success. One country who does things differently is not better or worse, they are just different. People get caught up in national pride, and that's okay, but it does not have to deteriorate into what some of these discussions have deteriorated into. Someone makes a comment, someone takes it the wrong way, or out of context, and it just goes downhill from there.
When you're writing like this, you can't hear people's tone of voice, you can't see their body language, and what might be civil if we were all in a room together comes off as a bunch of superior b*******, and one's just as guilty as the other. When anyone has anything intelligent to say, someone else seizes upon that and uses it as an excuse for the next round of arguing.
I wish everyone of you peace and prosperity, regardless of where you are from, what you do, or how you do it. We are all equal by virtue of the fact that we are all human and it's too bad that people are fighting like a pack of junkyard dogs instead of having a civil disagreement. I can't participate in it and I won't.
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Vlad on
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Laura's post is interesting in regard to the *spurious claims*.
And again, that gets back to the therapists and their behavior.
What about the spurious claims of teachers in classes? Like the teacher with the 20 years experience touting the waving of hands in a chair massage class in order to clear the energy and stating it like it's fact?
The student *could* question the claims in the class, but what would happen then?
The student *could* complain to the school administrators, but what would happen then?
Since the *woo* is taught in other classes, there's hardly any recourse for going any other route. If teachers are allowed to make whatever claims they want (pretty much - within the *reason* of the industry, which is all over the place), then there won't be much change and that may be where there is the most resistance.
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Permalink Reply by Laura Allen on
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As was I for about ten years. I have ceased referring to myself as that and I have ceased teaching Reiki. But it's a good point Vlad....in the years since I got out of school, it is horrifying to me to know how much I blindly accepted while I was there. And as someone on here said earlier, it's a generational thing of people learning something from their teachers and then perpetuating that. And for some it just never dawns on them to question what their teachers tell them.
Vlad is now roadkill said:Dr. Oz's wife is a Reiki Master so he's probably a wee bit biased.
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Permalink Reply by Matthew D. Stewart on
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I was under the impression that it is certification and not licensing in California. What is the distinction between a CMP (certified massage practitioner) and a CMT (certified massage therapist)?
"A Certified Massage Therapist (CMT) holds the highest level of certification offered by the CAMTC, and indicates to the general public [...] that you have the equivalent of five hundred (500) or more hours of formal education and training in Massage Therapy."
For practical purposes, a Certified Massage Practitioner (CMP) can provide services according to training and experience that are similar to services provided by a Certified Massage Therapist (CMT), and can benefit from all aspects of CAMTC Certification in the same way as a CMT. A CMP can work anywhere in California, just like a CMT. CAMTC web site
To me it looks like a volunteer certification process with a generous grandfathering pathway. Don't see any mention of public safety or practitioner competency. There is the benefit to employers that certified MT's have passed background checks but what is the benefit to the sole practitioner? I'm just saying, don't flame me, just tell me if there is more to it it that i have grasped. So 500 hours is a de facto indicator of competency and the assessment of competency is left with the schools.
What's with the fixation on hours? Competency standards people! As for what those are, I don't profess to know but I'm sure the collective wisdom and experience could further that aim.
Ezekiel OBrien said
As for a two tiered system we now have a conditional CMP (100-250hr.) CMP (250 hr.) and CMT (500 hr.)system in CA but CMP is scheduled for phase out in 2015 so that sort makes it not a a two-tierd system.
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Permalink Reply by The Rev on
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If I am not mistaken, Ohio has tiered licensing. When at the Amta national convention, in 1995, I hung out with the party animal Ohio contingency. It was the first time I had even heard a different mentality from the Amta 500 hour/NCE drum beat. People seemed to be happy with it. I especially liked it seein' as how I am one that started with a 100 hour training and knows that can work. It would be hypocritical of me to support stopping folk from entering the realm of touch with any more than that.
How many of the claims that were made to your board are real criminal acts that would be able to be handled by existing non massage related laws? It appears to me, many of the complaints your board handles are true criminal acts. How many involve female practitioners? I suspect it is top heavy toward males being the offenders.
It amazes me how few women engage in these online discussions/debates, considering y'all make up 85% of the trade. You are a refreshing spirit Laura. I would be willing to send you a "I'm a rubber" t-shirt if you would send me a picture for my online gallery http://tinyurl.com/4uq5fb . Write me off list... I offer my t's free of charge to those I believe relatively like minded and to be tolerant of most in the realm of touch.
The Rev
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If am not mistaken, Ohio has tiered licensing. When at the Amta national convention, in 1995, I hung out with the party animal Ohio contingency. It was the first time I had even heard a different mentality from the Amta 500 hour/NCE drum beat. People seemed to be happy with it. I especially liked it seein' as how I am one that started with a 100 hour training and knows that can work. It would be hypocritical of me to support stopping folk from entering the realm of touch with any more than that.
How many of the claims that were made to your board real criminal acts that would be able to be handled by existing non massage related laws? It appears to me, many of the complaints your board handles are true criminal acts. How many involve female practitioners? I suspect it is top heavy toward males being the offenders.
It amazes me how few women engage in these online discussions/debates, considering y'all make up 85% of the trade. You are a refreshing spirit Laura. I would be willing to send you a "I'm a rubber" t-shirt if you would send me a picture for my online gallery http://tinyurl.com/4uq5fb . Write me off list... I offer my t's free of charge to those I believe relatively like minded and to be tolerant of most in the realm of touch.
Rev Rob the Russian Rubber
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Permalink Reply by Stephen Jeffrey on
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Vlad is now roadkill said:Dr. Oz's wife is a Reiki Master so he's probably a wee bit biased.More than 1 good reason to practice reiki then:)
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Stephen,
Depends on how you look at it.
If you're saying that *just because* someone has a celebrity husband who happens to be a doctor, then it gives the practice credibility, then that's up to you. People also believe some celebrity's opinion on vaccinations more than their doctor's opinion. I have more of a tendency to ask if someone has their self interests or those of their family in mind when they make claims, but maybe I'm just weird.
Also, with regard to spurious claims and practitioners/teachers. Laura mentioned how energy work shouldn't be carried out on anyone who doesn't ask for it and this has been declared to be unethical to do so. So, getting back to the teacher just spouting anyting in the class (and actually performing it in a non-energy class) how come there's so much emphasis put on how the therapist's behave, when teachers *get away* with spouting claims about it in classes? Shouldn't there be an ethical declaration made for teachers that they shouldn't address it in non-energy related classes?
And how come we don't have an ethical code that's specifically for teachers? Is this a sign of the glorification that happens in the industry for teachers (which, by the way, is just an opinion, I've nothing to back it up, yeah, no specific *evidence* of that at all)?
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Since the Alliance for Massage Therapy Education is working on some sort of teacher's standards, and I will be in attendance at their meeting, I will bring that up. Good point!
And Rev, I don't personally wear t-shirts, but I would hang that on the wall in my classroom ;) Thanks for the offer.
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Vlad is now roadkill said:Stephen,
Depends on how you look at it.
If you're saying that *just because* someone has a celebrity husband who happens to be a doctor, then it gives the practice credibility, then that's up to you. People also believe some celebrity's opinion on vaccinations more than their doctor's opinion. I have more of a tendency to ask if someone has their self interests or those of their family in mind when they make claims, but maybe I'm just weird.
I was thinking marital relations..........
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Permalink Reply by Christopher A. Moyer on
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Dr. Oz does not practice reiki himself but allows reiki practitioners to do the work.
Thank you for clarifying that. I've never seen Dr. Oz on TV (I only watch a little, and then only certain things) so I couldn't be sure, but I suspected it was as you said.
(Coincidentally - and I only remembered this today - I was thinking about this Oz yesterday while I was in line at the grocery store. He was on the cover of a magazine diet plan that said something like 'lose 12 lbs. in 14 days!' and I was thinking to myself, no good physician would endorse such a diet plan. I stopped short of looking in the magazine, though, to see if that what he actually was endorsing.)
He also tracks the information regarding reiki receiving patients vs non reiki receiving patients.
Scientifically, that approach is of no value at all, because it is allowing the research subjects to select which condition they will be in. This introduces confounds that prevent us from knowing, if a difference between the groups shows up, what has caused the difference. This is why randomization to groups in such research is not advisable, but essential. (It may surprise some people to learn that research training is not usually an important part of medical training - just because someone is a physician does not mean that they know how to do research, though there are physicians who do have such training in addition to their medical training.)
While you may see it as quackery and think that it somehow lessens the quality of other cardiac surgeons Dr. Oz remains one of the top cardiac surgeons in the world and is well-respected throughout the health community.
But why should it matter what a single celebrity physician thinks or endorses? A better question to ask would be, does the American Medical Association endorse reiki? Does any organizations of cardiologists endorse it?
Further, is Oz well-respected throughout the medical community? I honestly don't know, but what I can see is that it's not hard to find places where he has been criticized for endorsing reiki, such as here and here and here and here and here, Whether or not he is a good surgeon, there are definitely folks with science and medicine backgrounds who are noting that, as a physician, he should not be endorsing reiki.
I will look into the study quoted as showing prayer NOT working but you should look into the work of Dr. Bernard Grad and there are other studies that show it worked as well in double blind studies. The Brandeis study has been used to prove that it does work and also that it does not work so I guess there is room for interpretation in the actual results.
I'm not familiar with Grad's work, but a quick search shows that much of his research seems to have appeared in journals of parapsychology. That's not very promising. Nevertheless, you've piqued my interest, and I will try to get a look at one of those studies - I may even be able to use one of them as part of a methodology lesson in a current class.
-CM
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There are actually quite a few well-known hospitals providing Reiki to their patients...I put that list on way back on the EBP site that Whitney or Bodhi used to have. If memory serves, it included some biggies like Yale, Children's Hospital in Boston, Columbia University, Duke, Dana-Farber, and across the pond, University College Hospital in London. I just now punched in "reiki" on pubmed and got 1694 citations. I'm going to muddle through some of them.
There have been a lot of comments from all sides about the lack of valid research on energy modalities, and apparently there may be more than we think.
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