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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.
Views: 1062
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Christopher A. Moyer on
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There are actually quite a few well-known hospitals providing Reiki to their patients.
It's true. Hospitals are competing with each other and are letting themselves be influenced by their 'customers,' who aren't truly customers but patients.
The PBS documentary Frontline covers this issue pretty well. The relevant issue can be viewed for free here. Sampson and Angell speak clearly about why this is an upside-down and unethical way for hospitals to behave, while one of the hospital presidents (Beth Israel, if I remember correctly) can barely come up with an intelligent sentence when he is asked to defend this trend.
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Permalink Reply by Ravensara Travillian on
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Christopher A. Moyer said:
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?
I know what you mean to say here, but you left out an important detail. You mean, "Based on an examination of the evidence, does...."
Otherwise, it sounds like an argument from authority, which I know is not what you meant. It was just a verbal shorthand.
And to your other point about the MD not being a research degree, there was some debate in my grad program about whether MDs should be permitted to teach PhD courses, for that reason. It was ultimately decided that yes, they could, but there was debate over it, due to their lack of research training in general, with specific exceptions.
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Yes, you're right Raven, that's what I meant.
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Permalink Reply by Emmanuel Bistas on
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There have been some excellent posts here and I have way too busy to follow until now. Just a couple thoughts:
Re Reiki and other energy work, it has never bothered me if people practice it. I never considered it 'massage therapy' but always saw it as part of 'bodywork', the bigger tent that includes lots of other stuff. I think it would be very difficult to include energy modalities in the scope of work of massage therapists (at least in the U.S.) because how does one convince a legislator that it works? And if energy does not exist according to some, how can practicing it can hurt people? If you say it can hurt people then you have accepted it exists. So, if Reiki does not work and Dr. Oz has it in the surgery room, then Reiki is no different than a picture on the wall. Why it would make him less of a surgeon to have a picture on the wall?
Now about being or becoming a profession... When I first read Rick Rosen's white paper on becoming a profession I was like "wow, this makes a lot of sense". It still make sense to me, but when others start throwing other things in there, such as degree programs as an entry-level requirement, I have to take a step back and think - "ok, what is at stake here?". If I were a manager of a company and I was about to engage in a costly undertaking, it should be simple to weigh the benefits and costs of the undertaking and decide if it makes sense to do it. Each time I tried to consider the costs of things being what they are (and I am not suggesting that things stay as they are) vs. the benefits of what it could become, I think "is it really worth it"? Should we simply focus on increasing teaching standards and everything else will take of itself?
I find it even harder to go along with some of the suggestions when I consider professionals in other fields. For example, over the years, I have earned a considerable amount of money through IT (information technology) and management consulting. The people with whom I have worked, may or may not have had degrees - I don't think anyone ever checked. The path I took to enter that field was a four-year college, but others who did not have my background were as good and at times better that I was. One of my colleagues was previously a social worker who had taken a project management certification course and now was in IT, another was an accountant who took a 16-week web development program, another one had been in the military and took a Microsoft certification program. These are people who worked on mission critical systems, some of the systems in Dr. Oz's surgery room could have been developed by them. As long as they acted professionally, they were treated as professionals. I never heard anyone wondering about becoming a profession.. Why the difference?
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Permalink Reply by Rick Rosen on
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I've been following this discussion thread with interest. Since Emmanuel cited my 2008 white paper, On Becoming a Profession, I'll take this opportunity to jump in on the subject of educational standards, teacher qualifications and tiered licensing in the massage therapy field:
We have a field that is large in number, but inconsistent in the nature and quality of services delivered. Regulation now exists in many states, but there is no common scope of practice definition among them. Likewise, there are no common curriculum standards. And while instructors are generally knowledegable about their subject areas, most have not been trained in the theory and methodology of teaching itself. Because of this, it is difficult to aspire to some kind of "higher standard" for the massage therapy field when the existing foundation is not solid.
There are good examples of tiered credentialing in other fields, but they are based on consistent training and regulatory standards where all schools are accredited by a single body. The Nursing field has the progression from Certified Nursing Assistant (60 hours), to Licensed Practical Nurse (2 years college), to Registered Nurse (3-4 years college), to Master's degree-level specialties, to Doctoral-level Nurse Practitioners.
The tiers in the Physical Therapy field begin with PT Aide (HS diploma only, generally not licensed), to Licensed PT Assistant (2-year Associate's degree program from an accredited college of PT), to the full Licensed Physical Therapist. That entry level requirement used to be a Bachelors degree from an accredited college of PT, but the American Physical Therapy Association raised it to a Master's degree in 2002. The bar is being raised again to a Doctoral degree by 2015!
As it exists today, the massage therapy domain falls somewhere between a CNA and LPN in Nursing, and between a PT Aide and PT Assistant. Our primary focus needs to be on getting a congruent set of entry-level education and licensure standards in place, and improving the quality of teaching in massage therapy schools. We can only build from the ground up -- not the top down. The effort to create parity in regulation should be led by the Federation of State Massage Therapy Boards, which is the natural agency to establish a Model Practice Act. This would be used as a template for the ongoing government relations efforts conducted by ABMP and AMTA.
The Alliance for Massage Therapy Education has launched a National Teacher Education Standards Project, which is a five-phase, multi-year effort. The TESP will first establish a set of core competencies for instructors, and then support the development of training resources needed to get the core of teachers in our field up to that baseline standard.
While these foundational projects are being conducted, the massage therapy field can look towards the development of a set of post-graduate certification programs in well-defined areas of practice. Specialty certification programs are the accepted method in other mature health care professions for demonstrating competency beyond the entry level of licensure. This would be a clearer and more achievable path than tiered licensing for massage therapists.
The only way we will accomplish these broad goals is to work together -- with the full acknowledgment that those within our field hold a multitude of different beliefs and treatment philosophies.
Rick Rosen, MA, LMBT
Executive Director, Alliance for Massage Therapy EducationP.S. Thank you to Laura for starting this thread with a call for civility in our various discussions.
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Permalink Reply by The Rev on
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Thanks for jumping in Rick. I'm not always in agreement, but have always respected your position and your contributions to the field.
With that said, there are many of us that will not forgive never mind forget the actions of the largest nonprofit and the first political machine in our trade, for leaving the table and imposing their 500 hour banner and NCE on the rest of the trade via legislative efforts. I am one of those folk.
It is unfortunate the vast majority of the folk in our trade does not have the history or never had the opportunity of entering the field via a tiered/modular education and have no understanding of the difference between a 3 or 9 month intense 720 hour program as opposed to that training being spread out over a couple of years with the benefit of integrating practice (not just clinic without income) with the classroom.
As I have mentioned in the past, if the requirements to enter this trade were in place when I was given a "turn-key" opportunity, I would never have been able to get in. The expense would have been nearly impossible to afford. I have known many over the years that would have been in the same boat.
I believe going back to trainings of less than 500 hours would be much more for creating a workforce of folk looking to hold a job that pays fairly well that would allow for those holding the licenses to be able to delegate the hands on part of the work much like a dental hygienist takes the burden of basic dental care off the dentist or a PT assistant frees up the full fledged PT.
Enough for now! It's a beauty of a day here in Berkeley CA and mi' lady is calling to get me up and out for an urban hike! Onward and upward...
Please hit the 'Like' button for Flammia Enterprises at http://tinyurl.com/2bz99uxRobert Flammia
http://tinyurl.com/2bz99ux (Please hit the 'Like' button!)http://www.linkedin.com/pub/6/a20/2b5
http://flammiasintegratedtouch.blogspot.com/
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Don't ask yourself what the world needs;
ask yourself what makes you come alive.
And then go and do that. Because what
the world needs is people who have come alive.
- Howard Thurman
Don't believe everything you think!
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Permalink Reply by Vlad on
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I find it even harder to go along with some of the suggestions when I consider professionals in other fields. For example, over the years, I have earned a considerable amount of money through IT (information technology) and management consulting. The people with whom I have worked, may or may not have had degrees - I don't think anyone ever checked. The path I took to enter that field was a four-year college, but others who did not have my background were as good and at times better that I was. One of my colleagues was previously a social worker who had taken a project management certification course and now was in IT, another was an accountant who took a 16-week web development program, another one had been in the military and took a Microsoft certification program. These are people who worked on mission critical systems, some of the systems in Dr. Oz's surgery room could have been developed by them. As long as they acted professionally, they were treated as professionals. I never heard anyone wondering about becoming a profession.. Why the difference?
I know what you're trying to say here and I can relate. I worked as a software engineer for a long time and in that field it was a case of not even being aware of whether another work colleague had letters after their name (most did, but it didn't really matter in the workplace - it mattered in interviews).
What mattered was - could you do the job, the quality of your work, did you write good code and could you get on with others in a professional manner,
As for differences between the two:
First off, in IT or software we're dealing with clear evidence that someone could do a job. Your stuff either worked or it didn't. Secondly, everyone could see it. It was exposed. Other engineers looked at your code all the time. In fact, we reviewed each others work and would aim to find bugs/problems early on in the software cycle since it would save money in the long run. Good engineers wanted their work critiqued since it would mean less work for them down the road.
Third, old technology was dumped for the new. It was striving for excellence. There was no "tradition" and if you didn't have the ability to drop the old and take on the new, then you would lose out and there would be no progress in it at all.
The only thing that I see where there is a common theme is "is a therapist acting in a professional manner", but that to me doesn't make a profession in my mind. Paying attention to "are we really aiming to tell the truth in all we do and are we making sure we have the skills to be able to know what is truthful" is what we don't have at the minute. It's a subjective issue though , but then we're dealing with people and not machines. Just because our clients believe we're doing a great job shouldn't be enough. Subjectivity makes a lot of things cloudy - as does money.
I know what you're saying though - just wanted to nod in your direction, Emmanuel.
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Good points Vlad!
Vlad is now roadkill said:I find it even harder to go along with some of the suggestions when I consider professionals in other fields. For example, over the years, I have earned a considerable amount of money through IT (information technology) and management consulting. The people with whom I have worked, may or may not have had degrees - I don't think anyone ever checked. The path I took to enter that field was a four-year college, but others who did not have my background were as good and at times better that I was. One of my colleagues was previously a social worker who had taken a project management certification course and now was in IT, another was an accountant who took a 16-week web development program, another one had been in the military and took a Microsoft certification program. These are people who worked on mission critical systems, some of the systems in Dr. Oz's surgery room could have been developed by them. As long as they acted professionally, they were treated as professionals. I never heard anyone wondering about becoming a profession.. Why the difference?
I know what you're trying to say here and I can relate. I worked as a software engineer for a long time and in that field it was a case of not even being aware of whether another work colleague had letters after their name (most did, but it didn't really matter in the workplace - it mattered in interviews).
What mattered was - could you do the job, the quality of your work, did you write good code and could you get on with others in a professional manner,
As for differences between the two:
First off, in IT or software we're dealing with clear evidence that someone could do a job. Your stuff either worked or it didn't. Secondly, everyone could see it. It was exposed. Other engineers looked at your code all the time. In fact, we reviewed each others work and would aim to find bugs/problems early on in the software cycle since it would save money in the long run. Good engineers wanted their work critiqued since it would mean less work for them down the road.
Third, old technology was dumped for the new. It was striving for excellence. There was no "tradition" and if you didn't have the ability to drop the old and take on the new, then you would lose out and there would be no progress in it at all.
The only thing that I see where there is a common theme is "is a therapist acting in a professional manner", but that to me doesn't make a profession in my mind. Paying attention to "are we really aiming to tell the truth in all we do and are we making sure we have the skills to be able to know what is truthful" is what we don't have at the minute. It's a subjective issue though , but then we're dealing with people and not machines. Just because our clients believe we're doing a great job shouldn't be enough. Subjectivity makes a lot of things cloudy - as does money.
I know what you're saying though - just wanted to nod in your direction, Emmanuel.
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Just as some discussion fodder, I'm going to give an example of something that concerns me about the future of massage - about it's legitimacy and the incorporation of it into the healthcare arena and what constitutes a "profession".
I live in the Dallas suburbs and there's a huge chiropractic school here (which, incidentally, now has a massage program at it) and so there are a LOT of chiros in this area. Now, like most things, I think there are good chiros and not so good ones and I think that most people think that way. There are a lot in my area of town. A few of my clients go to one of them and he has an ionic foot bath. I'm sure most people have heard of these machines that are supposedly supposed to draw toxins from your feet - it's a complete rip off and it does nothing of the sort. Now, this chiropractor *may* not know that it's a quack machine, but he may also know it, preys on the ignorance of the public and uses it to make money. Is he a professional? He claims insurance for all his other work (including all the lovely rolling machines and other gadgets he has in his practice) but he doesn't claim for the foot soaking magical machine. How do his chiro buddies view him? Is he discrediting his profession by providing this are is he just a businessman? Do you think it right that insurance companies are giving him money for his other work - how good is his other *work* if he either didn't look into the credibility of his foot machine well enough or he did and spotted a money making opportunity by preying on the public's ignorance?
The chiropractic profession has a lot of hours of training, but still this sort of thing goes on.
If we (or even a % of us) are headed into the medical *profession*, I only hope there is some mechanism in place somewhere to prevent the same sort of behaviors in our area. I'm not sure how that could be done, but it should be something to keep in mind. The mighty dollar shouldn't be the main drive of any so called *profession* and if we're aiming for legitimacy and credibility, such practices probably would need to be nipped in the bud.
There are good chiros too though - I refer people to one of them in the area who actually uses a lot of stretching in his treatments. I wonder how many *good guys* there are though and I wonder what the good guys think of the quack machine owners.
Just throwing it out there.....
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Permalink Reply by Stephen Jeffrey on
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Vlad is now roadkill said:Just as some discussion fodder, I'm going to give an example of something that concerns me about the future of massage - about it's legitimacy and the incorporation of it into the healthcare arena and what constitutes a "profession".
I live in the Dallas suburbs and there's a huge chiropractic school here (which, incidentally, now has a massage program at it) and so there are a LOT of chiros in this area. Now, like most things, I think there are good chiros and not so good ones and I think that most people think that way. There are a lot in my area of town. A few of my clients go to one of them and he has an ionic foot bath. I'm sure most people have heard of these machines that are supposedly supposed to draw toxins from your feet - it's a complete rip off and it does nothing of the sort. Now, this chiropractor *may* not know that it's a quack machine, but he may also know it, preys on the ignorance of the public and uses it to make money. Is he a professional? He claims insurance for all his other work (including all the lovely rolling machines and other gadgets he has in his practice) but he doesn't claim for the foot soaking magical machine. How do his chiro buddies view him? Is he discrediting his profession by providing this are is he just a businessman? Do you think it right that insurance companies are giving him money for his other work - how good is his other *work* if he either didn't look into the credibility of his foot machine well enough or he did and spotted a money making opportunity by preying on the public's ignorance?
The chiropractic profession has a lot of hours of training, but still this sort of thing goes on.
If we (or even a % of us) are headed into the medical *profession*, I only hope there is some mechanism in place somewhere to prevent the same sort of behaviors in our area. I'm not sure how that could be done, but it should be something to keep in mind. The mighty dollar shouldn't be the main drive of any so called *profession* and if we're aiming for legitimacy and credibility, such practices probably would need to be nipped in the bud.
There are good chiros too though - I refer people to one of them in the area who actually uses a lot of stretching in his treatments. I wonder how many *good guys* there are though and I wonder what the good guys think of the quack machine owners.
Just throwing it out there.....
Hi Rosemary, have you met the guy ? he could just be using it to relax his clients before using manipulations.?
I will often massage a client's feet before treating the spine, treating the reflex points aids the relaxation of the client and gets me better results that are palpatable.
If you consider him to be acting unprofessionaly then maybe you should do as Ravesara sugguests.
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Permalink Reply by Laura Allen on
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Ezekial,
In my opinion, people are free to do energy work whether they're in a clinic or under a tree, WHEN the client wants it, if they asked for it and it has been discussed with them. One of the primary rules of energy work is that you don't do it on people who don't want it. Therefore, if you sit down at the massage table and proceed to do ten or fifteen minutes of energy work out of an hour massage when that hour of massage is what the person booked and paid for, and it has not been discussed with them prior that you're going to do it, that is totally unethical --they may not want it or believe in it, and if people are seeking an energy work session instead of a massage, they will normally seek that out or ask at the time of booking.
LA
Ezekiel OBrien said:
I have been thinking about the posts upthread that say energy work during a session is unethical when someone asks for a massage. I would agree for a clinic but not so much for a private practice. Also watched the short video Laura posted on, "Why clients leave." I have to say I am a little unclear with what the definition of energy work is. Is cranial sacral in the mix? Like most people commenting here, excepting the pure scientists and clinic owners, the best feedback we recieve to what works and what doesn't is observing our own practices. About 75 percent of my income comes from regulars who I have had on a weekly, bi-monthly or monthly period for a span of 1-5 years. 95 percent of my massage are 90 minutes. I employ Cranial Sacral or some Reiki like hands on work between through the 80 to 90 minute mark of every massage after myofascial, deep tissue, trigger points swedish for the first 80 minutes. I do this for a couple of reasons, first, my hands appreciate the rest as most of my clients are larger men who request deep work and, second, they are almost all highly motivated stressed individuals who can use the unwinding that these lighter touch therapies seem provide (most fall asleep.) Since implementing the energy work upon return from a Cranial workshop at Esalen two years ago I have had nothing but positive feedback--yelp reviews that make me blush because of their claims--and most importantly a continuing stream of income. I assume if they felt shorted or that the inclusion of energy work was untenable they would have left long ago. I am sure that some people have left, but it is my practice not theirs and there are plenty of therapist waiting for clients who will go deep from bell to bell. That I did not have to be fit into a box is what initially and attracted me to and continues to sustain my interest in massage.
Emmanuel Bistas said:
There have been some excellent posts here and I have way too busy to follow until now. Just a couple thoughts:
Re Reiki and other energy work, it has never bothered me if people practice it. I never considered it 'massage therapy' but always saw it as part of 'bodywork', the bigger tent that includes lots of other stuff. I think it would be very difficult to include energy modalities in the scope of work of massage therapists (at least in the U.S.) because how does one convince a legislator that it works? And if energy does not exist according to some, how can practicing it can hurt people? If you say it can hurt people then you have accepted it exists. So, if Reiki does not work and Dr. Oz has it in the surgery room, then Reiki is no different than a picture on the wall. Why it would make him less of a surgeon to have a picture on the wall?
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he could just be using it to relax his clients before using manipulations.?
I will often massage a client's feet before treating the spine, treating the reflex points aids the relaxation of the client and gets me better results that are palpatable.
If you consider him to be acting unprofessionaly then maybe you should do as Ravesara sugguests.
He's telling people that the thing is drawing toxins from their feet and he's charging money for it.
I don't think you're getting my point, Stephen. It's not "what I consider" that really matters - he's ripping people off.
Unless you're saying that he *is* acting professionally therefore his profession isn't hurt by his actions?
There obviously is no mechanism in place in the chiropractic profession that prevents this and it's a case of "if the public are buying into it, then what's the harm?". If there is no mechanism in place within ours, then we're probably just heading the same road.
I doubt that anything will happen about this though. It's a by product of the ultimate consumerist society - keep everyone dumb and make money from it. Self interest comes first and objectivism rules.
Oh well........
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