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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: 1081
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Marilyn St.John on
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Ravensara,
I'm glad you were able to find it! Yes, I realize my post is only a hypothesis, and I'm still learning to stumble through these sites to locate things like the whole paper...can you get me there, or link it to me, or post it here in case anyone else is interested? I'd sure like to read see the entire thing. Many thanks.
For the record, I'm a Reiki practitioner (as well as an MT.) I actually DO have an interest in discovering why I see the results I see with Reiki. 'Satiable curiosity always gets the better of me...
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Permalink Reply by Laura Allen on
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You're really a big teddy bear, Christopher. You just scare the crap out of people sometimes :)
Christopher A. Moyer said:
Wait, what? <peeks in trousers>
Damn scientists need proof for everything.
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Permalink Reply by Matthew D. Stewart on
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I've heard that massage can be good for relieving tension. What's the evidence on that? *said tongue firming in cheek*
Daniel Cohen said:
At least there is a humor break in the sometimes tense discussion.
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Permalink Reply by Daniel Cohen on
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Define the tension. We no longer accept generalities. No matter how good it feels in general.
Matthew Stewart said:
I've heard that massage can be good for relieving tension. What's the evidence on that? *said tongue firming in cheek*
Daniel Cohen said:
At least there is a humor break in the sometimes tense discussion.
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Is only the conversation tense? I tend to get tense when the conversation gets tense.
I was being quite general, wasn't I?
Muscular tension I suppose, although I get a little anxious that a flame war will erupt.
Daniel Cohen said:
Define the tension. We no longer accept generalities. No matter how good it feels in general.
Matthew Stewart said:
I've heard that massage can be good for relieving tension. What's the evidence on that? *said tongue firming in cheek*
Daniel Cohen said:
At least there is a humor break in the sometimes tense discussion.
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Permalink Reply by Walt Fritz, PT on
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Alexei ask me to chime in (as a PT working in more of an MT world), and I never mind giving my 2 cents (usually I dump out my pocket of change), but can someone catch me up on what this thread is all about? The first post referenced another thread, but I did not see it named. Anyopne want to give me the Cliff Notes version?
Thanks,.
Walt
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Permalink Reply by Alexei Levine on
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Ravensara, respectfully, you are wrong about PT's knowing less than MT's about massage. Of course the scope of practice of PT is much broader than that of MT, as it includes everything that MT's do, plus the active side of therapies. (I'm a PT and an LMT). Because of this extremely broad scope of practice there are many PT's who specialize in the active or analytical side of things, and aren't interested in cultivating their manual skills, so that leads to some confusion about what PT's are doing these days. In the 90's it may have been true that PT's were less well versed in their manual skills and knowledge, but it's no longer true. And even then at all the cranio-sacral and MFR programs PT's seemed to outnumber MT's. I'm not certain about that perhaps Walt Fritz could weigh in on that point. These days go to any program or seminar in any type of advanced bodywork or massage, and PT's are present in large numbers. And in the USA, PT's know a lot more about neurorehabilitation than MT's. PT's routinely do this kind of work in all the major rehab hospitals in the USA, while it is extremely rare to find an MT doing that kind of work here. Importantly, in the USA, PT's have more legal rights in general to perform this type of work in the clinical setting, and more rights to insurance reimbursement. PT's and Chiropracters also have large and powerful political machines that will fight to the last drop of blood to resist giving up any of their monopolistic rights to this type of work to anyone else. That is why I'm encouraging MT's not to throw away all the stuff that differentiates them from PT's. As Kris Kelley stated these professions can be viewed as vehicles to get us where we want to go, or do the kind of work we want to do. I agree, and that is why I encourage people who want to do that kind of neurorehab to become PT's rather than try to change the entire profession of MT into a pale imitation of PT.
Please don't get angry and start flaming me for saying this. And everybody else please don't pile on me, I'm just reporting what I see from my perspective as a PT and MT in the USA. I have deep respect for all the great work done by the amazingly intelligent and capable MT's I've had the pleasure of meeting on here :) And I like, and value research :) And Ravensara, you seem like a great guy. I think of this forum as a discussion amongst friends and colleagues supporting each other and the profession, not an antagonistic debate. Personally, I've embraced MT even more than PT.
Ravensara Travillian said:
Because we know more about massage than PTs do, we can work with the clients to tailor the massage to their needs. It's not just executing a prescribed routine.
One of my clients in the Refugee Clinic was a soldier on the losing side of a civil war in his country. Despite his best efforts, the other faction succeeded in breaking away and establishing their own nation. He came into the clinic complaining that half of his body was missing.
There is no ready-made massage prescription for *that* complaint. I worked actively with the client and the psychologists to develop a treatment plan for him that used massage to show that he could feel the parts of his body that he claimed were missing.
I don't think PTs do that kind of massage, am I right?
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Permalink Reply by Lee Edelberg on
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Alexei,
That's a cogent description of what PT's do here in the States. I learned something!
Given the variety of modalities practiced by MT's and other bodyworkers (swedish, thai, myofascial work, polarity therapy, reiki, feldenkreis, zero balancing, trager, rolfing, on and on) it doesn't make sense to try to make everyone conform to a single model.
So, I like your suggestion that people consider becoming PT's if their interests lie in medical settings/applications. Or someone could simply participate in ongoing training as an MT and study whatever it is they would like to study.
Cheers...Lee
Alexei Levine said:Ravensara, respectfully, you are wrong about PT's knowing less than MT's about massage. Of course the scope of practice of PT is much broader than that of MT, as it includes everything that MT's do, plus the active side of therapies. (I'm a PT and an LMT). Because of this extremely broad scope of practice there are many PT's who specialize in the active or analytical side of things, and aren't interested in cultivating their manual skills, so that leads to some confusion about what PT's are doing these days. In the 90's it may have been true that PT's were less well versed in their manual skills and knowledge, but it's no longer true. And even then at all the cranio-sacral and MFR programs PT's seemed to outnumber MT's. I'm not certain about that perhaps Walt Fritz could weigh in on that point. These days go to any program or seminar in any type of advanced bodywork or massage, and PT's are present in large numbers. And in the USA, PT's know a lot more about neurorehabilitation than MT's. PT's routinely do this kind of work in all the major rehab hospitals in the USA, while it is extremely rare to find an MT doing that kind of work here. Importantly, in the USA, PT's have more legal rights in general to perform this type of work in the clinical setting, and more rights to insurance reimbursement. PT's and Chiropracters also have large and powerful political machines that will fight to the last drop of blood to resist giving up any of their monopolistic rights to this type of work to anyone else. That is why I'm encouraging MT's not to throw away all the stuff that differentiates them from PT's. As Kris Kelley stated these professions can be viewed as vehicles to get us where we want to go, or do the kind of work we want to do. I agree, and that is why I encourage people who want to do that kind of neurorehab to become PT's rather than try to change the entire profession of MT into a pale imitation of PT.Please don't get angry and start flaming me for saying this. And everybody else please don't pile on me, I'm just reporting what I see from my perspective as a PT and MT in the USA. I have deep respect for all the great work done by the amazingly intelligent and capable MT's I've had the pleasure of meeting on here :) And I like, and value research :) And Ravensara, you seem like a great guy. I think of this forum as a discussion amongst friends and colleagues supporting each other and the profession, not an antagonistic debate. Personally, I've embraced MT even more than PT.
Ravensara Travillian said:
Because we know more about massage than PTs do, we can work with the clients to tailor the massage to their needs. It's not just executing a prescribed routine.
One of my clients in the Refugee Clinic was a soldier on the losing side of a civil war in his country. Despite his best efforts, the other faction succeeded in breaking away and establishing their own nation. He came into the clinic complaining that half of his body was missing.
There is no ready-made massage prescription for *that* complaint. I worked actively with the client and the psychologists to develop a treatment plan for him that used massage to show that he could feel the parts of his body that he claimed were missing.
I don't think PTs do that kind of massage, am I right?
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Lee Edelberg said:
Given the variety of modalities practiced by MT's and other bodyworkers (swedish, thai, myofascial work, polarity therapy, reiki, feldenkreis, zero balancing, trager, rolfing, on and on) it doesn't make sense to try to make everyone conform to a single model.
Yes, I used to believe that massage could find a way to fit under a single umbrella, but I don't believe that anymore. I expect that the industry will eventually split along the faith-based versus evidence-based fault line.
So, I like your suggestion that people consider becoming PT's if their interests lie in medical settings/applications.
If we wanted to become PTs, we would have become PTs. Fortunately, our clients understand the work we do, even if you don't.
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"Fortunately, our clients understand the work we do, even if you don't."
Ah.
As civility departs, so do I.....Lee
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You're the one trying to vote me off the island, yet I'm the uncivil one? How curious.
Lee Edelberg said:
"Fortunately, our clients understand the work we do, even if you don't."
Ah.
As civility departs, so do I.....Lee
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I'm not actually advocating for faith-based methods. What I'm saying is don't throw the baby out with the bath water, that is don't raise the entrance requirements for the profession so high that it will deter all those people who only want to do wellness massage, at least to start their career, from becoming massage therapists.
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