Massage Therapy Body of Knowledge

Comment

Comment by Mike Hinkle on October 23, 2009 at 2:36pm

I agree Noel. If the state licenses people, they would be resposible. The state will then turn on the person. And I can already hear the "scope of practice" argument coming. Lawyers will have a field day.

Comment by Noel Norwick on October 23, 2009 at 2:31pm

Mike: I'm an MBA and shiatsu instructor (who supervises an intern clinic), so my guess is NOT A LEGAL OPINION.

The court/jurors will like not "see the separation" if one was/is operating under a massage business/practitioners license. Regardless, if the alleged "something" happened during a massage/bodywork/polarity session, I suspect that one's insurance carrier would likely settle rather than litigate the question.

If you know someone who has had to defend such a case, would love to know the outcome and reasoning.

Comment by Mike Hinkle on October 23, 2009 at 2:13pm

And here outlines our problem. Keith says BOK MUST contain and Carl wants options for his situation! Then others want their options. I see it as if you were taught it in school, it is part of massage. That includes reflexology also.

Okay, if energy/massage workers use both modalities and/or numerous modalities; something happens during the massage, through whichever work; the client sues and the therapist simply says "I was doing energy (or whatever modality isn't governed) work, when that occured" (which was deleted from the governance of the BOK), now what? The state licensed this person. Will the court/jurors see the separation?

Does bodywork need to be another field or is it inclusive?

Comment by Keith Eric Grant on October 23, 2009 at 1:57pm

For those interested in such things, see my 2 Oct 2009 comments made on Ariana Vincent's group on Legislation. At the end of the comments, I provide a number of links on effectiveness of education. I also point to my September 2009 column on "Why most CE courses are dead on delivery". In general, I do not believe that CE is being used effectively to maintain specific, necessary, competencies. A number of the references in my column are to questions raised on effectiveness/purpose of CE requirements in the medical profession.

Comment by Carl W. Brown on October 23, 2009 at 1:46pm

Keith, I respect you as a very rational person. I am crazy to think that line 42 states that the document is designed to be a list of whit is mandatory as a entry level practitioner? I know that we both also think that any document listing mandatory KSAs also need to specify a level of competency for each one.

Would you object to the list if it were just a list of options that people could practice and the document clearly stated that that was its intent?

Comment by Kim Goral on October 23, 2009 at 1:44pm

Oops, I see I cannot edit my post. In the first paragraph that should read that doctors should NOT need to know a specific therapist to refer out to.

Comment by Kim Goral on October 23, 2009 at 1:40pm

Keith- Excellent post re: credibility.
I think CEs are a great way to expand on knowledge learned in school, and obviously we all have different areas of massage and bodywork that we are drawn to, but if we are looking for referrals and respect from the medical field as a WHOLE, we all need to be on the same page as a WHOLE, and I think that the BOK is a fantastic way to set the standard for that. Will medical professionals inevitably form some type of relationship with individual therapists? Sure, sometimes. But they should necessarily NEED to know to send their patients to Jane Doe- they should be able to say "go get a massage" and feel confident that anyone whom their patient will seek out for services will be competant and effective. All the research in the world showing how effective massage therapy is, is useless if there are not competent therapists out there to perform the work.

Mike, I have seen little attack of the BOK as a whole. Are there certain areas people disagree on? Sure. That's expected. But I think if we all take a step back, the vast majority of us are on the same page and are fighting for the same thing- a higher standardization of our profession.

As far as energy work goes (Reiki, Polarity, any name you wish to give it), regardless of how I feel about its effectiveness or lackthereof (and as I stated before, I am undecided at this point in time), I do not think it is massage therapy and henceforth should NOT be included in the BOK. One can be a massage therapist and not an energy worker, and vice-versa; I see little benefit in combining the two fields.

Just my 2 cents! :)

Comment by Carl W. Brown on October 23, 2009 at 1:36pm

Mike, I apologize for calling the BOK dead. I think it can be fixed. But I still don’t understand how you can state the a list is both “Competency Requirements” and yet each and every one of the KSAs are optional. How can it be both requirements and options at the same time? I think that requirement and options are both useful but for different purposes.

I started this group so that we can hopefully come to a consensus and develop a useful tool.

I understand that there are different views on CEs. I believe that people feel that we should follow the lead of the medical profession but it really disturbs me when I see people take classes just because they have to. Again this is just a personal opinion.

I agree with you that energy exists and is a very powerful tool. Until I experienced it by actually doing things that made no scientific sense I would have agreed that it is just so much quackery. I also felt that learning new things could only benefit you but through experience I have found that some training and experience has detrimental effects. It started when I returned to the U.S. after living in Brazil. While there I expected that I was different and would not totally fit in, but the ideas and concepts learned there made it difficult to fit in here as well. After studying 140 hours of Swedish it took me about three years to unlearn it and get back on track. The Berrywork on the other hand while it is not what I do has proven invaluable. Other courses that I have taken while interesting have had varying degrees of impact form none to minor, but it was the Swedish and deep tissue that not only did not contribute but was detrimental. I know that this is hard to imagine and do not blame anyone who does not understand, like I do not blame people who do not understand energy work.

It sounds like we just are not communicating so I was thinking of spending the time to take your BOK and put together an example of what might be considered requirements. Maybe taking a different tack might open up a better mutual understanding of how we are miscommunicating.

I suspect that I am not alone. Why would others be upset about the inclusion of energy work if this were just a document describing what is possible? When I look for definitions of the work requirement what I see is “requirement - A condition or capability needed by a user to solve a problem or achieve an objective that must be met or possessed by a system or system component to satisfy a contract, standard, specification, or other formally imposed document.” I don’t see “The BOK forces no one to do anything”. I also don’t understand why you would not want to change the wording to match your intentions so that others will understand what you mean as well.

The massage and bodywork community is divergent in terms of experience, world view and they way they think. To be successful you must be understood by the entire profession. It si not an easy task and reminds me of an assignment I had of porting a German database for use in Japan. Some of the original documentation was translated from German to Japanese and then from Japanese to English. The sentence structure was perfect the meaning was gone.

As Chip suggested I have posted some suggestions on the web site but I am stuck because the document as a whole makes no sense to me.

Comment by Christopher A. Moyer on October 23, 2009 at 1:34pm

Oh, and a clarification - Bodhi didn't write that article, I just got the link from him. (Bodhi has written other good MT research articles, though, including the Cochrane review on massage and mechanical neck disorder - quite an undertaking!)

Comment by Christopher A. Moyer on October 23, 2009 at 1:31pm

Thanks Bert. I accept, and I attribute a lot of any misunderstanding to the nature of an internet forum. The lack of contextual clues and real-time communication can make it difficult to understand each other's tone.

Also, I'd like to take this opportunity to state unambiguously that any skepticism or even criticism that I have for a particular theory or modality does not extend to individuals who subscribe to that theory or modality. I actually have some very good friends and colleagues whose beliefs and practices are far different from my own.

I'm in the process of proposing a debate or discussion (still in the planning stage) on the place of energy work in massage therapy for the upcoming massage therapy research conference in Seattle, and have probably identified an "opponent" in a fellow researcher, practitioner, and educator who is a proponent of an energy medicine modality. It's not a sure thing yet, but I hope we can get it together and that any of you who are at the conference will consider checking it out...

-CM

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