Massage Therapy Body of Knowledge

Comment

Comment by Carl W. Brown on October 7, 2009 at 2:41pm

Mike if a person studied acupressure in China do you think that they would necessary have an understanding of what a spleen or liver does in terms of Western medicine. I don’t think they would be taught muscles especially the Latin names only surface anatomy to be able to locate meridian and points. Would the lack of this knowledge render him incompetent? If not they way bar them from practice?

“Practice Acts are to protect the public. States are mandated to protect the public. This is the method they use. They don't care if you approve or support them. It is law and how we do things in the US. That is beyond the BOK Scope of Practice.”

It sounds that you agree with me that the way states license is stupid. If the laws are wrong don’t you think we need to push to make them truly reflect our industry? The lawmakers only know our industry by what we give them. When we come up with tests like the NCE which is not a test of minimum competency and is not a certification of anything other than you can pass the test because it has never been validated against actual performance. When the AMTA tells the world that massage is dangerous if you do not pass the test what are lawmakers to think. Do not blame them for implementing the industry’s distortion of the truth.

If you feel that this is not for the lawmakers what problem does the BOK address?

Comment by Carl W. Brown on October 7, 2009 at 2:23pm

Mike it looks like you want a list of all the KSAs involved in all modalities of massage. But this is a bucket list. You only cover a selected subset of modalities. Much of this country thinks of massage as a form of recreation. To leave out spa services is wrong if you want to define all of massage not just therapeutic versions. Do that mean that you are going to recommend that if not done for therapeutic reasons that we should not license massage?

You also exclude CST because you do not cover intraoral or bone work.

Speaking of cavities one of my teachers also taught Tantric massage. At first I was shocked but then I came to understand that although misused, it is a powerful healing art.

I see this as following the same failure that our colleges and universities have. I can remember having a choice of taking two semesters to learn COBOL programming or 5 days from IBM. Today people are missing opportunities because of the time and money that it takes to go to college. Yes it is a nice idea to force people to have a liberal education but give them two courses in history and they will cram to remember the dates for the test and never learn the lesions of history.

Fortunately when I work in data procession the schools never got control of education people. The innovation was in the business world and by the time the schools got the courses the material was out of date. As a manager, I saw that a college education was useful if you wanted a person who could work within the system and not make waves. But if you wanted someone who thought outside of the box it was at best a determent.

I pursued three majors at school. The first was physics. I found that it was not about learning physics but rather playing the game. In one lab course you did not get an A unless you were a frat member can could copy word for word the assignments that got As before. In another lab it focused on statistics. Doing statistics with paper and pencil was a test of how accurate your basic arithmetic was. The straw that broke the camels back was after my freshman year I got a job in the physics lab helping graduate students with their doctoral thesis.

Next I majored in psychology but soon discovered that it was missing something. The science fit into the academic mold but learning how to read people and dealing with the right-brain learning was not so I was learning facts but not how to do the work.

Finally I went back to school to learn business. It was a accelerated course so they allowed not only pervious college credits but life experience and outside courses. I wrote a set a papers covering my outside experiences and courses. One course I took was IBM’s project management course which covered in 5 days the entire business curriculum that we got at the college. When I submitted my notebook the teacher lost it and I had not make carbon copies of my papers. They gave me an extension but doe to critical pressures at work I did not have time to redo the work besides I had the training and all it I would get was a piece of paper.

Increasing the cost of learning massage does not help. This profession has one of the highest drop out rates. People find that they do not enjoy touching the sick, inform and elderly. It is also had to make a living especially if you are a man. Also there are no measures of what it takes to perform some from of massage with a minimum proficiency.

A better way of exposing people to different modalities is to encourage people to trade. The adventurous will explore and the plodders we never go anywhere even if you push them.

College educations would be better if people had to take a break in their education a do some real work. It lends a different perspective to learning. The same is true with massage. A student who has had 1000 hours of real life experience working with bodies is a very different student.

Without a set of standards one has no idea if what they have learned is actually a minimal workable subset of skills. There is no way that one can be expected to master all of the bodywork modalities before one can practice and without a guide, no idea what subset and to what skill levels are appropriate. This also means that you cannot use it to develops a test for minimum competency.

Comment by Mike Hinkle on October 7, 2009 at 1:21pm

Practice Acts are to protect the public. States are mandated to protect the public. This is the method they use. They don't care if you approve or support them. It is law and how we do things in the US. That is beyond the BOK Scope of Practice.

"I feel that the purpose of state licensing is to take control of massage away from cities and counties and the reason that cities and counties license massage is not because to how we practice but a misuse of the word “massage”. Practices act are overkill just to protect the term massage."

Here you are right. Cities and counties (especially in your state of California) have "butchered" the term "massage" and all corresponding terminology. It is time for the industry to form a BOK, Standards Acts, Title Acts and a Model Practice Act. Without these, states are not protected to allow portability. The protection is not to claim or steal "massage" but rather protect states that may be sued for not knowing certain standards. If the standards are the same, everyone knows them and the industry will grow.

Sorry but states aren't going to come over and prove anything to you. The law is already there and it protects the state. Protecting the public doesn't just mean "a client". It also means the state residents that are going to have to pay that lawsuit judgement!

Cities and counties can enforce prostitution anytime they want. Prostitution is illegal. It has nothing to do with massage. I don't see them going after taxi cab companies or bars with all the prostitution going on in those industries. No matter where it takes place, it is illegal. Arrest those guilty and let massage therapists do what they do, massage!

Comment by Carl W. Brown on October 7, 2009 at 12:40pm

Bert “Regarding 'Title Acts', they are little more than a single state monopoly of words describing an advertised service and I cannot see how that would be of benefit to our profession.”

I feel that the purpose of state licensing is to take control of massage away from cities and counties and the reason that cities and counties license massage is not because to how we practice but a misuse of the word “massage”. Practices act are overkill just to protect the term massage.

Practice acts should be there to protect people from harm and should be based on documented harm. Our licensing system do no such thing, instead it prescribes training and testing for things that have never been related to harm. It is a sham to keep people out of the profession and make the schools lots of money. It cones from people who believe that if we make it harder to become an MT we will have more respect from the medical community. This is a joke.

I will support practice acts when someone can actually prove their case that massage practiced without proper training has a significant chance of causing permanent harm. It it is only specific modalities that cause harm then license thouse practices not the whole of massage.

If cities what to enforce the all people of claim to offer massage need to be licensed then it does not matter if it is a title act or practice act. Besides the only what they can cite someone for the practice portions is to actually catch them in the act and if they can do that then they can catch prostitution just as easily.

Comment by Mike Hinkle on October 7, 2009 at 11:36am

I know but if there is one central (accepted) Practice Act and one central set of Title Acts that state boards and legislators use and/or develop, we would have a port system. Congress can't but a unified effort by state boards to do this can. Keep watching, there is always a way!

Comment by Bert Davich on October 7, 2009 at 6:49am

Hi Mike,
Title Acts do not port between states no do they regulate who can practice. That would be a "Practice Act" which also are state by state and do not 'port'.
Here is a link to a pretty good article explaining title acts vs practice acts. Apparently to date only 19 US jurisdictions have title acts and only 6 have practice acts. To make our profession portable we would have to get legislation passed state by state and then get each to recognize the others, or get congress to pass a regulation (fat chance).
http://www.idc-ca.org/titleact.html

This is a blog site by a therapist with commentary on title acts for massage therapy.
http://www.mckinnonmassage.com/mcktouch/?p=31

Comment by Mike Hinkle on October 6, 2009 at 11:17pm

That's a shame that presentation, as a survey, was sent out as their opening. Let's see if it improves. They have a lot of work to do.

Comment by Mike Hinkle on October 6, 2009 at 11:13pm

I really can't speak for or against it yet. They have a lot of work to do. I hope if they chose to go this route, that they form a group of therapists to lead the task force. If this is pressed upon therapists, I think a lot will drop the company entirely. I would hate to see that happen. I, too am NCB.

I think they should start with some sort of volunteer advanced certification for those trying to really understand difficult modalities. But they would have to carry a title that would benefit the therapist and the education would have to far surpass what is out there now. Both are challenges, that need to be addressed prior to any launch of even a committee formation. We will see what they formulate in the upcoming months.

Comment by Darcy Neibaur on October 6, 2009 at 10:48pm

I also did not like the survey the NCB put out for Advance Certification nor the choices for answers that were given. I also put other with explanations where it was allowed. Some questions did not have that option. it was not a good survey in my opinion. Now back to the BOK...

Comment by Bert Davich on October 6, 2009 at 10:34pm

Hi Mike,
I totally agree with you on A&P. Without a good working knowledge of A&P, a touch therapist (not to include pure energy work) is qualified to give a client a rub and not much more.

I find the advanced certification proposed by the NCB to be of some concern due to the 'survey' which I participated in which funneled (survey) results by omitting choices/answers to questions that clearly should have been present. This has also been expressed by other therapist's in other discussion groups. Some of the multiple choice answers were obviously originated by administrative wonks and did not include options they did not want to be on the table. The fact that they included an option to 'write in' your opinion is worthless (like write-ins for president) as most people will simply choose an option they can 'click' rather than take the time to write in a mindful opinion, (even if they have one). The NCB will then take the position that the majority of survey takers voted for XYZ. The few who actually took the time and trouble (which I did) to pick 'other' and write in an answer will be dismissed as 'a small minority' on any specific choice.

I am also concerned with the recent positions of the NCB with regard to state testing and qualification. They lost their bid to retain control, which might not have been subject to erosion had they worked more toward National Certification standards and less for their own monopoly. I hope they get it right now. I am certified by the NCBTMB.

In defense of the NCBTMB it should be recognized that with all their clout, The AMA still has not been able to create a situation where a physician can practice in any state with a national certification. They must still be licensed by the individual state. (There are some exceptions) The fact that we are not looked upon as 'health care' practitioners may allow this to possibly happen in our profession, but the NCB better act fast because this BOK thing and changing attitudes are going to change the public and political perception, and once they think of as as 'health care' then it will never happen due to State politics.

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