Massage Therapy Body of Knowledge

Comment

Comment by Bert Davich on September 30, 2009 at 7:55pm

Carl, I could not agree with you more. This appears to be already out of hand. Next thing is they will require that a technique be followed precisely regardless of differences in body types and physiology. The definitions of what massage is or is not made me cringe, especially the part about energy work. One of the worst things I see is they are creating a "body of law suit knowledge". Oh, and if I discuss the idea of a client removing sugar and processed flour from their diet and eating whole foods, am I guilty of 'prescribing' nutrition? I could go on and on, but it would take days to document the holes in this 'draft'. This is going to quash innovation and end up requiring hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars of CE credits to legally 'practice' some modality or another that a competent therapist could learn by receiving or from a DVD, and many of us are already practicing with success. I guess the CE vendors will love this.

Comment by Carl W. Brown on September 30, 2009 at 2:50pm

I think that massage should be taught in stages. It is more than book learning. I see people coming out of schools with the idea that they are now trained. They have learned the techniques and think that know what to do. They are ready to whip those muscles into submission. I think a better approach is to give them the basics and let them learn while they are still humble and in awe of the human body. In the long run I think they make better therapists. The BOK should address the basics and you can certainly develop other BOKs for more advanced modalities.

You can also develop future separate BOKs for Asian and other modalities which may be Swedish based or totally different from the Swedish BOK.

Comment by Carl W. Brown on September 30, 2009 at 2:32pm

Starting from the beginning some random comments:

Line 317 Obtaining consents is standard of practice not BOK

Line 319 Guided imagery. Do I need to master that as well as line 319 animal massage?

Line 328 Will women let most men practice breast massage especially in rural area where it is harder to find liberal people willing to be models?

Comment by Carl W. Brown on September 30, 2009 at 2:14pm

My main concern is that you do not limit the BOK is a specific type of massage or bodywork. A BOK so limited can enhance the practice within the focus and still allow innovation outside of that modality.

I worked in computers for 40 years before bodywork. In the late 1970 there was a push to license programmers requiring COBOL or FORTRAN knowledge as well as analytical skills. It would have made personal computing a crime. Can you imagine what it would be like today is we did not have personal computing?

I see the same thing happening to bodywork. I look at the MEBLx test and see questions on meridians and think who’s great idea was that? Or what would happen to a client if I did not know that the thymus was part of the lymphatic system?

Line 275 refers to energy fields. Can a person do massage and not believe in energetic work?

Comment by Mike Hinkle on September 30, 2009 at 1:35pm

I understand your "possible fears". What "specifically" do you disagree with in the first draft?

Comment by Carl W. Brown on September 30, 2009 at 1:07pm

Mike, you commented that it should be about licensing. There I disagree. I think we first need to define the profession and then look at licensing issues.

That tack takes you to the shopping list thinking. Instead we need to focus and what it takes to be good at the job. Part of that is to forget about what is being currently taught but instead look at what knowledge good therapist retain and what bad therapists need.

How many MTs do you know who study lost of anatomy and physiology and then forget it because they do not use it in their everyday work yet the give very good massages.

The shopping list also introduces knowledge that many people not only do not use but do not want to learn. If you are practicing medical massage do you really need to study Asian or energy systems? How many forms of bodywork are there out there and does one need to be competent in all of them to practice any of them?

I don’t believe that you will find a significant common BOK so I recommend that you start small and do it right. I think basic Swedish would be a good place to start. What do you need to do Swedish without deep tissue or sports? Leave out everything else including energy, Asian, cranial, myofascial etc. No you have something consistent enough to develop a meaningful BOK.

Look at things like anatomy and physiology and throw out 90% of it. When you are doing basic massage do you really need to know the role of ATP in cell metabolism to give a good massage?

By insisting on a BOK that is too wide you no only artificially raise the barrier to entry but you increase the liability of the practitioner because if they should have know then they are liable in case of negligence. Education if incomplete can also do harm. So what you include in the BOK should be complete and consistent.

You might want to take into account that once a person enters the profession they will likely study other modalities. So you might want to go beyond basic Swedish to include contraindication and precautions that are proven to cause harm. For example if a person want to study Asian I have seen too often showing a person just a piece of the puzzle. The point of Asian techniques is balance so if you do not understand and feel chi you should not attempt to manipulate chi because you may be unbalancing the person.

I also think that the BOK should be strictly that. You nicely lay out a separate scope of practice but mix in things that should be part of a standards of practice. Case in point getting a written consent for breast massage has noting to do with knowledge but rather how you conduct your business to stay out of trouble. I am a firm believer in a written standards of practice. They go together with a code of ethics to provide guidance to keep you out of trouble.

Comment by Mike Hinkle on September 29, 2009 at 11:36pm

Hi Carl,

I felt like you did until I read the draft. I am concerned, yet see the need for the profession to "move forward" and as you said, "done correctly, this could be a valuble tool to guide training and certification."

Yet those things are not the emphasis for the draft, I read. It is geared towards giving everyone a starting point for what the entry level licensee should know.

Were you at the meeting we had at National in Orlando? It was very well attended and most there, like me, were very skeptical at first. I have been to many governmental meetings and this first public forum was handled better than 95 % of the others. It was open and people did voice their opininons freely.

It is possible future drafts, additions and other things may become factors. Everyone is watching and can submit their input. This is not "the new law". It can be accepted, rejected or modified by states. You said, "lobby our associations to repudiate the paper". Our associations (at least for half of the industry) are the Stewards promoting this effort.

What specifically, in this draft, did you disagree with?

Comment by Carl W. Brown on September 29, 2009 at 8:13pm

I am concerned that the Massage Therapy Body of Knowledge Project (http://www.mtbok.org/ ) is getting out of hand and that their efforts will hurt not help the profession. Done correctly, this could be a very valuable tool to guide training and certification. Done wrong it will hurt, innovation, diversity and set artificially high barriers to entry but forcing people to study material that they will not use and in many cases even go against their belief system.
To develop a proper BOK one must either reduce the BOK to the common BOK or narrow the scope to a specific type of massage such as basic Swedish massages without deep tissue or sports medicine. These is no reason that we cannot have many different BOKs for different type of bodywork. For example Swedish and Asian massage have very little in common but each on its own has a BOK. We have hundreds perhaps thousands of different type of massage an bodywork and while there is overlap between different modalities there is very little in common other than the act of touch.
I believe that we need to bring the BOK discussion out to the public and if the group publishes anything like the first draft, we need to lobby our associations to repudiate the paper.

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