The Well Center for Massage

Massage therapist are often put into the position to choose sides, medical/therapeutic or relaxation/luxury massage. The client is offered only two choices as well, treat or treatment. They must earn the right to get a massage by virtue of special occasion or unbearable pain. I believe we can offer them the third option of well-being.

Instead of choosing between the health care industry and the beauty industry I feel we should just present massage as the "Well-Being" industry. If we invited other professions who's intent is to keep people healthy, like personal trainers, yoga instructors, nutritionist and the like we could create associations that encourage people to avoid unnecessary surgery and drugs.

I believe most of us became massage therapist to help people. We do the best we can. We do massage because it will make people happier and less stressed. It is OK to earn a living making people feel better. I know for me that when someone walks in all bent over and stressed and bounces out feeling lighter and happy it give me job satisfaction. Nothing make my day more than hearing that was the best massage I ever had. That will make them more healthy is just a perk for me.

So what that insurance won't pay for it. Look at the things they pay for that cause more harm than good. A recent study by JAMA has determined that there is little or no difference between results on back pain by operative and non-operative therapies. The notable difference was that the income of the people that opted out of surgery was higher. I believe that is because they could afford alternatives, like massage.

They argue that there is little empirical evidence that massage is as effective as drugs. I let you in a a secret there is not a lot of empirical evidence on surgery either. the effectiveness of back surgery is just as hard to prove the effects of massage on back pain. Either you get a massage and it works or it does not back surgery is a 50/50 proposition. I will say this though there are not near as many casualties doing massage as there is in medicine and surgery. I have never massage the wrong leg off a person. Non of my massages has ever caused the side effect of suicidal thoughts.
To me this seems to be the best selling point we can use for massage. We do less harm then good. Look up how many massage clients were accidentally crippled by a bad massage therapist licensed or unlicensed. How many pregnant women were injured during a massage or had a miscarriage due to a untrained massage therapist? When was the last time some one had a stroke on a massage table because the therapist massaged varicose veins? Have you ever heard of a licensed or unlicensed trained or untrained therapist causing the death of a client with a deep vein thrombosis? I have searched for cases I have asked the insurance companies and I cannot find any cases. Not that there are none and I don't want to say we don't need schools and associations. I am just saying for a profession that seems top get little respect from the main stream health industry our cost benefit analysis seems to be better than theirs. If you have information on the hazards of massage I would love to see it. I am currently working on an article for the AMTA.

Even if we look at it from an economical point of view. Cost wise most people have a co-pay and must pay into there premium. If massage keeps them feeling better it is worth the cost. Not to mention drug costs.

If we let insurance companies regulate us they will want to tell you what you can a cannot do to make the client feel better. Say goodbye to intuitive treatments. I know someone who is going to be on the NJ massage board who already wants to control massage treatment like physical therapy with specific protocol for massage.

We as massage therapist need to own our profession. We need to stop complaining about how the insurance companies and the AMA don't recognize us and work on taking our profession back from the sex industry. If we want to be looked at as "legitimate". We need to make a clear boundary between us and the sex trade. We send our money to the AMTA and AMBP for malpractice insurance. We spend thousands and thousands on CEUs. Whatever your position on "entertainment massage" is we need to take a stand to either enforce the laws against it or legalize it and take the name massage off it or list it as "entertainment massage". We can at least direct those clients that call using code words where they can go legally. Licensing does not protect us from this. In states like NY and FL where massage is regulated and has been for a long time you can still find "happy ending" with no trouble. The licensing board has no authority against them and rarely goes after them. It is up to law enforcement to close them down and that is not the priority. Our money would be spent better filing lawsuits against "Massage Parlors" that are using the name massage illegally. They could use that money to lobby for legalized prostitution(unlikely). If you don't enforce the law why have it? We would be able to tax that industry instead of of financing organized crime. Maybe even fund some shelters to house runaways. Stop the spread of STDs with better testing and clinics.
The bottom line is, if we take control of the name massage we would not have to limit ourselves to being a treat or a treatment. We don't have to sit by and watched while massage has been associated with sex. Rather we can stand up and take our profession back. I see us fight amongst ourselves trying to decide which direction we need to go. Our first order of business is to stop arguing and use the numbers that we have. We vote and by the looks of this site and the many MTs in the country now we could have a pretty loud voice if we just address the right issues.