Hi Carl:

I agree with you totally. If you do not practice Massage Therapy as
identified by either the profession or State Statues then I would assume you
would be called a Bodyworker and not necessarily fall under the accepted
term for Massage Therapist. Are Shiatsu, Rolfer's, those who offer other
Bodywork techniques, Oriental approaches etc required to your State for
licensure/certification? I would probably pursue what your State's response
is to Bodyworkers and practice under those guidelines rather than under the
Massage Therapy criteria.

Judy Dean

-------Original Message-------

From: Carl W. Brown
Date: 9/4/2009 12:00:42 PM
To: Freedom_for_Bodywork@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [Freedom_for_Bodywork] Amta/Comta rollin' on. Is this a truth?
and....

Judy,

> The profession is not unlike other US
> professions where required components
> must be achieved before an individual
> can legally call themselves a member
> of the profession.

The problem that I have is that Massage therapy licensing has preempted the
ability to practice other professions such as bodywork. I do not use any
(zero) of my massage school training in my work yet I by law must pay money
and study things I have no intent to use. I already have far more intense
anatomy and physiology becasue my training started out by taking courses
that dealt with one joint per course. You learned each muscle in far more
detail that any massage training becasue you needed it. I work with people
who are fully clothed. I use far more precise techniques and deep tissue and
sports medicine is far too shotgun. Besides I had to actually unlearn the
psychological approach to the work to do what I do. With Swedish you are
working on a person and once you have done you assessment you know what to
do. I am just the opposite. I start out knowing nothing and listen to the
body to tell me know to help. If I prejudge the situation I will probably
miss the subtle clues. The massage training at the schools that I went to
was based on training people to perform what they were taught. Everything
had an explanation. Instead I work for the idea that outside of your toolbox
you need to learn to apply objective evidence to a mix of science and was
well a direct perception that goes well beyond any rational explanation yet
you need to incorporate what you will never understand in a truly holistic
approach. This is a diametrically different approach that will never fit
into a left-brained exam. Yet to force people to take training that make it
hard to do their work is wrong. I am a hands on healer and there are too
many type of healing to make names exemptions. I would not object to studies
that cover actual proven things that protect the public. But the hours of
practicing techniques that I do not use is wrong. Massage licensing is
actually killing my profession.

The was the whole point of the Health Freedom Act. If what you do does not
cause harm that it should be up to the public to decide if your training and
experience is what they need. If not, you are restricting health care to
non-holistic left-brained healing only.

Carl





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