Deconstructing Magical Thinking

April 17, 2017/2 Comments/in Massage, Massage Clinic, Massage Therapist, Massage Therapy/by Alice Sanvito

Most of us have had the experience that somehow we “knew” something that we did not have specific prior knowledge of. It’s tempting to start indulging in magical thinking but the science-minded therapist knows that’s not how it works. So how does it happen? One obvious answer is pure coincidence. Another less obvious answer is unconscious learning.

Todd Hargrove wrote one of my favorite articles on the subject, “Why Massage is Like Chicken Sexing.” In it he describes how unconscious learning can lead us to believe in magical thinking. I’d never really thought about it but he had a good point.

In fact, I came to realize that probably most of our learning is unconscious. We learn to talk by being immersed in language and, little by little, learning to decipher what is being said by those around us without applying conscious effort. While our parents may try to help us learn to walk, the fine points of balance and running and adapting to varying terrain are learned by experience rather than specific attention to them.

The placement of buildings and trees in our environment is something we may not purposely attend to but our brain is still taking in this information. If something in our environment changes it catches our eye, even though we may not have paid much attention before.

Intuition Vs. Experiential Knowledge

About five or six years into my professional life I reached an uncomfortable plateau.

Until then, it seemed I was constantly learning new things, always progressing, but I started to feel as if I were stagnating, even going backwards. One day, while giving a massage to a more experienced massage therapist I voiced this. She said to me, “You must be learning something because you keep stopping in all the right places.” I had no idea I was doing this.

It occurred to me that my brain, through my hands, must have been picking up subtle cues that my conscious mind did not notice.

Years later there were other experiences, one with a competitive skier. About ten minutes into a massage he commented that he could tell I was very experienced. I asked him exactly what made him say that since I was just warming up and not yet doing anything specific. He he told me, “I can feel you adjusting and changing your pressure in the places that are tight and sore.” Again, I did not realize I was doing this.

The occasion that particularly stood out was with a dancer. He was the oldest member of his dance troupe and had been with them the longest. He was taciturn and clearly tired. I asked him how he felt. “Tired. Sore. Too much jumping,” he said in his Slavic accent. He pointed to a few places and lay down on the table. As I was massaging the back of his upper leg, I felt something that got my attention and the thought popped into my mind, “Old injury.” I’m cautious about what I say to athletes and performing artists prior to their performance, I don’t want to undermine their confidence in any way. Although I would never say it anyway, one should never say, “Wow! You’re really tight!” shortly before a performer is going onstage. I asked him, rather casually and neutrally, “How does this feel?” “Hurts,” he said, then added that he’d pulled a hamstring jumping. “When was that?” I asked. “Two years ago.” Wow, I thought, did I nail that or what?

Of course, it doesn’t always work like that but it was a cool moment. Later, when I told another massage therapist about it, they asked, “How did you know that?” I started thinking, exactly how did I know? Intuition? But what is intuition? Is it some sort of magic or is there a plausible explanation for it?

Then an answer came to me: my hands have been on thousands of bodies for tens of thousands of hours in varying states of injury and pain and no pain. Without my conscious awareness, my brain is paying attention at every moment. There is a large body of experiential knowledge. Probably something felt similar to other old hamstring injuries I’d felt many, many times before.

Or maybe it was pure coincidence.

Photo by: StockSnap

Unconscious Learning And Accumulated Massage Experience

Unconscious learning probably plays a much larger role in our lives than we realize.

Is this any less awesome than thinking some sort of magic is at play? I don’t think so. It’s incredible that our brain can do that and very useful, too. If we had to put conscious effort into every single thing we learned, we wouldn’t learn very much at all.

All of these intuitive moments came about as a result of years of accumulated experience. In the beginning, sometimes someone more experienced would palpate something and point it out to me. “Here, feel this?” I would have no idea what I was supposed to feel. I had no body of experience (or enough experience of bodies) that allowed me to interpret what I was palpating. It’s important for beginning massage therapists to understand this and not become frustrated if they feel lost. It’s also important that one should not be overeager to jump to conclusions prematurely.

Too often, massage therapists are quite certain they feel things that are simply a product of their imagination, what has been called “palpatory pareidolia.” (Pareidolia is seeing patterns where none exist, such as seeing a face in a rock or a horse in a cloud.) Palpatory pareidolia can lead a therapist to pathologize normal tissues, causing unnecessary worry to the client or making themselves look ill-informed.

We want to avoid making assumptions so they don’t get in the way of seeing what is, rather than what we imagine. We want to be fully open to the client as they are, not as what we project onto them. However, as we gain many hours of experience with many, many clients, we can develop a kind of knowledge which we think of as intuitive that is probably a result of many years of unconscious learning.

In practice, when an idea comes from that intuitive place, I always check with the client, asking in a neutral manner so as not to alarm them or lead them to an answer. After all, I could easily be wrong.

The next time you have a moment where you seem to sense something without knowing why, take a few minutes to think about what past experiences or cues may have led to that. It may not be immediately apparent, but if you contemplate it for awhile you may get some clues. It will help you appreciate the role unconscious learning plays in your life. Pretty amazing, isn’t it?

Why Massage Is Like Chicken Sexing

April 11, 2017/2 Comments/in Massage, Massage Clinic, Massage Therapist, Massage Therapy/by Todd Hargrove

I’ve written before on my blog about how manual therapists can develop some very questionable ideas about exactly how they are helping their clients. Like thinking they can manipulate energy fields, chakras, chi or cerebral spinal fluid patterns. Interestingly, my own observation is that many therapists who believe the craziest things actually get some pretty good results! How could this happen? How could they get good results without knowing how they do it?

There are probably very many good explanations. I thought of a new one while reading an excellent book called Incognito, by neuroscientist David Eagleman.

The theme of the book is that most of the activity of the brain is completely inaccessible to our consciousness. The brain is thinking and solving problems all the time, and our conscious selves basically have no control over these processes or even knowledge of them. We become aware of answers to problems long after our subconscious brain has been working them out.

The conscious brain is like a CEO who is handed a final product that has been slaved over by thousands of workers for years. The CEO might have provided some general guidance for the basic process (and might even take all the credit afterwards) but he or she knew nothing about 99% of the actual work that went into making the product.

So when problems are being solved and things are being figured out, the conscious brain is often the last to know. Which brings me to the topic of chicken sexing.

CHICKEN SEXING

When chicks are born, farmers often want to figure out which ones will be someday be laying eggs and which should be fattened for meat. Deciding whether a chick is male or female is much harder to do than you might imagine, because chicks are more androgenous than a 1980s pop star. So farmers hire special employees called chicken sexers to determine who’s a boy and who’s a girl.

The interesting thing is that many of the world’s best chicken sexers seem to have no real idea at all how they make the call. They just pick up a chick, look at its butt, then decide that it’s either male or female. When its time to train a new chicken sexer, they don’t give the trainee a procedure to follow or a set of criteria. They just tell the trainee to look at the chick’s butt, ask them to make the call, and then tell them if they are right or wrong. Sooner or later the trainee learns to make reliable decisions, but never develops any conscious understanding of how they do it.

CARD PICKING

Similar principles can be seen in a more controlled and scientific environment. In one interesting study, volunteers were asked to pick a card from one of two decks. Some cards were “good” and provided monetary rewards while others were “bad” and caused losses. Further, one deck contained more bad cards then the other. The question for researchers was: when would the players learn which deck to pick from?

It took players about twenty five draws before they stated a preference for one deck over the other. But their unconscious brains figured things out much quicker. How do we know? Because the researchers monitored physiological data from the players’ skin to determine the state of their autonomic nervous systems (the “fight or flight” system.) After as few as thirteen picks, players were showing some anticipatory fear prior to choosing a card from the bad deck. In other words, they were already getting an accurate idea about which deck was bad, before they had any conscious awareness of having that knowledge.

BACK RUBBING

I think that many massage therapists are kind of like chicken sexers. Their unconscious brains figure out what makes clients feel better without ever gaining any conscious awareness of how they do it.

A massage therapist needs to make many decisions every minute. Where do you push, how hard, at what angle, at what frequency, for how long, and with what part of your body? Many therapists will deny that they have any specific criteria for answering these questions, or even that they consciously consider them at all. They just start working and their hands seem to have a mind of their own.

And if you ask them what they are doing, they might not be able to give any kind of specific explanation. Whenever I asked my Rolfing teachers what they were doing when they were giving a demonstration, they usually said something like: “I’m having a conversation with the shoulder”; or “I’m listening to the hip” or something similarly ambiguous. They really didn’t know exactly what they were doing or why. But they were definitely doing something right, because when they put their hands on you, you knew right away they were experts.

CONSCIOUS INCOMPETENCE

The lack of conscious awareness over the actual methods used in a massage session might have some advantages. When you are learning a new skill, you need some level of conscious attention to perform the skill. But once you get good at it, the unconscious takes control, and at this point, too much conscious involvement can hurt performance. This is why you can sabotage your skills with too much self conscious analysis. Imagine trying to hit a pressure putt in golf while thinking about whether you breathe out at the point of contact.

This reminds me that Ida Rolf (the creator of Rolfing) and Moshe Feldenkrais, (the creator of the Feldenkrais method) each recommended that their students avoid an analytical mindset during sessions. Rolf sometimes admonished students that they were too “in their head.” Feldenkrais stated that in order to be optimally effective during a session, he had to think as much as possible in terms of creative imagery as opposed to formal logic. Even though both Rolf and Feldenkrais were trained scientists, and each proposed scientific explanations for why their methods worked, each wanted to get as far as possible from their scientific and analytical minds during a session.

I think part of what they were doing was making sure that their unconscious brains were in charge of the session, because most of the knowledge of “what works” was stored there, inaccessible to the conscious brain. They didn’t want their conscious minds to interfere with the process.

I think this goes along way towards explaining why many therapists seem to have no idea why their therapy works, why they are attracted to explanations which are magical as opposed to scientific, and why some are even hostile to very idea of applying science to massage at all.

To put it another way, I think that it is in the large gap between knowledge and awareness that magical thinking creeps in.

Critical Thinking And Planning Your CECs

April 3, 2017/in Business, Massage Clinic, Massage Therapist, Massage Therapy/by Sarah Haag

I’m coming up on my 15th year as a physical therapist. It’s hard to believe, as I still feel so young and I still have so much to learn!

Over the years, I’ve spent many weekends in courses, trying to become a better physical therapist. Earlier in my career, I would walk in, wide-eyed and hopeful that I was going to learn the ‘one thing’ that I was missing from my skill set…another tool for my toolkit.

Over the years, I’d like to think I was more helpful than harmful , but I don’t have any data to support that. I can recall smooshing on ‘trigger points’, trying to release very specific muscles, and giving ridiculously long home programs. I followed protocols, and made a very organized binder of Muscle Energy Techniques.

I would often go home a bit tired, because I spent the day trying to figure out what I was doing wrong, trying to figure out why some people got better and some didn’t. I spent lots of time, energy, and money hoping my next class would be the one where I’d walk out with the skills that would let me help more people.

Then I started hanging out with Sandy Hilton. And reading more research. And talking about what we know vs. what we do vs. what we say we’re doing with researchers and clinicians from all over the world.

It was discussions like these that really made me reconsider how I was looking at continuing education.

How To Start Critically Thinking About Your Continuing Education.

Below is a list of four methods I like to use when picking my next CEC. While it can be tough making these choices at the start, it has been a really beneficial way to start changing my outlook and my practice for the better.

1. Look for courses that teach you principles, not protocols.

Recipes are wonderful when you’re baking. However, people are not all the same. Trying to make everyone fit the same box results in lots of ‘non-responders’ or ‘non-compliance’

2. Look for instructors who don’t mind being questioned, and question them.

It’s often said that if you’d really like to learn about something, teach about it. I believe this is true, and it’s not just the research to teach a topic! I learn so much from people asking me questions, or asking me to further clarify something I’ve said. None of us know everything, so instructors who rely on people just following instruction are actually just looking for followers. Which takes us to the next point…

3. Question what you’re doing and why!

Sometimes it pays to act like a three year old: ask why, a lot. To yourself or out loud. Or a slightly more mature approach that I learned from Sandy Hilton is, “can you walk me through that?”. There should be answers as to why people do what they do. There can be discussions as to why what they are doing may work. You should be able to discuss, defend or explain what you’re doing.

4. Choose courses that challenge your beliefs.

Having people agree with you can feel fantastic! But if you constantly surround yourself with people who agree with you, it’s not likely you’ll come to have a deeper or broader understanding of much. Move out of that comfort zone, and at least consider alternatives to your usual way of doing things.

Photo by: qimono

A New Perspective

Any class or lecture I was attending was no longer a quest for an answer, but rather gathering more information to review and question my current practice.

I embraced that I could walk out of a class and think ‘Nope, I’m not going to do that’. The most wonderful part about realizing I was allowed to critically think about why I was choosing to do (or not do) things in the clinic. I realized I was allowed to respectfully disagree and question ideas. I finally realized that there were no magic answers, and the best we can do is strive to be less wrong.

It was so freeing to say ‘I don’t know’! To embrace the unknown, to acknowledge that I would have to actively work to know more, and even then I would get it wrong.

One thing these realizations did was make me start to question the people I was learning from.

What’s interesting, is that some people embraced my questions and my challenges! And that’s when it hit me: I didn’t need to learn any specific technique! I needed to be a better critical thinker!

A large majority of the continuing education for Physical Therapists (at least in the United States) seems to focus on specific techniques, some involving expensive trademarked tools. Some ‘techniques’ require several levels of training to become ‘competent’. Other courses seem to promise the impossible (or at lease biologically implausible).

The purpose of this post is not to discourage any technique or school of thought. It is to encourage questioning! And thinking! And discussion! And to challenge your biases. (Because we all have them!)

Now when I go to courses, I don’t plan on learning anything to actually do. I plan on listening with an open mind, gathering information, and looking at my entire practice. I’m much more vocal asking questions when points don’t seem to be supported by science or seem to contradict what is commonly accepted. As healthcare providers, we feel a need to do things, to help our patients or clients feel better and be healthier. So on the quest to be better (and we can all be better), acknowledge that the next technique you learn won’t be any more magical than the last one you learned. However, if you reflect and think critically, you may just be able to use what you already know to be better.

What Do Massage Therapy Associations Do For You?

March 27, 2017/in Business, Massage, Massage Clinic, Massage Therapist, Massage Therapy/by Jill Haig

“What do massage therapy associations even do?” I get this question all the time.

We’re not an insurance company, although we do offer insurance, and we’re not a union, although we do represent Massage Therapists. We’re not lobbyists, although we do promote massage therapy to government and stakeholders, and we’re not a money grab because we put every single penny back towards working for you.

We’re an association.

We’re a group of like-minded individuals with a common goal.

So why would you want to give your hard earned money to your professional association? What’s the benefit for you? What do you get for your money? In addition to the obvious benefits like preferred rates for insurance, continuing education opportunities, networking opportunities, access to research, and referral services, we provide insight and guidance, programs and services, tools and resources. But there is a much larger long-term benefit.

We Advocate For You

Advocacy, in its most basic form, means to speak in favour of something.

So, your association speaks in favour of the profession of massage therapy. We promote massage therapy as a part of primary health care to government, the insurance industry, the general public, and other stakeholders. We make people aware of what it is that massage therapists can do, how well you do it, and why it works. We make sure that massage therapy is an important part of the healthcare landscape.

We work for you.

Advocacy is often seen as “big picture work”. Sometimes it’s complicated and often takes a long time, but it also has a direct and practical impact on your career as an RMT. It impacts how you practice, how patients find you, and how you’re viewed. It’s not only your professional association that can make a difference – you can too.

There are really two ‘yous’ when it comes to advocacy. There is the ‘smaller you’ and the ‘larger you’. The ‘smaller you’ is each individual health professional (that’s you!). You demonstrate a commitment to professional practice, ongoing education and continuous improvement. You are the health professional that people point to and say “they are the reason that massage therapy is a valuable health care profession”. You are dedicated to your profession and are able to easily articulate why you have chosen massage therapy and why it works.

The day-to-day interactions with patients and the way you present yourself professionally are ways that you advocate for the profession – perhaps without even knowing you’re doing it. This is advocacy on an individual level and is incredibly important.

It is, in fact, the basis of all advocacy.

The ‘larger you’ is all Massage Therapists combined. It is a “coming together” as an association with a common purpose. It is team work, co-operation and collaboration combined, and that team work has the power to make a real difference. A large group with a common goal can do things that individuals can’t. Doors are open for associations that are not open for individuals. Together, the ‘larger you’ has a louder voice.

The “larger you”, the association, amplifies that voice and directs it towards the appropriate people and organizations. We get the right message to the people who are in a position to make change happen. There’s power in numbers, and numbers get people in a position of power to take notice.

A rising tide lifts all boats. Whatever the association achieves for Massage Therapists will affect you whether you’re a member of the association or not. I get it – it’s easier to save your money, put your head down, and do your job. But as part of the association, you get a say in the way the wind is blowing and how the boat is steered. When you’re not a part of the association, you’re along for the ride whether you like it or not.

Associations reach out to their members to get feedback. We want to know what you need, when you need it and how we can make it happen.

Most, if not all, RMTs think we should have access to extended healthcare benefits. They want to be respected as a primary health care provider. They expect and deserve to earn a suitable income.

Massage therapy associations are the groups that make sure massage therapy is a viable, respected and accessible profession. We want to make it easier for Massage Therapists to do their jobs. You already know how to get a patient back to optimal health. Our job is to make sure that you can provide your professional healthcare services and earn a living so that you can continue to do so.

Photo by: RMTBC

Increasing Credibility Of Our Profession

Massage therapy associations are run by a board of your peers, chosen by you, who identify the issues and trends that will impact the profession and what we should do about it.

The board does extensive research to ensure they are representing the profession and the issues that are current to the day. They talk with members – the people these decisions will directly affect – and determine the way to position the profession for maximum success and the steps that should be taken in order to achieve the vision for the profession.

Massage therapy associations are run by Massage Therapists, for Massage Therapists. We keep a finger on the pulse of the profession and the landscape in which it operates.

Massage therapy associations work for the profession, and massage therapy regulatory bodies are primarily concerned with the public interest. Although these two groups may seem to be opposites, they are really two sides of the same coin. We both work in the best interest of the patient by making sure they are able to access massage therapy receive proper and appropriate care from Massage Therapists.

Both the association and the college must communicate with each other to work towards our separate mandates and our common goals. We both want Massage Therapists to be able to positively contribute to the health of Canadians.

RMTs are working with doctors, physiotherapists and chiropractors, in palliative care, and in hospitals – situations that may not have seemed possible in the early years of the profession. Massage therapy is now seen more often as a valuable healthcare option, which was made possible through years of advocacy undertaken by associations.

I suppose that provides an example of the answer to that frequently asked question ‘what do massage therapy associations even do?’ Associations determine the direction this profession should be heading, determine what we need to do to get it there, and then we actually do it.

The credibility of the profession has increased dramatically over the past few decades, thanks in part to the work of associations. Massage therapy remains the most utilized paramedical benefit in Canada behind drugs and vision care.

But we still have work to do.

Advocacy takes time. To make a significant change takes time. Developing the argument with the inescapable conclusion that massage therapy is an effective and critical piece of the healthcare puzzle is how we spend a large part of our time.

But this is time well spent.

It will ensure that massage therapy is and remains a solid and respected part of the health care landscape. It will ensure that you are appropriately rewarded for your time and effort. It will bring new patients to you because they will be aware of what massage therapy is and how it can help them, and it will ensure that you remain valued as a healthcare professional.

Canada is searching for solutions to the impending healthcare crisis. Massage Therapists are a part of that solution. It is the dedication and passion of Massage Therapists, which can be amplified by professional associations, which ensures massage therapy can remain an important part of health care. In your own community, and through your day-to-day professional life, you can advocate for the profession by the way you practice and the way you communicate that practice.As the larger you, your professional association is part of the important conversations, the important decisions, and the necessary actions now and in the future. Check out what your association is doing about the issues that affect you and your profession. It’s your profession and your association.

Taking Advancement Of The Profession Into Our Own Hands

March 20, 2017/9 Comments/in Business, Massage, Massage Clinic, Massage Therapist, Massage Therapy/by Jamie Johnston

What do you get when you have a group of PT’s, MT’s and Trainers from the US, Canada, New Zealand and Australia drinking beer in a hot tub?

A lengthy discussion on what’s wrong with our profession.

And I use the term “our” profession even though all of us have a different scope of practice, because to my surprise, we’re all facing the same issues. At every level there is an issue with education, regulatory bodies, our peers and even some associations.

You see the problem in all of these industries is a lack of change.

The schools have too much invested within themselves to make changes that would help improve the profession. They are still stuck in research from 20-30 years ago, and well, change is difficult.

The regulatory bodies are concerned (as well they should be, as it’s their role) about protecting the public. All too often they err on the side of caution and ignore new developments in research and practice, which in turn harms the profession. And when I say harms the profession, I find it shocking just how badly it can harm the profession. This is exactly what I love to hear.

Little did I know the extent it was happening in our industry until the above conversation.

When regulatory bodies ignore things like mental health and the biopsychosocial approach, but still promote and teach research and science that is long outdated, not only do we suffer as therapists but unfortunately so does the public, which these regulatory bodies are supposed to be protecting. By their very definition they need to adopt new standards or they are strongly in breach of their core duty.

As the frustration grows among therapists who are trying to do right by their patients (and their profession), it is beginning to become apparent that we have no choice.

It’s time to take things into our own hands.

Creating CEC’s

Where this can be a bit of a problem, is the lack of therapists who want to get involved. Like it or not we are a fairly apathetic group. We tend to get lost in just going to work doing our treatments and shutting down at the end of the day. Then we are usually scrambling at the end of the year to fulfill our CECs.

I’m not saying there is anything wrong with that (well actually I guess I am), I used to be one of those therapists. I wouldn’t bother going to a college or an association AGM, wouldn’t bother to vote on anything, and would take whatever CEC’s came to town, just to fill the quota. But as time went on, started to realize change was needed, not only in myself but also in the profession.

Since it’s apparent that nothing is going to change when it comes to entry to practice standards, if we want change it’s going to be up to us. The best way to change our profession and influence practice standards is to have a critical mass of therapists lobbying and demanding change.

This can be a bit tricky.

Since entry to practice won’t change, we look to continuing education to help shape our careers. Tania Velasque z wrote a great piece on Modalities vs Concepts and not getting caught up in the modality empires. Now, there’s nothing wrong with learning a new modality, in fact through most regulatory bodies it’s encouraged. However what we need to do, is be careful not to get caught up in the bias’ that usually go with some of those classes and make sure they’re backed by sound research and encourage critical thinking. Part of the problem is that there aren’t a lot of courses that encourage this.

So, what do we do in cases like this?

It’s time to start developing our own. If we truly care about the advancement of our profession, it’s high time we start breaking the mold of what is being offered and rely on each other to develop continuing education. Over the past couple of years (and I’ve wrote about it on here) I’ve started attending more conferences for my CECs instead of just hands on manual courses. For each conference I’ve been to, it has been amazing to meet like minded therapists from, not only different countries, but also different backgrounds and certification levels who all want to improve their profession.

And the beauty of it all…they’re all willing to work together.

We all have different strengths that would lend itself to quality CEC courses. In the last two weeks alone I’ve had discussions with other therapists on possibilities for courses on motivational interviewing, pain science introduction, DNM, assessment and of course first aid. The more we can collaborate and work together to develop the education happening after college, the bigger change we can make in bettering ourselves and the profession.

Photo by: Unsplash

Mentorship

There are a few ways we can make this happen.

Typically when we think of a mentor, we think of a one on one coaching type dynamic. While this is a great option and should be highly sought after, it can also be difficult to find an agreement that works for both parties.

Our local association encourages a mentorship program in which a more experienced therapist takes a less experienced practitioner and gives them tips and advice when starting out. This is a great way for a new grad to learn the ropes and build confidence. However if this is something you’re thinking of, there should be compensation (I don’t know if our association encourages that or not) given to the mentor. Years of experience and of course their time should only be given away if they choose to allow that, but it would be a wise investment on the part of a new grad.

Online there are several ways to gain mentorship. Joining several of the Facebook groups out there, you can learn a ton just by watching the comments and interaction among other therapists. But just like anything else, you have to choose wisely. Just like when choosing your CEC course, make sure the group(s) you decide to follow are quality and backed by research and science, or at least promote those two topics.

You can also create meet-ups in your area, to see if other therapists would like to get together and just talk shop. I’ve learned more from going out for a couple pints with other practitioners to pick their brain about what they’re good at (and probably forgot a lot of it) than I can ever pay back to them. You’d be amazed if you just put a request out how many therapists would be willing to do this. But don’t keep it to just Massage Therapists, meet up with ATs, Chiros, Physios and Personal Trainers, they all have knowledge you can learn from.

Blogs. Start following some good quality blogs, there are a ton out there! However the same caution I talked about earlier should be applied when deciding which ones to follow. Find the ones who cite quality research, give advice and focus on patient centred care. I’ve been fortunate enough to meet some of the bloggers that I follow and every time have been amazed at their humility. While some of them charge for products on their sites, they are usually quite willing to give away lots of free content. If you can use some of their paid content as CECs all the better (and easier) for you to learn from.

As therapists, there is no end to the amount of things we can learn. But we do have a choice in what we learn. Shaping your career and profession is all of our responsibility, not to be left up to the regulatory bodies. When you go take new courses that give you quality information, there is also a responsibility on your part to share that information in your community with other practitioners. There are some therapists out there doing some pretty amazing things, but we can make greater change as a group than we can flying solo.

Free Massage!

March 13, 2017/3 Comments/in Business, Massage Clinic, Massage Therapist, Massage Therapy/by Laura Allen

Do you ever feel like you have a sign on your forehead that says “Free Massage?”

Every day on my social networks, I see massage therapists talking about being asked to do free massage. “Come and do free chair massage at our event and it will get your name out there….” never mind that you’ve been practicing for 15 years and your name is already out there.

I recently saw on FB post where a chiropractor wanted someone to come to his office and do a week’s worth of free massage so he could get the client feedback and decide whether or not he would hire the person…I guess he thought she just wouldn’t need any rent money or groceries that week. If he’s located near a massage school that’s turning out graduates or an area that’s saturated with massage therapists, he could feasibly keep the “audition week” going for a long time–and quite probably billing insurance for the massage that he’s not even paying the therapist to perform.

At the massage school I attended, back in the day, we were required to perform 25 hours of community service…free massage on a deserving population. 15 years later, I still don’t mind performing free massage on a deserving population. I occasionally volunteer time to what I think is a worthy cause.

I once gave weekly massage to someone for almost a year because he had spent nearly a year in the hospital, his medical bills were in the millions of dollars, and he just plain needed the work and couldn’t pay. One of my staff members has given a lot of massage at an abused women’s shelter. Another did deeply discounted work on someone who was seriously injured and didn’t have any insurance, and many of us have done that kind of thing at one time or another, for nothing other than the warm fuzzy feeling of having helped someone.

If there is an event going on that I think we need to have a presence at, I will pay staff members to do chair massage; I don’t expect people to work for free. We just can’t and/or won’t go everywhere we are asked to go. If the event is more than ten miles away from my office, I’m not really inclined to go there. There are plenty of massage therapists in our county, and if there’s a health fair that’s all the way at the other end of the county and plenty of practicing therapists between here and there, I’d rather let one of them have it.

I have recently been receiving invites to an event in Shelby, NC. That’s 25 miles away from here and I know at least half a dozen therapists that practice there, so I’m not going to go encroach on their territory. The last time the organizer called, I told him he was wasting time by continuing to call me about it and suggested he contact therapists from that area. I also turned one down that was relatively close, but on a holiday. When the woman called me, I said, “thank you, but our staff members want to spend the holiday with their own families that day.” Not only do they want us to do free massage, they also want us to pay them for a booth to do it in.

Sometimes MTs are distressed or hesitant about saying “no,” because “it’s at my mother-in-law’s church,” or “one of my clients asked me to do it, but it’s 30 miles away,” and that kind of thing. If you’re a new therapist, or an old one who’s feeling torn on this issue, then here’s the answer: “Thank you for thinking of me, but I already have clients booked for that day.” Or you can say “Thanks, but I don’t give my services away,” with no excuse. You don’t need an excuse.

If you have the time, and so much money you don’t have to worry about paying your bills, then feel free to give away all the massage you want to. Say yes to everyone who asks. You’ll probably get some business out of it, but keep these thoughts in mind: Some people will do anything just because it’s free, that they would never think of actually spending money on. Some people who are already consumers of massage and already have their own therapist of choice will sit down and get the massage, again, just because it’s free. And many times, people don’t place much value on something they get for free.

If you need an actual return on investment for your time, then you need to pick and choose what you’re going to participate in. Realistically, you stand a much better chance of getting business from an event that’s 5 miles away from your office than one that’s 25 miles away from your office. Some events, like an annual festival, attract a lot of people from out of town that are never going to become clients, but you’ll have to massage them along with any locals who might potentially become clients.

Your dentist isn’t going to do your root canal for free. Your doctor isn’t going to do your appendectomy or deliver your baby for free. The plumber, the electrician, the washing machine repairman isn’t coming to your home for free. You can’t walk into Walmart and load up on free goods, but for some reason, many people seem to expect that massage therapists are always available to give it away.

Here’s the reality check: most of us have overhead directly related to our work. It also costs money to get educated, to get licensed, and to keep up with continuing education requirements. It costs money to run our homes and our lives–just the same as it does for the people who are soliciting us to come and do free massage. We have mortgages, car payments, student loans, and debts to pay. We need food and utilities and medicine and school tuition and child care just like everyone else.

Doing free massage is sometimes a good marketing opportunity. It’s always providing a public service, and you should do it only when you genuinely want to. Don’t allow yourself to be talked into doing it when you don’t want to, and don’t allow yourself to feel guilty for turning anyone down.