Every massage therapy student should have to read at least one textbook.

I was required to take a minimum of 750 hours of schooling to become a licensed massage therapist in the state of Arizona. Roughly translated, that’s nine months of school four full days a week. Most of the curricula focused on anatomy, pathology, practical application, and ethical considerations. In order to maintain my license,  I need to take 25 hours of continuing education classes every two years.

If I had still been living in San Francisco when I decided to get a license, I could have been granted a “General Practitioner Permit” with 100 hours of training, or an “Advanced Practitioner Permit” with 200 hours of training.  In other words, if I go back to California and prove that I meet those minimum requirements, I would basically be a   General+Advanced-Advanced-Advanced Practitioner.

Somehow, I don’t think I qualify to be considered a massage therapy superhero. I also don’t think that each California school hour is twice as educational as an Arizona school hour.

What’s even more confusing: California, like some other states, doesn’t have set of statewide regulations. Even worse is that some states do have a set of regulations, but they allow their cities to impose separate regulations that therapists must adhere to. If a massage therapist wants to move over to a neighboring city, she might have to change her policy or even take an extra exam. (Of course, if that therapist moves to a different state, she might have to take an extra 900 hours’ worth of classes.)

Certain cities’ regulations are downright offensive. While I was sitting in a Scottsdale, Arizona cadaver lab to learn the ins-and-outs of human anatomy, some California would-be massage therapists were submitting to STD tests in order to become certified. Massage licensing regulations are all over the place (or for some states, nonexistent.)

The American Massage Therapy Association (AMTA) estimated in 2008 that there were between 265,000 and 300,000 massage therapists and massage therapy students in just the United States. The U.S. Department of Labor estimated that the massage therapy field would see a rapid 20 percent increase in employment from 2006-2016.

I think it’s laughable, yet also sad, that such a booming industry hasn’t yet found a way to establish a cohesive set of strict regulations. I don’t necessarily think that massage therapy should be formally standardized across the United States, but I do think that all states should establish their own regulations. I also think that all states should set similar standards.

It just doesn’t seem right to me that, while I provide injury treatments and while therapists in New York are working to obtain 1,000+ hours of training, massage therapists in some parts of the country are still called “masseuses” in the way that strippers are called “exotic dancers.”

Regulating massage therapy will:

1. Help ensure that all clients are safer because all therapists will have been background checked.
2. Ensure that all therapists have met a minimum set of educational requirements so that clients will be able trust who is treating them.
3. Set ethical standards and allow the law to apply appropriate punishments to those who break those standards.
4. Increase the amount of clinical studies performed in regard to massage therapy and encourage insurance companies to cover massage as a result of proven results.
5. Encourage massage therapists across the country to feel more united as a team.

It’s time to get the ball rolling.

If you’re interested in finding out more about regulations in your state or city, check out the following links:
Massage Therapy State Boards and Licensure
Massage Laws and Legislation in the United States and Canada

This duck is riddled with quackery.

Foreword: Science wasn’t my favorite subject in school. In fact, sometimes I hated science class. Gathering specimens and making notes, then comparing those notes and making more notes for the sake of ensuring accuracy was exhausting to me. So when I say what I’m about to say, I must preface it by emphasizing that I’m humbled by all of the folks who spend their lives trying to make healthcare legitimate and safe for the masses.

I recently ran across an article entitled “How to Spot a ‘Quacky’ website”. It warned people to steer clear from any website that:

-Generally promotes “alternative,” “complementary,” and/or “integrative” methods of treatment

and/or

-promotes  “nontoxic,” “natural,” “holistic,” or “miraculous” treatments.

While I can’t say that I promote miraculous treatments–and, indeed, I’m also sometimes a bit of a skeptic—I do wholeheartedly promote many holistic therapies relating to complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). Yet, according to some of these rules, I’m a sort of quack running a “quacky” website.

In this short essay, I plan to a) Examine the reasons why I’m called a quack and b) Explain why I stand wholeheartedly by what I write, whether or not it makes me a quack.

According to the Quackwatch website, science demands that people who make claims must provide substantial proof to back up those claims. That proof must come by way of sound studies, a well-balanced evaluation, and confirmation by other knowledgeable people. However, not all promoters of complementary and alternative medicine stand by the same rules.

Some complementary and alternative treatments rely mostly upon anecdotal evidence and so-called “sloppy” facts such as, “This medicine has been successful for thousands of years.” Also, the placebo effect is so potent that people, not the treatments, could really be the ones healing their own abnormal physiologies just by believing that they are supposed to be cured.

People who adhere to the strict standards of scientific proof assume that this translates to complete quackery. After all, where are the regulations? They don’t want anyone getting ripped off or, worse, killed by peddlers of fake medicine.

So, what do science sticklers propose we do to provide substantial proof? They don’t just want us to come up with studies; they want us to construct sturdy double-blind tests. In a double-blind test, neither the people administering a study nor the study’s participants know who’s getting the real drug/treatment and who’s getting the placebo. Only at the end of the trial, when results are being collected, will the truth be revealed. This brilliant method of research aims to eliminate any sort of bias on either side of the spectrum.

I appreciate the idea of studying and standardizing all medicine in order to make it safe and reliable. Maybe then more insurance companies would cover more of it. However, I have two major concerns with the demands for double-blind tests:

Concern Number One: Double-blind studies aren’t infallible, not even when they’re designed properly (randomized and placebo-controlled.) Firstly, the people willing to participate may not be perfect representatives of a whole population. Additionally, some studies—even double-blind studies—rely on subjective responses. Take anti-depressant medications, for example: In the course of a study, both the participants who take the placebo and the participants who take the actual test drug will need to interpret a questionnaire and then offer a subjective analysis of how depressed they feel. The study could look at literal factors such as presence of chemicals in the brain, but such hard facts don’t necessarily prove that someone is or isn’t feeling depressed.

Concern Number Two: Applying double-blind studies to complementary and alternative medicine is often impossible. How can a practitioner such as an acupuncturist be blinded to the treatment he is offering to study participants? He either knows he’s doing it properly or he knows he’s giving a placebo treatment.

Science has its limits, no matter what it is attempting to etch in stone. That is why facts change. (Remember when Earth was flat and in the center of the Universe?)

Sometimes the subject of study far transcends the capacity of a pen, paper, and microscope. When it comes to the study of love, for example, science gurus examine alleged “love chemicals” that flow in the brain such as serotonin, oxytocin, vasopressin, and norepinephrine. They investigate areas in the brain that are thought to light up when a person has loving feelings.

Psychologists go to great lengths to organize love into categories such as romantic love and platonic love. American psychologist R.J. Sternberg said that interpersonal love requires a combination of intimacy, passion, and commitment. Some psychology experts even break down love into stages: first lust, then attraction, and finally attachment.

But none of that encapsulates love. No one—not even scientists who live with their eyes glued hard facts—could truthfully say that the love they have for their families and friends can be quantified by science. Love is love.

I’m not suggesting that complementary and alternative medicine or holistic approaches to health are equivalent to love, but some of their components are similar. For example, the idea of body energy (also called Qi and Prana) may not be entirely understood, but I know it exists when I close my eyes and feel it flowing through my body.

Does that make me a quack? If so, I’m proud to be one.

My About section already offers a little bit of insight about why I started this blog, but I don’t think that a formal overview entirely portrays who I am.

Who am I and what makes me a reliable guide?

Well, to fully cover the most significant aspects of my life I’d need to make myself a large cup of strongly caffeinated tea and have a few hundred extra hours on my hands. I don’t have a few hundred hours at my immediate disposal, but I do have a blog, an indefinite future, and a few spare hours here and there. I’m excited that, in time, I’ll have the chance to let my personality and some credibility shine through these virtual pages.

For now, let me make it clear that I don’t think of myself as a massage therapy guru of any sort. I’m still very new to the field, but massage therapy as it is currently known is also somewhat new. I’m proud to be a licensed massage therapist in a time when more and more research is being dedicated to understanding therapeutic massage therapy as a medicine in its own right. (Did you know that massage therapy is the most commonly used form of complementary and alternative medicine in U.S. hospitals?)

I’m excited and honored that you’ve chosen to join me as I also educate myself about the endless healing potential of human touch.