People who give and receive bodywork, massage, healing touch treatments, and other physical-contact alternative care are in for some changes if House File 1135 (Senate 1011), a licensing/certification/registration/permit bill now in committees at the state legislature passes into law.

The number of people legally available to give this care will be decreased, and the costs are likely to increase. Bodyworkers not meeting the requirements will be forced to close.

The bill, ostensibly designed to protect the public, will make those who learned their treatment craft at a time or place other than a "registered school" go back to re-learn it at such a school in order to get or keep the new license/certification/registration/permit.

This repeat schooling costs the bodyworker an average of $1,000. per 100 hours of course work, and the required 500 hours of training (which also represents a loss of available appointment time and income), is an additional cost of offering the service which has to be passed on to the client.

Not so, claim the proponents of this bill. At the hearing of the House Subcommitte on Health and Family Security (a subcommittee of the Health and Human Services Committee) on Wednesday, January 21st, speakers pro and con the passage of this bill into law put forth many arguments, and brought out many provocative issues.

The propenents talked about different cities having difficult local laws that a state law would eliminate. They said the public is confused...when looking for a massage, they at times end up mistakenly at a house of prostitution. They claimed there are practitioners working now who will harm clients because of their ignorance of contraindications and effects of past emotional trauma. The law is necessary to protect the public from the uneducated touch therapist who will harm them. By requiring 500 hours of training from a registered school, we will make sure that those who would hurt you by pushing too hard during a massage are not allowed to touch you.

Let's look at some of these arguments.

What harm? The professional liability insurance companies which issue policies to bodyworkers have seen so few claims that they can offer amazingly low-cost coverage. Will Green, President of the The Interantional Massage Association, for example, said in testimony: "The insurance carrier we use to insure IMA members has covered over 50,000 massage professionals since 1984. The cost of liability insurance per $1,000,000 was $65 plus state tax in 1984. Now, 14 years later, the cost is only $32.50, or half of the original cost in 1998. Had there been claims of damage other than tripping and falling, (general liability), the cost would have risen, not been cut in half." The insurance industry sees no major harm being caused by the bodyworkers working now who have varying types of credentials and are not licensed.

Massage is not a "harmful" practice. And "knowing when not to massage" can be responsibly learned in WAY less than 500 hours.

Some of the various drafts of this bill that I have seen define Massage Therapy in a way that would cause many types of alternative healing and somatic education to fall under the definition, and therefore all those practitioners be required to meet the tenets of the law, if passed. In trying to protect the word "Massage" from being used by non-Massage Therapists (such as prostitutes), the wording prevents people who touch others from doing so without being illegal. All would have to prove a specific set of 500 hours of classes from a "recognized school". All the bodyworkers I know are continually taking classes -- but were they from a recognized school, and in 100 hour at a time units? The unscrupulous do not gain scruples by attending classes, those who have them do not lose them by not attending repetitive or irrelevant training.

This work comes from the heart, the intuition, the spirit-connection of the practitioner, and that person's ability to connect with the body/mind/spirit energies of their client. It is imminently respectful of the client, his or her boundaries, and the abilities of the client to heal themselves. It requires qualities that are not measured by having a college degree-or even a high school diploma. Anyone who can "lay their hands on another person with compassion", as one of the people who testified at the hearing said, has the qualifications.

Having a license does not cause one to see themselves as professional, or to be seen by the public as professional. Clients choose their bodyworker/somatic educator/therapist via recommendations from trusted friends more often than the yellow pages. They stay only with those who meet their needs and earn their trust. Clients come back again and again to those of us who learned by apprenticeship and from teachers who flew in to teach weekend long seminars AS FREQUENTLY AS to those of us who attended an extensive formal curriculum school. I don't oppose the formal schools. I oppose preventing those who come from other knowledge bases from being allowed to practice.

An exaggerated number of hours of education classes can prompt a person to feel "better than" their client, taking them away from the real world into academia until they become distant, out of touch. It can cause them to feel justified in charging so much for their care that the client is forced to receive less frequent care for purely financial reasons.

I am comfortable with my career choice and feel respected in my work. My bodywork is a communication between myself and my client, a healing interaction of spirits. I don't want to be an "industry."

"How does the public find an ethical practitioner, if not by seeing their license?" ask the proponents of this bill.

The membership organization I belong to holds educational workshops annually on the issue of ethical practice, and discussion at other meetings frequently turns in that direction. There already exists an avenue for the public to be protected from irresponsible practitioners. It is a law known as 148 A, covering unlicensed mental health practitioners. It covers "power over" issues both of a sexual and of a financial unfair influence nature.

Versions of the bill, whose wording changed even just prior to the first hearing on January 21st, have seen the name of this legislation move from the most restrictive legal term of "Licensing", through "Certification" to "Registration." An idea called "Permit" was to be proposed by another legislator as a compromise. As of this writing, the bill was tabled in the House by its main author. It could still be brought back, passed, and moved on to the Sentate-where, again, anything goes. Senate activity should be done by the 20th.

As a consumer of alternative health care, you may be interested in communicating with your legislators on this issue. Let them know how you stand to be affected, and support your access to a wide range of alternative care modalities.

This article written by Catherine Schluter, a massage therapist (until the law disallows her calling herself that) since 1984 who learned outside of "recognized schools"--there weren't any in Minesota when she began. She is past President of the Minnesota Touch-Movement Network, a statewide member organization of bodyworkers and somatic educators formerly know as the Minnesota Therapeutic Massage Network.

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