Working World

Hillary Holweg, a recent graduate of the National Holistic Institute, is enthusiastic about her new vocation. “You get a great deal of gratitude being able to help people,” she says. “You see the physical change in them before they even leave you.”

With no clear direction after high school, Hillary began working odd jobs. It wasn’t until she started working as a physical therapy aid that she decided to go on for massage therapy training. “The joy of making people feel better made me explore this career path,” she says. “Also, I wanted to be my own boss.”

Massage has gained more and more recognition for its actual medical benefits. The profession is now an $11 billion industry. Chiropractic offices represent the fastest growing opportunity for massage therapists. Other options include massage salons, spas, beauty salons, clinical practice, wellness centers and hospitals, cruise ships, sports medicine, hotels, gyms and private practice as sole proprietor.

“From a historical standpoint, the advancements in health and wellness as a whole in the last 100 years have been phenomenal,” says Jeffrey Simancek, curriculum manager for massage therapy at Corinthian Colleges. “Massage therapy is a 6,000-year-old trade that has withstood the test of time and will be around forever. In the last decade, more employment has been seen at healthcare and medical facilities.”

Indeed, the art of rubbing and the manual therapies we know today as massage were first written about in China around 500 B.C. in a book of Chinese medicine by the Yellow Emperor. Massage is now recognized as being a preventative as well as curative therapy.

The National Holistic Institute is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. Begun in 1979 in the San Francisco Bay Area, NHI now has five campuses in California. Joe Bob Smith is manager of the L.A. County’s Encino campus. He said, “Massage is the only course we teach. Massage is an art form. You have to know how to feel with your hands, like music or art, so that requires small classes and special attention.”

Licensure for massage therapy has been very minimal in the United States, but now that the field has made the jump from a “hobbyist” to a full-time professional career, things are changing.

Currently, the California licensing for massage is handled on a city-by-city basis, but a new law goes into effect in September 2009 that will create a statewide certification process. Most people starting school now would finish under state certification, which will begin as a voluntary process. California requires a minimum of 500 hours of training, but many schools are offering 700+ hours or more (compared to 3,000 hours required in Canada). Nora Brunner, MA, APR, and editor of Skin Deep Magazine, advised us that one can investigate other state requirements for certification or entrance exams at MassageTherapy.com.

Aspiring massage therapists can benefit not only from a desire to help people, but also by having an entrepreneurial spirit. “There is always opportunity for skilled massage therapists who work hard and can market themselves to some degree,” Nora says. “Many therapists undertake massage because they like the flexibility and freedom it offers and don’t see it as a full-time career or as their only source of income. Therefore the outlook for massage as a job isn’t exactly like other careers.”

Federal financial aid is available for accredited schools. Program time commitments range from a nine-month, 500-hour course to 720+ hours with clinical practice that takes 10-12 months to complete. Salary range will depend on whether you are in private practice, establishing clientele and actively self-promoting, or on full-time staff in a clinical facility. The U.S. Department of Labor Statistics projected a $29,250 income for massage therapists in 2003, but a 2005 member survey by the Associated Bodywork & Massage Professionals indicated most private practice massage therapists start out practicing only 15 hours per week, earning roughly $10,000, and more established therapists average about $32,500 and supplement their practice with other vocations.

A Day in the Life of a Massage Therapist

With more than 250 recognized kinds of massage and bodywork being practiced in the U.S., a “day in the life” isn’t so easy to sum up. But listed below are some areas you might study:

• Anatomy
• Physiology
• Ethics
• Law and business aspects
• Swedish massage
• Western massage
• Deep tissue massage
• Trigger point therapy
• Neuromuscular techniques (NMT)
• Sports and clinical
• Kinesiology
• Eastern theory
• Reiki
• Special populations
• Craniosacral therapy (CST)
• Myofascial techniques
• Spa techniques
• Hands-on internships

RESOURCES:

AMERICAN MASSAGE THERAPY ASSOCIATION
ASSOCIATED BODYWORK & MASSAGE PROFESSIONALS
CALIFORNIA HEALING ARTS COLLEGE
CORINTHIAN COLLEGES Massage Therapy Programs in California
INTERNATIONAL MASSAGE ASSOCIATION
MASSAGETHERAPY.COM
NATIONAL HOLISTIC INSTITUTE SCHOOL OF MASSAGE
THE WALTER JAY M.D. INSTITUTE
U.S. DEPT. OF LABOR OCCUPATIONAL EMPLOYMENT STATISTICS

Katy Allgeyer is an artist and freelance writer. She is a columnist for Working World and Working Nurse magazines and her features have appeared there and in Feng Shui Times, The Art of WellBeing, You & Me Magazine and others.

1 COMMENTS

• Miranda D.

  Massage therapists are generally self-employed entrepreneurs, so you really need to have that orientation along with your skill set. You also need to plan for the fact that you probably won't work steadily. It helps to have some savings or a spouse with a regular paycheck.

  Feb 03, 2009