Massage Therapy – Health Profession or Customer Service? part 1

Nine years ago when I graduated from my Massage Therapy Diploma program, I was so excited to start practicing – after all, I had toiled for 2 years to earn not only my diploma, but also to earn my Registered Massage Therapist designation through the College of Massage Therapists of Ontario, which I did 4 weeks after graduating.

For those not familiar with massage therapy regulation in Canada, Ontario is one of 3 provinces in which massage therapy is a Regulated Health Profession, and a massage therapist must have passed College of Massage Therapists of Ontario (CMTO) Board exams. The purpose of the professional college is the protection of the public and maintenance of the integrity of professionals by establishing standards and quality assurance guidelines. By being a member of this professional college, I take great care to uphold the standards of the college and do my best to serve my clients in a responsible and ethical way. This however, can sometimes be easier said than done.

What I quickly found out after graduating is that no amount of instruction or coaching can replace real-life
experience, and I’m sure that is true of everything in life. For those of us who do have some customer service experience, we quickly found out that that massage therapists hold a unique position in an industry which has one foot in service, and the other in health care.

People outside of the profession may wonder why this “foot in both worlds” makes a difference to the practice of massage therapy. After 9 years of practice, I have learned that it all boils down to this: being a health-care practitioner obliges us to caring for client health first and foremost, with the customer service aspect falling a distant second, even if it means potentially losing the almighty (and necessary) business dollar.

In this industry, is the client “always right”?

No, absolutely not. And before customer service gurus go crazy at this statement, let me tell you why.

The ultimate responsibility of a massage therapist is to improve or enhance the health and functionality of a client within a therapeutic relationship of mutual trust and respect. Add to that privacy and confidentiality issues, and one can understand the depth of this responsibility. Since most clients coming in to see massage therapists have little to no knowledge of human anatomy and physiology, and even less of how massage therapy can affect the human body, they often don’t have the level of discernment necessary to dictate to a therapist what is needed.

How many times has a client asked me “Why are you looking at my neck, the pain I have is in my elbow?” Questions such as this are very valid, and give the massage therapy community the perfect opportunity to educate our clients one-on-one about the profession and about their own bodies. How else would a client know that irritated nerves in the cervical spine can affect sensory or motor function of the upper limb? The only way many clients ever learn anything is by spending time with a health professional who takes the time to educate them. Massage therapists are in the position of privilege and should take advantage of the opportunity to educate their clients.

Does this mean that every therapist takes the time to educate their clients? No, and sometimes it may not be necessary. What I would like to instill in new therapists is that while clients might not actually care why or how a certain symptom comes about, this lack of knowledge or caring doesn’t give a client by default the right to dictate to a therapist what needs to be done.

Case in point: I recall on one occasion when speaking with a potential client on the phone, she became very belligerent when she said she would refuse to fill out a health history form, and I then had to tell her that I would not be able to treat her. She proceeded to tell me that “it is absolutely none of your business what my health issues are or have been”, to which I replied “It is my business, as there may be an issue which may adversely affect your health if I treat you without being aware of it.”

Let’s just say that that conversation did end with my losing a potential client, and that was perfectly fine. I
had the confidence at that point to place the responsibility I had as a therapist above her desire to dictate how I perform my job. I can also tell you this – I would not want to be in a defendant’s chair in a lawsuit where I treated a client without adequate knowledge of her health, and she ended up getting hurt. If such were the case, and I lost the suit, not only could I end up paying a lot of money, I could lose my profession.

Part 2 to follow: Massage therapy – is the customer always right?

For a great read on the practice and business of massage therapy, check out Business Mastery by Cherie Sohnen-Moe.

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Jodi Forsythe
www.whymassagetherapy.com
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