The Somatic Arts and Sciences Institute www.sasionline.com 12-Hours Continuing Education LMT Success Group Package 12 Hour LMT Success Group Package This is a package of four (3 CE ho ur) NCBTMB Approved Courses, all compiled into one book to make it easier for you to look up the answers as you take the test. This package includes: EPS001: Massage Therapy Roles and Boundaries EPS002: Ethics in Massage Marketing EPS003: Cultural Sensitivity for Massage Therapists EPS004: Transference and Countertransference in Massage Therapy Table of Contents Instructions…………………………………………………………………………………………………..……… 3 Educational Objectives……………………………………………………………………….………………….… 3 Section 1: Roles and Boundaries (NCBTMB Standard V)..………………………………………..……………4 Section 2: Ethics in Massage Marketing………………………………………………………………………..154 Section 3: Cultural Sensitivity for Massage Therapists………………………………………………….……295 Section 4: Transference and Countertransference in Massage Therapy……………………………..……476 Course Completion: Certificate of Completion and Transcript…………………………………………….…607 Course Evaluation and Errata.………………………………………………………………….……….………608 Help and Technical Support Line……………………………………………………………………….….……608 Bibliography (Sources)…………………………………………………………………………………………...609 2 Massage Therapy Roles and Boundaries Instructions Thanks for downloading this Somatic Arts and Sciences continuing education course. Read the book, then take the quiz on our website. HINT: You may want to look at the quiz before you start reading, it’s very helpful to know what kind of questions are going to be asked. Taking the quiz To take the quiz you can click the link on our website that appears below this book. Target Audience This continuing education course has been designed to meet the educational needs of massage therapists. Degree of Difficulty Beginner/Entry Level Course Description This course will address a variety of ethical issues that might arise in the course of a Massage Therapist’s career. Therapists will review ethical standards for massage therapy, and an outline of appropriate roles and boundaries in a massage therapy are provided. Educational Objectives Upon completion of this home study continuing education course, the massage practitioner should be able to: Define Ethical boundaries as it applies to massage therapy. Identify proper strategies for ethical problem solving. 3 Section 1: Massage Therapy Roles and Boundaries Chapter 1: An ethics primer This is an ethics course written specifically for massage therapists, so as you would expect we are going to spend quite a bit of time discussing the usual ethical issues and quandaries that one might expect in bodywork, specifically roles and boundaries, massage advertising, business practices, draping, sexual misconduct and all that stuff. Don’t worry. We’ll get there. But first we need to review the basics. Remember when you first started learning anatomy in massage school? The first thing you should have been taught is basic anatomical vocabulary. In order to learn the names, locations and functions of the muscles you first had to learn what words like “superior, inferior, and medial” meant. Before you learned how to do the various strokes and techniques you were taught the words “effeurage, petrissage, and tapotement”. Without the words and their definitions the hands on lessons couldn’t be taught. In all disciplines there is a foundation that must be laid before you can build a body of knowledge. Ethics is no different, but unfortunately massage schools treat it like it is. For some reason massage schools tend to think that they can teach lessons on “ethics for massage therapists” without covering the basics of what ethics actually are-including the language used in making ethical decisions and rational thought. I don’t want to just give you a long list of dos and don’ts for massage therapy and a rehash of the Standards of Practice. A simple Internet search for “ massage therapist arrested… ” should convince you that the standard teaching of ethics for massage therapists is not quite getting the job done 1. That being said, we are going to go a bit deeper into what ethics are really all about. 1 About 1,610,000 results on Google this afternoon for “massage therapist arrested”. Yes. One and a half million . 4 A basic ethics vocabulary The following theories and concepts (presented in alphabetical order for convenience) cover the basics of the study of ethics in western society. Absolutism, moral Moral absolutism is an ethical view that certain actions are absolutely right or absolutely wrong , regardless of other circumstances such as their consequences or the intentions behind them 2. Prostitution, for example, might be considered to be always immoral, even if the woman doing it believes she has a good reason (resorting to prostitution to buy food for her children). Moral absolutism stands in contrast to other categories of normative ethical theories such as consequentialism, which holds that the morality (right or wrong) of an act depends on the consequences of the act and relativism, which means that moral principles gain their validity through approval by the culture or the individual. Act-intuitionism This is a theory of ethics that states that we should consult our moral intuition (conscience) in every situation to discover the morally right thing to do. Jiminy Cricket would approve. Action-based theory This theory, brought to you by Immanuel Kant, one of the most influential men in the history of Western philosophy, is based on the idea that we should act properly by following moral rules, and we can judge other people based on how they act , not on whether they are “virtuous people.” In case the underlining wasn’t obvious enough, this theory is most concerned with how we act. Actual duty Duty theories base morality on specific, foundational principles of obligation. These theories are sometimes called deontological, from the Greek word deon, or duty, in view of the foundational nature of our duty or obligation 3. 2 Pojman, L. P. : A Defense of Ethical Objectivism 3 Samuel Pufendorf, De officio hominis et civis juxta legem naturalem (1673), tr., The Whole Duty of Man according to the Law of Nature (London, 1691). 5 In the case of actual duty , it means that when you have two duties that are in conflict, the stronger one overrides the weaker one and that is the one you should do. For example, if you work in a spa you have a duty to massage clients for your employer. If a client is on the schedule for you to massage and they inform you that they have DVT (Deep Vein Thrombosis), which contraindicates massage, you also have a duty to protect the client by not doing the massage. Both of these are your duties, but protecting the client is a stronger duty-so it overrides the other one, that is your actual duty. Act-utilitarianism Act utilitarianism is a theory of ethics that states that a person's act is morally right if and only if it produces at least as much happiness as any other act that the person could perform at that time 4. To understand how this might apply to you, imagine that someone asks you to donate your time doing chair massages at an event to raise awareness for cancer patients. Unfortunately the event is scheduled for your day off, and you were going to spend that day watching reruns of old TV shows on Netflix, because that is what makes you happy. So you have a choice, stay at home and make yourself happy, or work the charity event and probably make a lot of people happy. According to act utilitarianism theory, the morally right thing to do is the charity event, because that is the act that will generate the most happiness. Agapeism Agapism is the belief that selfless love (or "agape") should be the ultimate value and that all other values are derived from it, or in other words, love is the most important thing. Theological agapism holds that our love of God is expressed by loving each other. In ethical arguments, agapism tells us that we should do the most loving thing in any situation, letting love determine our obligation rather than rules. Sweet, right? Altruism Altruism is the opposite of selfishness. It is the principle of concern for the welfare of others. Pure altruism consists of sacrificing something for someone other than yourself (sacrificing time, money, energy or 4 Lyons, David. Forms and Limits of Utilitarianism . Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965, p. vii. 6 possessions) with no expectation of any compensation or benefits, either direct, or indirect (e.g., receiving recognition for the act of giving). In ethics, altruism can refer to an ethical doctrine that claims that individuals are morally obliged to benefit others. Used in this sense, it is usually contrasted with egoism , which is defined as acting to the benefit of one's self. We’ll talk about the fun of egoism later. Antirealism, moral Anti-realism is used to describe any position involving either the denial of an objective reality or the denial that verification-transcendent statements are either true or false. In the context of this ethics course, it is the belief that there are no moral facts . Applied ethics This is a specific branch of ethics that deal with the thorny issues of our time, like abortion, cloning, premarital sex, capital punishment, euthanasia (assisted suicide), and civil disobedience. Thankfully, we will not be dealing with it in this course, even though it kind of sounds like the title. Autonomy This one is particularly relevant to us as massage therapists because it is one of the four key principles that our Standards of Practice is based on, and a core concept in medical ethics. We will be talking about it in the next chapter. It is from the Greek for “selfrule,” self-directed freedom. Cardinal virtues Once upon a time there was a man named Plato who just happened to live in ancient Greece at a time when ancient Greece wasn’t doing too well.