Home Study Massage - A Promising Career

By Fiona Bryland

You could possibly study on your own and get into home study massage and prepare for a career as a masseuse. By law you are not required to have any formal qualifications to give someone a rub down. But if you are serious about it than probably you need to have formal qualifications. Additionally, most insurance will not cover massage by unregistered therapists.

An Old Science

Massage is older than Hippocrates. In fact the venerable physician has discussed friction treatment in his works. Since then, massage has been used to cure ailments and relax knotted muscles, reducing stress, helping people recover from painful injuries and in general giving them a great feeling of wellness. You can, if you work hard at it, make home study massage a promising and lucrative career.

So what are the qualifications you need to hang in certificates in your waiting room? Nearly 1700 schools across North America teach the art and science of giving massage. Typically they cover anatomy, physiology, body mechanics, ethical issues, business principles and the like besides giving the student plenty of hands-on practice. Entry into these courses is through a test and an interview. It is not very easy to get in.

You take about 800 hours of study to complete the home study massage course. Before you actually lay your hands on a patient, you will need to understand the philosophy, ethics and history of massage, with more that three thousand years behind it, this study can be formidable indeed.

The Certification Path

Once you finish the course, you can take a national certification test. This is optional, but if you are looking to make a career of massaging patients, this is a recognition you should aspire for. The exam covers six areas of knowledge and goes into legal, business and ethical issues besides the purely medical aspects. In that sense, it really prepares you for the work that a professional masseuse is required to perform and the situations that she will face on a daily basis.

In some states, formal accreditation is mandatory to be allowed to practice as a professional. Besides this, there may be other licensing requirements and you may need to demonstrate that you are abreast with the latest in the subject before you are allowed to practice.

Having said all this, let it not put you off. Professional masseurs make a lot of money. However, it is largely based on the ethical standards they adopt and the relief they bring to their patients. This is one field where most of the advertising is by word of mouth. It is only when your old patients get positive relief that they will recommend you to their friends. You must be honest enough to tell your patients if you think that massage alone is not going to help them and they need the care of a specialist in medicine or surgery. That is the only way to make your massage practice grow.

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