MASSAGE TRAINING

Massage training has developed which is geared towards the development of a widely skilled and flexible practitioner, who can adapt to a clientele in varied states of health and physical fitness, with a range of builds and lifestyles, and needing different sorts of treatments depending on the reasons for their tension and the events occurring in their lives which need to be taken into account.

Simultaneously there has been a growing belief amongst many professionals that the practitioner's personal development needs to be an essential (and continuing) component of their training and work. This has been fuelled by the fact that it is standard practice in many of the eastern massage systems now established in this country (such as Shiatsu and Thai massage), in other body based disciplines (such as the teaching of Yoga, Tai Chi, the Martial Arts, the Alexander Technique and the Feldenkrais Method) and also by this development in professions such as Counselling and Psychotherapy.

Although, in some parts of Europe and most of North America there is a very high standard of training for massage practitioners, it is legally possible in Britain to set oneself up as a massage practitioner without having done any training at all. However, to work in a health centre or medical setting one does need to have done training which allows you to join an organisation with a code of ethics and disciplinary procedures and to take out professional indemnity insurance - as forms of public protection – so standards are thus being informally established. Unfortunately short trainings that merely teach massage routines cannot give these credentials.

The Massage Training Institute was established to bring together training courses that incorporate the developments described above. MTI is a member of the General Council for Massage Therapy (GCMT) and is actively involved in the process of setting standards for massage training in this country, and also to promote continuing professional development (which has become a requirement amongst most professions) to maintain the standards of practitioners.