Findings from the AMTA 2010 Massage Profession Research Report
If you are a member of the American Massage Therapy Association, you may be aware that every year the AMTA publishes an industry fact sheet with statistics about the massage therapy profession. Typically it addresses the demographics of who receives massage, how much they pay, what the average massage therapist looks like, and other details that create a snapshot of our profession. A typical fact sheet has the following headings:
- Massage Therapy as a Profession
- Who is Today’s Massage Therapist?
- Massage Therapy as a Career
- Education is Valued in the Massage Therapy Profession
- State Regulation of the Massage Therapy Profession
- Who Gets a Massage and Why
- Massage and Healthcare
- Massage Therapy Research
This year’s Fact Sheet is available here: http://www.amtamassage.org/news/MTIndustryFactSheet2010.html, and it is free to everyone: members and non-members alike.
But you may not be aware that the AMTA also produces a much more thorough report specifically for member schools. Titled 2010 Massage Profession Research Report, this year’s effort is a monumental piece of work with 59 fact-filled pages of information about our vocation, along with ideas about how that data can be applied. It provides a wealth of information based on extensive surveys of practicing therapists and massage therapy clients. Interested readers can access the report here: http://www.amtamassage.org/a/shoppingmall/ProductDetail.aspx?SiteMapId=5&ProductId=2874.
It is free to AMTA members, and available for a charge to the rest of the public. Even if you aren’t with an AMTA member school, if you have any interest in the marketing of massage therapy, this report will be worth your time and money.
Here is a tidbit from p. 9, taken from a survey of clients who had received massage within the past year:
Primary reasons for receiving last massage:
Pampering/ just to feel good/ special indulgence 17%
Relaxation/ stress reduction 32%
Medical reasons (including injury, spasm, pain relief) 32%
The remaining 18% had no specific reasons to get a massage; their responses were “it was free”, “It was a gift,” and the like. But the trend is obvious: of all the people who got a massage recently, about one-third did it to deal with a pressing physical or medical need—more, if we add the people seeking stress reduction. Compared to the 17% who claim “pampering” to be their primary reason for their last massage, we can derive some important information about the need for therapists to be well-educated in how to work with clients who live with imperfect health.
In an apparent contradiction, on p. 13 the answer to the question, “Where did you get your last massage?” was most often—and by quite a wide margin—in a spa setting. This points to the fact that the difference between massage as a service industry and massage as a health care intervention is a distinction that many clients don’t understand. Massage therapists in spas, cruise ships, franchises and salons are daily dealing with clients who are looking for a health care consultant more than a pampering provider.
As our profession considers what lies before us in the possibilities of tiered licensing and varying regulations to reflect levels of training, I hope we can keep in mind that separating practitioners by skill level on paper is one thing: it is entirely another when the public is looking for health care, and goes to the spa to find it.
This quandary will create some challenges for our profession in the near future. I am interested to hear your perspectives on how to address it.
Wow that is an very informative blog entry for me. I like your style of writing. Maybe you should write more articles of these type. By the way, sorry for my bad english
According to the US Dept. of Labor, we are Health Care Support. I don’t
have an issue with that classification. Part of my work over the last
three years has been education. In the early 1900′s, massage was
performed by doctors. As drugs and surgery became more
prevalent, massage therapy was put aside. With the recent recession and
the high cost of health care, people are turning to less invasive,
drug-free affordable health care alternatives (like massage). What
I do have an issue with is people making ‘happy ending’ jokes and
thinking massage is only for relaxation. I also don’t like the fact
that many (that I know) go and work in spas and forget their anatomy
and don’t learn to actually help people (my opinion based on my
experiences).The above attitudes and behavior have made it very
difficult for massage establishment owners to obtain business licenses
in Chicago. Fortunately, I was granted permission, by zoning, to
operate as a medical service.I plan to work with city
government to help establish 2 distinct classifications for massage
establishments. One for spas/service businesses and one for massage
offices/clinics.
According to the US Dept. of Labor, we are Health Care Support. I don’t have an issue with that classification. Part of my work over the last three years has been education. In the early 1900′s, massage was performed by doctors. As drugs and surgery became more prevalent, massage therapy was put aside. With the recent recession and the high cost of health care, people are turning to less invasive, drug-free affordable health care alternatives (like massage). What I do have an issue with is people making ‘happy ending’ jokes and thinking massage is only for relaxation. I also don’t like the fact that many (that I know) go and work in spas and forget their anatomy and don’t learn to actually help people (my opinion based on my experiences).The above attitudes and behavior have made it very difficult for massage establishment owners to obtain business licenses in Chicago. Fortunately, I was granted permission, by zoning, to operate as a medical service.I plan to work with city government to help establish 2 distinct classifications for massage establishments. One for spas/service businesses and one for massage offices/clinics.
My friend just gave me a link to this website. I don’t actually know why, but I thought I’d leave a comment to let you know that I think you have a nice writing style, however I think you could’ve elaborated more. However I still enjoyed browsing your other posts.
I am making an attempt right this moment to get one good quality anti aging product but it appears certainly, there is not one thing that could possibly treat my skin. In the event that you surely are aware of some kind of proper treatment which could help to make changes inform me and therefore I am going to appreciate that.
Sorry about the dupe post and the crappy formatting. Don’t know what happened. Jan
Today I experienced a case in point– and not even in our country. A woman who found my articles on Lou Gehrig’s disease wrote from the UK to ask about massage for her mother, who has it. Here’s what she says: “Is this something a beauty therapist/masseur can do or are there certain massage techniques you use that i can do for her.” People are so eager for our skills, and they are willing to go to surprising places to find them. I myself wouldn’t think of going to a salon to find treatment for my mother with a terminal and painful disease, but that seems to be the best option she can think of.Health care? Sevice industry?
Great insight Ruth–as usual. In my “previous life as a massage school owner” I would have students say “I don’t really worry about all that pathology and clinical stuff-I just want to do relaxation massage in a spa.” As I bit my lower lip—I would ask “Do you think people that have some sort of medical condition should be banned from spas? If you believe that people only want relaxation/Swedish massage and are 100% healthy, why would spas offer a variety of massage therapy techniques?” Things that make you go hmmmmm.In another former life as a nurse, I’m wondering if the nurses who work in a dermatology office feel inferior to those who work in ICU’s or the OR? Certainly there is a different skill set utilized during the day, but is patient care any less important?There is a distinct difference in the way that massage therapists (in my opinion) view themselves….and according to the survey, it appears that we’re “teaching” our clients to divide their interests as well. I’m wondering how the survey respondents would have answered the following two questions:1. If you utilize massage therapy for medical reasons, would you also visit a spa for relaxation? or2. If you utilize massage therapy for relaxation at a spa, would you also visit a massage clinic if you had a medical condition?I’m thinking, chances are the answer would be “yes” to both……What a wonderful dilemma…..
In my practice, it is both. And in fact, I think one of the main things wrong with mainstream medicine is that physicians often don’t care about the “service” side of it. Many of them keep patients with an appointment waiting for hours, then run in the examining room, pay little if any attention to what the patient says, write a prescription for the latest drug that Big Pharm is promoting, trot out the door in less than five minutes, and then you’re handed a bill that reflects approximately $50-100 per minute for the paltry amount of time they spent with you, and if you asked the majority of them at the end of the day, they could no more tell you the names of the patients they saw than the man in the moon. Whether a client is seeking bodywork for a medical reason, or for relaxation, I pride myself and am proud of my staff for the service that people receive in our office. We offer them a glass of water when they come in the door. Everyone is seen on time. Everyone is offered a heated neck pillow. Our tables are all fitted out with table warmers and comfy linens and comforters. The staff takes time to listen to the complaints. The client gets a full hour of massage, not 50 minutes. The appointments are booked with 30 minutes in between, or more if the therapist desires (they put their own slots in the appt book) to give the therapist time to regroup. The client is given water as soon as they come out from the therapy room. They are made to feel welcomed, listened to, their wishes honored, and made to feel that we are grateful that they have chosen to bring their business to us.So yes, it is health care, and yes, it is still service.
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I picked this blog up from FB (natch
where you asked the
question, service industry or healthcare intervention? I think of massage therapy as
intervention and prevention in healthcare/wellcare. Stress reduction and relaxation can hardly be
separated from health since the majority of illnesses in this country are
related in some way to stress.
And, it would be interesting to know how people are defining
pampering. Relaxing, stress-free
time perhaps is another way to say pampering.
There are many spas that provide massage for people who are
experiencing discomfort. We need
to think about moving away from pigeon holing spas as only delivering pampering
massages. I’ve had some of my
best, most therapeutic massages in spas.
I’m not at all surprised that many people choose spas for their
massage. In general they are
clean, friendly and safe.
Although I can see issues with tiered licensing, it is a
direction in which I would like to see us go. The public doesn’t really have any way of knowing the level
of skill a therapist possesses now (unless they’ve already gotten a massage
from them), but it does seem that it would be easier to educate the public
about the differences with tiers than it would be if we stay where we are
In addition, licensure is about protection of the public,
but we also need to help therapists who have differing levels of education get
the respect they’ve earned, at whatever level. And then maybe we’ll have to think harder about
accreditation of schools. Not just
any accreditation, but specialized accreditation. Whole other blog, Ruth!
We have to think like the entrepreneurs that we are. In educating our public about how we can best fill their needs, I think a concentrated and well thought out media campaign should be planned by the AMTA and the ABMP together, massage schools across the country, and individual massage therapists. There is Massage Therapy Awareness week, but that’s one in fifty two others in the year where we could be writing articles, making commercials, getting You Tube vidoes, etc. to promote what we do in the message that we would like to convey. We also need to be very careful about not demeaning the spa experience, or anyone choosing not to be a more medically based massage therapist. What we need to do is to create a way to have the public understand what the expectations of the settings are.
Catherine Allis
Hi Ruth, Massage is healthcare. It is humanitarian in its essence. To tier the profession does not establish appropriate boundries for the public or the practitioner. Make sure the government knows that massage is healthcare. Work to ensure there are not abuses to the practitioner within the spa industry. The “public” thinks it is entitled and has very primal desires. We are practitioners, and our scope does not include diagnosis and perscriptions.