Bring on the Complementary Therapy Crackdown

“The head of the UK’s first regulator for complementary medicine has promised to get tough with the industry and drive out cowboy therapists.

Maggie Dunn, co-chairman of the Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council (CNHC), said it was time customers were given proper assurances.

She said the regulator, which is being launched on Monday, would clean up the industry used by one in five people.

And she estimated thousands of clinics may go out of business in the process.

The main plank of the council’s work will be to operate a register of practitioners. “

Read the whole article and view the video at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7828593.stm

I personally feel this is a positive step for Shiatsu and other Complementary, Alternative therapies (CAM). It gives members of the public reassurance that practitioners are qualified, have appropriate insurance and abide by a code of conduct. It also gives them an authority to go to if they are not satisfied with the service they received.

As a Shiatsu practioner, I trained for three years to gain my qualification and am a member of the Shiatsu Society which requires me to do Continued Professional Development in addition to having appropriate insurance and abiding by it’s code of conduct.

I am hopeful that this will have a positive impact on the industry and increase the confidence in CAM by the genral public. I for one will be wanting to join the register in the near future.

An Extract from Shiatsu, Yoga and Breath by Rosamund Jordan (1998)

“Shiatsu is a word that seems vaguely familiar to a great many people: ‘That’s under dogs, isn’t it?’ said the young lad who searched for the appropriate section for my advert; or the people who signed up for the staff development workshop expecting a martial arts session. A sharp reminder to a practitioner who would like to feel that Shiatsu’s value as a complementary medical discipline is universally known and understood.

Tracy Footitt, Shiatsu

Shiatsu works on many levels; physical, psychological, emotional. Its effects can be quite subtle. These are few examples. One client with a stressful job felt that since they started coming for treatment they were coping better with the pressures at work. A young mother, who had had a bereavement, had problems at home and was always ready to respond to any cry for help when at work, found she was unable to let go to stop or to sleep. She came for one treatment and afterwards went home and slept for most of the week and during it began putting her needs first.

It can be a useful aid for women going through the menopause. Another client was a single mother approaching 50. Originally she attended to see if treatments could help with general tiredness and debility. She travelled a great deal and at some periods of the year her work could be very demanding. The diagnosis indicated that there was an imbalance in her water element (kidneys, this is an oriental diagnosis that has a broader interpretation than the kidney in western terms) that resulted in her feeling tired. This was exacerbated by the fact that she ate irregularly, had an up and down diet and was usually only able to get coffee to drink whilst working. As it was part of the social side of work it tended to be rather a lot of cups of coffee. Through the treatments I worked to redress the imbalance of energy.

Recommendations at the end of the sessions included encouraging her to think about what she was eating and to remember to feed herself. Over several treatments her energy level improved. She cut down on her coffee intake and began to think about when and what she was eating. Clients experiencing hot flushes have found Shiatsu treatments helpful in reducing or totally relieving the hot flushes. Sometimes this can be linked to a change in diet.

Shiatsu is particularly good for stress and helping people to relax. I recently saw a woman whose original reason for making the appointment had been a problem with stress. In the meantime she had had a minor car accident. Checked by her Doctor and the hospital she was told that she had not sustained a whiplash injury. However, her head rest had not been properly aligned and she had been left with a constant thumping headache at the back of her head. The diagnosis was the meridian associated with shock. I worked to balance the effects of shock and the accident. By the end of the treatment her headache had completely gone. “

Read the whole article at:

http://www.positivehealth.com/article-view.php?articleid=2331