Warning: Reading this in its entirety with an open mind and sense of humor could result in the active engagement of brain cells, questioning authorities, rethinking philosophies, assessing loyalties and an inexplicable desire to be an ethical informed professional massage and bodywork practitioner.
After 17 years I need to come clean. I feel I have to make this statement. I feel a deep sense of disappointment and betrayal. I am no longer Nationally Board Certified in Therapeutic Massage & Bodywork. The initials NCTMB have not been on my business card for well over a year now. It feels very strange to not do that. Not strange at all to me is that this is the impetus for me to finally blog.
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I am writing this as a massage therapist that has made a living doing massage therapy full-time for 21 years now. Even when I owned a school for 12 years I still had a full-time massage practice. I am used to speaking my mind, and most people that know me are not surprised when I do. People listen, laugh, or leave. I am okay with that. I am not writing this as an elected chapter leader. I am not a professional writer nor do I have delusions of grandeur that this will be read by anyone other than my dear friends and clients. I am aware there may be some backlash from this. It will be worth it if one person reads this and understands better what is going on in our industry.
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Seventeen years ago I sat for the first ever National Certification for Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork exam on a warm Saturday in June, 1992. It seemed to me that anyone that was anyone in the field of massage & bodywork knew it was coming. We knew that it wasn’t just a small group of therapists. We knew it wasn’t just the AMTA that was making this happen. The AMTA perhaps was the beginning – the financial, organizational, and motivational concepts. However, a large number of practitioners from many bodywork fields and organizations participated in the actual creation- the item writing, the developing, and the implementation of the National Certification Exam (NCE). Everyone seemed to know it would change the playing field. Still I heard, time after time, about how it would be unfair it was for “The AMTA to do this”, or for “one organization to have the certification exam and sell insurance and be a membership organization”. It was clear they really didn’t get it.
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Seventeen years ago I had been practicing for 4 years. I refused to actually study for the exam- I wanted to know if I had it or not. Not if I could cram for it. This was a very meaningful thing for me. At the time I was a full-time employee at Hillcrest Hospital in Tulsa. I was one of the very few people at that time that had full-time employment as a Massage Therapist in a hospital. I worked at the Women’s Center and with the Geri-Psych Unit. For those that were pioneering and “bridging the gap”, so to speak, in this field an accredited exam was huge. Again, I was forging ahead where some people had said a massage therapists would never be. We would be eligible for a raise! (Because it was an actual board exam) So what if it was only an additional fifty cents an hour, it was the same thing the RNs got- it mattered! Because of it we were able to get a new level of credentialing as well as credibility. Credibility was very important, because we were all striving for massage and bodywork to be taken seriously. We would no longer be disregarded because our certification would come from a trade school. We were Nationally Board Certified in Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork. The fact that I got to do “Grand Rounds” very soon after I became Nationally Board Certified was not lost on me, or the physicians (that still to this day) refer to me.
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Over the years we all put the NCTMB initials on our cards. We took classes for CEUs like never before. We made sure we were getting our CEUs from NCBTMB approved providers. We signed up, paid more fees, and some of us prepared loads of papers to become approved educational providers. We prepared curriculums to prepare students to successfully practice massage, and be able to pass the exam. Some of us even looked down on those that decided to just “teach the test”. We knew then that was not enough. We knew then there was an intangible invisible burden on the schools and educators. No one really wanted to talk about that.
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Certification from the National Certification Board for Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork was actually a great idea. It actually worked for a long time. I was so proud the the NCE became accredited in about 2 years. Wow! It took the Recreation Therapists 12 years to accomplish that. It was very meaningful to those of us in unlicensed states. It was something that actually separated the “wheat from the chaff”. It was a way for the consumer to know they were getting and educated professional and not someone that had apprenticed and didn’t know their parotid from their piriformis. There were large numbers of practitioners that sat for the exam that was not required for licensing. They did it because it was meaningful and it did at one time matter. Not anymore.
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Small insidious changes began to occur:
• The grandfathering was extended. Then it became never ending; in that people to this day can do a portfolio with 4 years of experience and only 200 hours of education. This looks better in print than it occurs in real life.
• The NCBTMB wasn’t too picky about what education people had to sit for the exam. So for instance, if someone had a 500 hour certificate, not from a state licensed school, but, from a community education program where they went to class for less than 80 hours and everything else was homework and practice – it was just fine.
• Later, the NCTMB suddenly had another level, the NCTM. (Hmm….just because people didn’t want to answer a few questions about oriental bodywork? Seriously!? ) There needed to be an easier exam?! That seemed strange to me when most of the people I was conversing with were asking about Advanced Credentialing and specific exams like medical massage, sports massage, prenatal bodywork etc…
• When it was announced that the NCBTMB would be accepting 300 hours of “distance learning” to qualify to sit for their exam, I was not only surprised, I was very disappointed. How many more ways can they water it down?
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Seventeen years ago my NCBTMB number was 306. I knew something didn’t feel right when 4 years later, I was given a new 4 digit number, and then later a longer number each time I recertified. It made me wonder how many times they were counting me! Did I count? What is this number that has to change?
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There have to be thousands of massage therapists that have volunteered with the National Certification Board over the years. They have held offices, performed speaking engagements, manned trade show booths, and have participated in numerous meetings (item writing, survey analysis, and leadership committees). I always felt a great sense of camaraderie during the events I had the opportunity to volunteer with. I always felt that we were all there for the benefit of the greater good, for the good of all, for all the right reasons. Then other changes started to occur. People were leaving; there was drama, accusations, and people were moving up in the organization almost too quickly.
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I did begin to wonder. After I had done a stint at item writing, and during a job task analysis survey committee process, someone said something that ignited me- we needed to change the word “effleurage” to “gliding” in all the exams to make the language more modern. They said this would be beneficial and reasonable, so that people would understand it better. What!? Did I hear that right? Were they joking?! I made a joke too- I suggested that if they were serious, we could change “friction” to “rubbing”, and “petrissage” to “squeezing”, and use the Journey tune “Lovin’, Touchin’ and Squeezin’” to help the students remember better! Nobody laughed. They were serious. So was I! I stated something along the lines that this would be the “Californication” of massage, and would be a big mistake. If Per Henrik Ling (a Swede) used the word “effleurage”, and it had served us well all this time, why would we change it now? Our heritage, history, and foundations are closer to Europe, France and Asia than San Luis Obispo. I really was upset- we already had the NCTM as well as the NCTMB, and now they felt a need to make it easier, and dump years of tradition and history. Unfortunately, there were other, more important voices than mine that were raised after that, but we all continued to move forward, progress, and work on the tasks at hand, even if we did not agree on every little thing.
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I didn’t wonder when one of the leaders at NCBTMB actually sat my husband and I down a couple of years ago and asked us point blank what we thought about them creating state chapters (He’s also massage therapist – formerly NCTMB as well). THUD! The other shoe had dropped. We told them it was a horrible idea! We told them that was not their mission… that as a “Credentialing Organization”, it seemed way out of their scope. We told them the AMTA had state chapters, and having state “units” would be seen as copying them. We also told them that it was difficult enough to get people to attend AMTA state chapter meetings, and tossing another “chapter” in the mix would be challenging for massage therapists. We also told them they would stand to lose a lot of certificants that were happily AMTA, ABMP and whatever other organization- they already had someone to purchase insurance from! We even said that would betray the public trust they had because the NCE credential was being used as a state licensing requirement. We didn’t really matter – they didn’t listen to us – I wonder why they bothered to ask now?
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Now it almost seems that there has been a cat and mouse game going on. The NCE is now required or accepted for state licensing in over 30 states. They had plenty of money, and were moving on with their plans, but not progressing on the one thing massage therapists need….Advanced Credentialing. Then the MBLEX appeared on the horizon. Suddenly there was a new exam! The MBLEX folks were very clear; they were a state licensing exam, not an advanced credential. So the NCB fearfully spent loads of money on suing state massage boards and fighting massage legislations that did not let them continue to be recognized exclusively. One massage therapist I spoke to was shocked. She knew the NCE was coming to her state while there was a legislative meeting. She thought they would be supporting their efforts. “The NCE turned on us like mad dogs as if we were not the same people that had been supporting them and promoting them and being certified by them all these years”, she said.
They obviously do not – they have a new program! They have created a new organization, the USA Massage Resource Alliance (usaMRA) that will be selling insurance and becoming a “membership” organization. The NCBTMB’s recent response to the AMTA’s decision to support the MBLEx was; “the existence of the MBLEx is “redundant” and will threaten the profession at large”. It is redundant to have two exams? Threaten the profession at large? Can they hear themselves? If two exams are redundant, how redundant is it to create yet another membership organization for the profession? They don’t have any experience being a membership organization. Wait a minute- one organization with the NCE, and now they are creating a membership and insurance organization too? Isn’t that what so many people violently opposed it 17 years ago when it was first created? Why yes it was! Then it was said that it wouldn’t be fair for one organization to do all these things. They wouldn’t understand that the NCB was separate from AMTA. So – what they really meant was they were upset that AMTA was doing all these things.
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The NCB’s new membership plan seems to depend on all of the AMTA, ABMP and other groups’ members (that are currently nationally board certified) staying nationally board certified and being members of their new NCB organization, USA Massage Resource Association (USAMRA). They are also depending on continuing to certify new graduates. In fact, they even have a new level of membership available in their new association for those practitioners that haven’t taken or passed one of their exams! I was speechless for several minutes after I read that the first time myself.
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Of course this could really boomerang in a very amusing way… What if every single member of the AMTA, ABMP, and all the other groups, just decided to stay loyal to their original groups? What if they decided not to recertify with NCE? Being from Oklahoma, there is something in my DNA that says “C’mon – Let’s try it….Just to watch what happens…It will be fun!”
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.So forgive me for ending this relationship. It won’t be the first time someone said, “We have been together for over 15 years, but they changed so much…and they are just not what I can have in my life right now”. There is usually a moral and/or ethical betrayal in that situation. In this situation, I feel there is a moral and ethical betrayal that cuts to the heart, hands and pocketbooks of every certificant.
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I am not Nationally Board Certified. I am not ready to make nice. I am appalled at their betrayal. I am disappointed -because fear, greed and power have undermined what could have been a progressive, beneficial board certification for massage and bodywork practitioners. I am upset because the “National Certification Board for Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork” are hiring “spin doctors” who are better at winning popularity contests than making a living with their hands.
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As usual, we aren’t paying close attention – allow me to explain this again. They have hired a few members from at least one organization (and I am guessing there are others from other organizations as well). The problem is that it will not help. It isn’t the answer. Everyone thinks, “Oh yeah….They will go straighten the NCB out!” – That won’t happen. That’s not what they are being hired for. That is not where their expertise lies, I promise you. They are being hired because the NCB sees only one pie, and would like to keep the whole thing for themselves. Now, they had a whole pie once (and I think they let it spoil), they didn’t take great care of their certificants, they repeatedly betrayed the very profession they said that they supported, and they were not good stewards of their finances. It was impossible to get anyone on the phone- hell! They forgot to send out recertification notices at least one year, and that was the main thing they do! Now they want another pie (which isn’t theirs), so they are hiring people to convince you that it is indeed their pie. Do you really understand that? These NCB folks are gearing up to convince you that there is yet another valid massage organization you need to be a member of and they have created it especially for you. This new organization is not one you have already been member of for years – it isn’t any of the organizations that have supported you and the industry loyally for all of these years. I am offended at how stupid they must think we are.
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So I didn’t recertify with the NCB, (I have been certified since I graduated from Body Mind College in San Diego California in 1988), what are you going to do?
Xerlan Geiser-Deery, CMT
September 8, 2009 at 12:35 am
Xerlan-
I am in complete agreement with your passionate words. For the NCTMB to create an insurance option, and compete with the very organization that created it in the first place (AMTA), we know that they do not have the massage therapy profession at their best interest. Also, as we know, their mission is to have a credentialing program; so selling insurance is in no way reflecting their actual mission statement. It is a shame that power and greed get in the way of those of us who are actually trying to “advance the science, art and practice of massage therapy” (AMTA’s mission statement for those who do not know). Kudos to you Xerlan for standing up for what is right in our field. I will not recertify with NCB when I am due and will also be taking NCTMB off of my business cards, etc. as I do not wish to support their recent changes. I am glad to have a wonderful mentor who stands up for what is honest, ethical and moral. You are a true leader. Love, Nina
September 8, 2009 at 12:45 am
Thank You Xerlan, by the time I decided to go ahead and take the test I could see something was amiss. Too many Board Member changes in very short order, rumors of “problems”. I admit that I didn’t investigate and saw it as pointless. What could I do about any of it. NCB has lost it’s mind and I want no part of it. Coupons for KFC and Jiffy Lube? Hows that supposed to help? And don’t we all get a shot at those discounts through AARP later anyway?
I’m in agreement on the “C’mon – Let’s try it….Just to watch what happens…It will be fun!”
I’m staying with my colleagues in the AMTA.
September 8, 2009 at 1:52 am
Xerlan
I’m coming clean too. My story is your story. I , too, did not for the first time since inception renew last year. For all the reasons you mention.
Sad but true – there is great disappointment with the NCB.
Thanks for speaking out for all of us.
September 8, 2009 at 2:18 am
I, too, sat proudly for the first NCTMBE in ’92. I, too, was inordinately proud of my low number, and dismayed when they replaced it without recognition of the meaning to the professionals they were certifying.
I was active in the national governance of AMTA, and interacted with the professional management group that the NCBTMB board hired to run the organization. The NCE was only one in that company’s stable of exams, and they never understood the value of the credential to the profession.
I did a little volunteering for the NCTMB and many people I respected did a lot of volunteering for them — but somehow they went very far astray. I dropped my certification some years back, before the really ugly stuff began, because they were doing nothing to enhance the value of certification to the potential employers of massage therapists.
From my position now, far from the center of action, it looks like the state boards had to create MBLEX because NCTMB was in such disarray. NCTMB’s decision to become a mini-association is a sad turn of events: something so mny of us yearned for and worked so hard to bring into being, cynically turned into a commodity.
Thanks for your words about this.
September 8, 2009 at 2:24 am
Well said, Xerlan! The NCBTMB has been straying from their charge for at least 5 years now. While my issues with the organization and yours may differ slightly you really nailed it when you said, “I am appalled at their betrayal. I am disappointed -because fear, greed and power have undermined what could have been a progressive, beneficial board certification for massage and bodywork practitioners. I am upset because the “National Certification Board for Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork” are hiring “spin doctors” who are better at winning popularity contests than making a living with their hands.”
If the NCBTMB board expended as much energy into serving their market instead of themselves the entire profession, and every client who avails themselves of NCTMB practitioners, would certainly be better off.
It’s too bad that “too little, too late” will not do much to bring them from their current irrelevance.
September 8, 2009 at 6:51 pm
Xerlan:
You have some great points here and I would agree that many of the directions and actions the NCBTMB have taken in the last years have caused me serious concern. I say this especially as a former Chair of the organization where I was clearly aware of the mission and purpose of the organization. I also believe, that in our current state of development as a profession, having a national credentialing organization is absolutely crucial. For that reason I still hope there is some way to pick it back up and get it working the way it needs to be. In several discussions I have had with people at NCB recently there is an acknowledgement of this situation and what seems to be a recognition that some things have got to change in order for the organization to regain its status.
There are a couple of issues that I can shed some different light on as I was involved with them at the time they were implemented. The NCTM is not necessarily easier than the NCETMB, nor was it ever designed to be an easier exam. It was developed because there were many schools across the country that did not teach any Asian-oriented bodywork content in their curriculum so the exam was not reflective of what was being taught in the schools. The emergence of the NCTM was to more appropriately reflect what students were being taught.
I was also on the NCBTMB distance education task force that established the guidelines for inclusion of the 300 hours of distance education for qualifications in entry-level training. Also, I have been involved in distance education for many years now and routinely see a bias expressed about distance education. It is not necessarily easier than classroom based education. Interestingly, a comprehensive 2009 report published by the U.S. Department of Education found online learning more effective than classroom based learning in many instances. Hybrid courses that involve classroom learning and distance education were found to be the most effective. What is often not published in comments about the NCB’s decision to allow 300 hours of distance learning is that those hours are only applicable to certain cognitive based subjects like anatomy, business, theory, etc. The numbers were derived by looking at the existing eligibility criteria of how many hours were currently devoted to hands-on learning in the classroom and those topics must still be taught in a classroom environment. What this decision does is simply open up new learning opportunities for some of the course work that students need to study in massage education. Universities all over the world are recognizing the value and benefits of online education. Massage is no different and certain subjects we are taught can absolutely be taught in an online or distance education format. I believe many of them can be taught even better in that environment.
It is my hope that discussions like this that you have started will help shed light on the badly needed changes that must be implemented for the NCBTMB to become something that is respected and valued. Thanks for posting this!
September 9, 2009 at 4:11 am
I am awed at the interest and comments from people I respect so much. I appreciate all of your comments.
I especially appreciate Whitney Lowe for explaining a couple of things like the NCTM and the Distance Learning. I still do not agree with it and explaining it does not make it right, however it is an amazing opportunity for others to see this and for the NCB to realize the average practitioner does not know or understand all of these details. We don’t have to see eye to eye to walk hand in hand.
I am also concerned because Whitney did not address what is perhaps the most important issue. The NCB is creating their own membership organization to compete with AMTA, ABMP and the other associations. This reminds me of Charles Durning in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas when he ‘Danced a Little Sidestep’. No offense intended, Whitney, but when discussing this, clarity is important.
The NCB has not created jobs or identity for certificants as far as I am aware of. The NCB has failed to meet the mark so many times, and has betrayed so many who had faith and trust in them for so many years. Now it seems that the NCB is not even paying attention to the fact that the average massage practitioner is female, in their early 40s (which means they may have kids or elderly parents to care for), makes around $31,500 per year, and over half of them are working another job. Instead, the NCB wants more money, and they want these practitioners to join yet another association, and get yet another credential that won’t pay for itself. What is the true purpose? Where is the benefit?
I understand the value of credentialing, but a credential is only as good as the entity that stands behind it. That is what has changed drastically throughout the years. Unfortunately, when there is now an opportunity to make real changes and add value to the credential, it sounds like the Zen story, “a man cannot chase two rabbits”. First, the announcement of yet another association the NCB is creating, USA Massage Resource Association (USAMRA), which is possibly including practitioners that are not NCTM or NCTMB; then today, there was a nebulous announcement of a future advanced credential. Should we join yet another association to show we are enlightened beings and able to play nicely together? Or is the NCB suggesting that we all leave the ABMP, AMTA and other organizations to support the NCB?
Looks like more sidestepping to me.
September 9, 2009 at 4:20 am
Yes, to add some clarity to what I said earlier… I have been told by some of the different people involved with the USAMRA that it is going to be something of service to the industry. I will wait to see what comes of it… However, I was not impressed by the initial information that was put out about it and I think it is a very bad idea. It is putting energy and resources in the wrong direction. The credentialing organization should stick to credentialing and do that job well first. It clouds the credibility of the credentialing organization to venture into this ambiguous “membership” area.