Male Massage Therapist in an insecure world
So, if you know me than you know that I have spent several years going to school to focus on alternative medicine and the like.
When I first started I had had an opportunity to visit with a Hypnotherapist a few times and actually saw some results from my work with her. So, I started looking into Hypnotherapy. I found a local school in Tempe Arizona Southwest Institute of Healing Arts (SWIHA). After touring the campus and looking further into the programs they offered I was hook.
I enrolled in the Associates in Transformational Psychology with specialties in Hypnotherapy, Life Coaching, Polarity Therapy, Reiki, and Cranial Unwinding.
I started my journey without knowing what was going to be on the other side.
A long story short, I finished my program and was looking for places I could utilize the skills and gits that I had developed. I had had some conversation with a doctor and one of our conversation we dicussed the schooling that I had done.
The doctor, who was an DO-Doctor of Osteopath, said he would love for me to be able to work at his clinic with his chronically ill patients. I was able to set some time aside each week to be there.
After being there for some time we found out from the AZ medical board that because my education was primarily certificates and not licenses I was not eligible to work in a medical setting. I needed to be licensed for something that allowed me to touch people. Thus started my Massage journey.
I was never against Massage. I had a very good friend who was a Massage Therapist. It was just nothing I ever thought I was going to do. My intention was to get my license just as a formality but never really use the massage part and just use it to allow me to do my other modalities.
Once I finished my Massage school and received my license I noticed that there were several options within the massage community. As I started looking and was searching for employment massage was really all that clinics were interested in. So, trying not to let my ego get in the way, I thought,"I will give it a try. I enjoy giving massages. so I'll see where it takes me."
I went to several interviews and gave several demo massages and didn't receive one offer. Now, back in clinic in order to get my license I was a good therpist. I had people requesting me and saying that I was able to help with a chronic issue that they have seem littlw relief from. So, it wasn't because I was a crappy therapist.
I then started talking to other friends in the massage field and my cousin who has becmoe fairly successful and found out that as a male massage therapist it is very difficult to get steady work unless you have been around for a while and have a referral base. People just don't like getting massage from men. And there is the stigma around the sexual inuendo of having a male Massage Therapist. So, I have had a few clients, mostly family that need some serious work done. I have seen a little more clients for my other modalities as well but I have not had the break out that i was hoping for once I finished.
So now I start the next chapter of my education as I pursue a DOMP (Manual Osteopathic Pratitioner) that will set me apart from the rest even that much further. This will allow me to be more specific about the clinical aspect of my work and not focus an the massage part that so many people are afraid of.
Eventually I hope to be able to help relieve the sexual stigma that people think about when thinking about a Massage Therapistand especially relieving the idea that all Male Massage Therapist are creepy deviants.
Till then, if you have an opportunity to see a male Massage Therapist give him a chance to show you how therapeutic they can be.
Till next time.
Keep living the dream.
