What should I do to find a good massage therapist? Tips for finding a massage therapist. Always a good beginning point is to check in the Yellow Pages but that's depending on the state you are in or the...
Always a good beginning point is to check in the Yellow Pages but that's depending on the state you are in or the country you are in that can be a little less monitored. Often times the best massage therapist may come through referral. That's always a good place. Try to get references. Even if a person resorts to the Yellow Pages no matter how big or how impressive the add may be, its always good to ask for references from that massage therapist. I would always recommend that they seek out that so that you can check on that individual. If you are really concerned you can always call the state to make sure there has been no complaints on that individual. It varies from state to state, but more and more states are becoming stricter on the requirements of education for massage therapists. There are also a couple of different organizations such as the NCBPMB and that is the National Certification Board for Therapeutic Massage and Body Workers. That's an organization that has a national certification exam. The requirements are a minimum of 500 hours of education through an approved school and/or 500 hours of documented portfolio that can also be heavily proven. An individual can then choose to sit for that national certification exam. That shows that individual massage therapist is nationally certified and upholding certain and certain standards. They can be found online and a person can check there to research their database to see if the particular therapist that you are seeing is a member. It is located at ncbpmb.com.
If somebody wants to see a Chinese or an Asian-type therapist, there is another organization and that's the nccaom.org. That's the National Certification Commission of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine. That is a very in depth exam. It can be taken through them to become nationally board certified as a diplomate of Asian body therapy through the NCCAOM. That's also a good resource to check on therapists and find out about them. I guess it always goes back to references or referrals from you know people that have already seen the therapist. Also feel free to call a therapist that you may be checking into and ask them what style or modality. If that gets too complicated or if they start showing a bunch of really complicated terms, either ask to please talk in lay person's terminology or what they mean. I think a good and ethical massage therapist will always be willing to give a brief bio on themselves and/or try to explain a little bit more carefully the style of massage or styles of massage that they tend to use and what's their specialization may be in.
