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Massage Therapy in Chicago, Illinois is regulated by the Division of Professional Regulation of Illinois.

Some of the more interesting regulations can be found at www.massagetherapycareers.com massage therapy school information.

It appears that certain disciplines such as asian bodywork systems, Rolfing, Trager, reflexology and a few other types of massage therapy do not require that a person be licensed in massage therapy if they hold certifications from their discipline.

What is interesting is that other states do require that these disciplines hold a massage license.

It also looks like to be a massage therapist in Illinois you need to be fingerprinted which seems pretty archaic to me.

They also have a section about ethical behavior:

(5) engaging in dishonorable, unethical, or

unprofessional conduct of a character likely to deceive, defraud, or harm the public;

(6) practicing or offering to practice beyond the

scope permitted by law or accepting and performing professional responsibilities which the licensee knows or has reason to know that he or she is not competent to perform;

Some of the things I would still like to know is how do they determine what is ethcial behavior?

What do they have in place to teach people how to “be” a massage therapist?

It doesn’t look like they are licensed as health care professionals. Can you bill insurance companies for your services? MVA’s? PPO’S? HMO’s?

Where do most massage therapists work in Chicago? What types of places are hiring massage therapists? What is the average salary? How many massage therapists start their own business?

What are the best massage schools in Chicago and Illinois?

What makes for a good massage school?

Please submit your information, comments, feedback! Thanks

Scheduling your time efficiently and effectively can be a challenge for a massage therapist (helping professional).

Setting your schedule how you set up boundaries for yourself to prevent burnout and create a healing container for your clients.

One of the challenges is when you work for someone as an independent contractor or as an employee, who sets the hours and the time in between clients and when you start and end your day.   If you are an independent contractor and the business does not let you set your own day, it borders on being an employee position.  When a business requires that you show up and work at certain days and times, it may make you an employee.

Another issue is whether or not you want to take same day appointments or not.  Some think that taking same day appointments mean that the chance of it being someone looking for a “happy ending massage” increases because those people don’t plan ahead.

It depends on what your situation is but, I basically built my practice doing same day appointments.  I started at a health club as an independent contractor and later rented from them but basically I went in every day whether I had an appoinment or not and ended up getting clients by just sitting at the front desk and talking to people.

Taking last minute clients when you are scheduled to work is a more appropriate way to set your boundaries.  If someone is calling and it is 6pm and you are scheduled to go home – then taking that client may make you feel resentful.

So setting your schedule first – what time will you start and what time you will be going home and then fitting in last minute clients will serve you.

Another issue seems to be the amount of time you reserve in between clients.  Some people like to schedule 15 minutes.  I usually don’t do that and have people back to back but I do 50 minute hours and if people need to talk about something more, I do it in their session.  If you allow an extra 15 minute space in between clients do your fees reflect that time?

Creating your day is also a mental exercise.  Each day do you plan and see what you want to happen?

How you create your day is talked about by Joe Dispenza from the movie “What the bleep do we know” which is a documentary that starts the discussion about what we think about we create. You can see what he says at the movies website.
What you intend is what you get so if your schedule gets out of hand, how did you create that?