When I first saw this commercial for Cortiva’s compassion test I though oh no…here they go again trying to get people to become massage therapists to go to their school because they want to help…

But the test is a nice mixture of helping others and how do you take care of yourself. This is refreshing to see in the massage profession.

Most schools just play on your idea that you want to help others. There is a deep hidden side to helping that usually ends up with a burned out massage therapists. I try to talk about it alot here and at my writings at www.thebodyworker.com. and www.massagetherapycareers.com. (The call to help, )The code of the caretaker, ) When we help others with the hidden agenda of getting our own needs met, it is a disservice to the client and ourselves. I have been exploring these issues myself and they are really never ending. The reasons why we want to help others often reflects just how much we need ourself. It also may take awhile before you are really able to look at these issues for yourself. I would like to say 100% of the massage profession is challenged by this issue, but I know I would hear so many saying - that isn’t me - I don’t do that. It takes courage and self confidence to be able to look at your helping instincts and many are not ready to do that until they have a certain level of success in their lives. That is ok. I’ll be here whenever you are ready.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 26th, 2006 at 6:57 am and is filed under Peer Supervision, The Code of the Caretaker. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.