Ethics is the core of a massage therapy business -whether you are employed by someone, are an independent contractor or have your own business.

Most books on ethics are just that - books that analyze the theories and intricacies of ethics. They don’t really address how to Live Ethics.  While it does help to become aware of some of the things involved in making an ethical decision for your business, when it comes down to it, most of those things don’t matter.  What matters is how you feel and whether you can see both sides of the issue to make a good decision for yourself that will help you build your practice.
The thing about ethics is that there is no right answer.  Ethics requires that you have an ethical dilemma- something you don’t know what to do about that offers two or more unique situations. What is right for some differs for others.  Licensing and Legislation end ethical dilemmas when they make something into a law that must  abide by.

But even with legislation, you can have feelings about what they are asking you to do.

For example: Here in WA State it was just made into a law that you can not date a client. What was once an ethical dilemma- some people would date clients others wouldn’t now has become illegal.

Some of the challenges as a massage therapist include:

• What to charge for your services - should you charge a lower amount than others because you are just starting out or should you charge a higher rate or the rate you need to charge to make ends meet?
• cancellation/no show policy - how do you deal with people who cancel at the last minute, are sick or just a business meeting they can’t get out of? What about people who just don’t show up?
• Do you allow clients to become friends? Do you date clients?
• How do you set your hours and days off? Are you able to stick to those hours when someone calls at the last minute in pain asking you to work on them?
• Do you sell other products to clients such as herbs, lotions, oils etc?
• Why do you like to help people? What is the true reason underneath your being a massage therapist? Many have an underlying unconscious need for appreciation, to be needed, to be acknowledged, to be listened too, too be cared for that if left uncovered can be more damaging to a massage practice.

The whole thing is that there is no right or wrong answer to any of these situations or any others that will come up during your career. But the thing is that everyone of these will reflect on your business - it’s success or lack of success - because it will affect the clients that you work with.

Learning to become more self aware is a process and it can be supported through the process of peer supervision.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 7th, 2007 at 2:15 pm and is filed under Ethics, Peer Supervision. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.