What's in a CEU?

There's nothing like a Sunday morning continuing education class, and this was no exception. Massage therapists who do these classes are the true blues, the ones who take it seriously, the ones who figure they might learn something even though they went to school and have been doing massage for a few years.

This was an ethics class, and the instructor was quite pleased after asking for a show of hands that not a single therapist in the room thought it was okay to have sex with clients.

Glad that hump seemed to be over, as compared to years passed, the basic message was that paying attention counts. Do you communicate with the client before and during the session? Do you have the client’s permission? Do you acknowledge and address pain? Do you validate or discount? How about the follow-up? Do people get better? What if they don’t?

It is one of the ironies of these classes that the people who get up early to go to them are generally not the ones who need to be there the most. Self-auditing skills and curiosity were emphasized, and it seems that most therapists attending were more than familiar with the concepts.

What is the value of a CEU? For me, Sunday morning, it was to see and hear with other working therapists that trying to do well is an everyday task. That learning is life-long, a habit developed because you care and want to do better than yesterday. Perhaps it is something that can’t be taught, but it can be learned.