Mike,,, questions to ask practioner

[Guest guest]

Hi Mike,

There is a store near me that is called Alchalmy(sp!) that sells everything

from jewerly to books on witchcraft and Christian based books!

I was speaking to a lady in there yesterday as we were waiting for our dinner

reservations next door, and she identified herself as an energy practioner

who was certified in that field and has been practicing for over 30 years. She

handed me a card and then a sheet of paper explaining all the areas that her

work can help.

I was trying so hard to ask her questions about her training and expertise

but I couldn't think of what was important. It bothered me that she said " Oh,

yes, I have been practicing for X number of years and am certified " but offered

no more information as to what she was certified in and what her training was

in! What should I have asked her...or anyone for that matter? I am seeing a pt

right now who is wonderful, by the way.

Thanks, Mike.

[Guest guest]

I was speaking to a lady... energy practioner who was certified in

that field and has been practicing for over 30 years. She handed me

a card and then a sheet of paper explaining all the areas that her

work can help.

What should I have asked her...or anyone for that matter?

-----------

Do you still have the sheet of paper? If you do, tell me some of

things listed. That would give me a reasonable idea of what she

might be doing. Also, what does it say on her card?

As for what you should have asked, the main question is " what

modality(s)? " Other questions are hours of training and certifed by

who? Was it a weekend seminar and the " certification " is basically a

piece of paper saying they took the class? Or was it some kind of

formal, actual program?

As examples of this, my Polarity Therapy program was about 120 hours

of classroom training, spread over several weekends. We got

continuing education certificates for each and every weekend

session. Does that mean I am " certified " in Polarity? No - because

to get actual " certification " from the American Polarity

Association, I still need to do about 100 hours of documented hands-

on, sessions and pass a formal written test. That is to qualify as a

CPT (Certified Polarity Therapist). The next level beyond that is

RPT (Registered Polarity Therapist) and that involves 500 hours of

classroom training. Same thing with my Jin Shin Do training. I have

four " certificates " indicating completion of the various levels

beginning, intermediate, and advanced, totalling over 120 hours of

classroom training, but I am not yet a " certified Jin Shin Do

practitioner. " To get that, I still need another 130 hours of

classroom time, plus 100 hours of documented, hands-on sessions, and

10 hours of one-on-one sessions with an instructor. On the other

side, I have taken weekend seminars (one weekend each) in Chi Nei

Tsang, Thai massage, Therapuetic Touch and Touch for Health. I have

continuing education " certificates " in every one of them. I don't

consider myself to be a practitioner of any of them. I

use " elements " of every one of them from time to time, but I don't

feel that I " do " any of them. I do feel that I " do " Polarity and

Jin Shin Do.

The language that she used does suggest to me that she has had some

kind of formal training. Specifically, she called herself

an " energy practitioner " as opposed to an " intuitive healer. " Don't

get me wrong, there are some very good, legitimiate " intuitives " out

there. But that is also the area where you have to be the most

cautious because that is where you run into the scam artists. But

whenever I see someone billing themselves as an " intuitive " my

immediate reaction is that they probably have had no formal training.

I quite frequently in classes see cases where someone has had

a " talent " for it for years, frequently from childhood. They get

into bodywork to enhance that ability, and in some cases to

legitimize what they do. And there are others (myself included) who

go into the bodywork first and the energy aspects manifest

themselves later.