Health holistic massage

The Ed Mulligan Homepage

"Health?" you may ask. "What has caused this sudden interest in health?"

Well, I've recently been diagnoses as having diabetes. A mild form, but none the less, I must now start eating well and be concerned about my health. I've never bothered in the past so it's a bit of a system shock and requires a rather radical life style change. Further more I have to keep it up for the rest of my life or until I die, whichever occurs sooner.

That was one of the reasons why I decided to study anatomy, physiology and massage. If you don't undestand how the body works, how can you hope to stop it from malfunctioning. Massage is also an excellent way of dealing with stress, and since I lead a very hectic and potentally stressful life, it seemed like a good idea to understand about massage. I have completed an Introductory course in APM at the City and Islington College (just round the corner from where I work so it's very handy). I now registered on the ITEC Anatomy, Physiology and Massage course which lasts six months at the same college.

The ITEC course (sorry, they don't seem to have a web site I can link to) is a professional level qualification and is a lot of work (naturally). As well as theory and practical exams, I have to do 5 case histories. Each case history involves giving a client four treatments and documenting their progress. If you would like to be one of those case histories, please drop me an e-mail. Case history is a very impersonal term (part of the "professional" nature of the course) but what it actually means is that I get to practise massaging you. That's all really. The end result for me is a professional qualification in Holistic Massage. When I finish I will be a qualified therapist. And if that doesn't scare you, then you're not living in the same universe as me.

So what exactly does 'holistic' mean? You can get lots of opinions at the Holistic Ireland web site. Here are some essays I have written for the pre-ITEC and ITEC courses:

• The meaning of holistic
• The meaning of holistic (non-contraversal version)
• History of masssage

Although I don't intend becoming a professional masseur, I chose the ITEC route to learning about massage as it is a rigorous approach, and once I have the basic ITEC APM certificate, there are many other interesting courses which I have the option of studying.