Protect Massachusetts – Oppose S168 Bodywork Licensing bill

Protect Massachusetts from Bodywork Licensing
Oppose Senate Bill 168

Massachusetts Reiki and all bodywork practitioners need your help to stop S168 from moving in the Massachusetts Senate!  Take Action Here to send a message to your personal Senator.

S168 has been introduced by Senator Montigny. If passed, S168 would negatively affect all Reiki and other energy healers and bodywork practitioners in Massachusetts. Under current law Reiki is exempt from massage licensure in MA, but this law attempts to set up an entirely new licensing process for all types of healers and bodywork vocations, and mandate they be licensed, receive government endorsed education; and that these modalities can only be taught in state licensed schools. Read the full bill here.

How YOU Can Help:

Click Here to automatically send a message to your personal Senator and revisit this link throughout the coming weeks for updates on the bill’s status (i.e., whether it is scheduled for a public hearing and when).

What the bill does: S168 seeks to mandate the licensure of all bodyworkers in MA and require that bodywork modalities be taught only in state licensed schools with curriculums meeting state standards. There are thousands of practitioners from a wide array of disciplines this bill will affect due to the broad definition of bodywork which will include “a person who uses touch, words or directed movement to deepen awareness of patterns of movement in the body, or the affectation of the human energy system or acupoints or Qi meridians of the human body while engaged within the scope of practice of a profession with established standards and ethics;”

Massachusetts already has a very good massage law that allows bodyworkers to be exempt from licensure requirements. The exemption includes: “including but not limited to……Feldenkrais Method; Reflexology; The Trager Approach; Ayurvedic Therapies, Rolf Structural Integration, Polarity or Polarity Therapy; Polarity Therapy Bodywork; Asian Bodywork Therapy that does not constitute massage as defined in this chapter; Acupressure; Jin Shin Do; Qi Gong; Tui Na; Shiatsu; Body-Mind Centering and Reiki.” Click here to read current exemptions in Title XVI, Chapter 112, Section 228 Licensing of massage therapists – at part (b).

S168 attempts to create a new and burdensome licensing law for these currently exempt practitioners and force them to obtain a bodywork license instead. There was an amendment added to the bill that will exempt some of the practitioners, but not all. It also requires bodywork modalities be taught in state licensed schools.