Authority and where do we get it from!

This year has been a really good/terrible year for authority. Banks and bankers have had a rough time, politicians have not covered themselves in glory, the church continues to stumble on and now the BBC is in the middle of a deep scandal.

These events seem to hit people quite hard, they shake our sense of trust in a stable and predictable world and leave people with a feeling not dissimilar from a lover disclosing an infidelity.

I’m interested in where this need for external figures to trust comes from. We need people to do things for us, we need news stories to be true, we need our bins emptying and someone needs to look after our money (I suppose). But it’s the deep feeling of disappointment which suggests to me that there is more investment than just the practical need for the above.

I have a sneaking feeling that the possible root of this need for external belief in others partly comes from our separation in our belief in ourselves. We learn from a very early age that we are not to be trusted, we are not to trust our thoughts, we are not to trust or emotions and we most certainly should not trust our bodies. They (we) are seen as unreliable, wrong, dirty, deviant. By the time we are adults, we have learned to ignore the clear messages we are giving ourselves so well that it’s almost impossible to tune into them. 

“Mr Duffy lived a short distance from his body.”

― James Joyce, Dubliners

So with this intuitive method of knowing what is correct, who can be trusted, really how the world sits, being dulled or silenced we look to external figures to fill the void and get into lots of trouble.

 I have been on a long journey to reconnect to my innate internal messages, it’s not been simple, but it has been fascinating. My training in Shiatsu has been a huge help and whilst I’m not 100% there I have made huge strides.

For me it’s about listening with a quiet intensity to my body as I take in external stimulus, this gives me greater understanding through my emotions, which leads to greater intellectual understanding which then leads to more feelings, emotions, thoughts and on I go until I am able to form a fully rounded feeling/understanding of where I am on a particular thing.

I am not saying that with a better sense of self authority one is not disappointed when one is let down, just that the emotional impact is much less, it’s much more like you have been told the train is delayed rather than you have been cheated on. It affects me but does not shock me in the same way, as my central core is still in place.

There is also an argument that if we lived in a society where each member had their own sense of authority we would be much less likely to place people in such important positions of authority, they would then be unable to abuse them. Of course we are taught that feelings (emotional and physical) are soft, maybe feminine and not to be trusted, that hard, rational thoughts are the only safe method, ideas and intellect are seen as the only valid way of coming to understand the world. I feel that this way of thinking is so wrong and so outdated and has led to so many issues, from relationship problems, addictions, to war and global issues.

Embrace your feelings, your emotions, your gut sense, combine them with your mind and intellect and you have a fantastic method of negotiating the world. 

The Cost of treatment, what can be done?

The Cost of treatment, what can be done?

Shiatsu treatment in the UK can be quite high, around £45-60 is normal. 

This price means that a lot of Shiatsu practitioners charge clients for treatments they can not afford themselves! A very strange situation indeed.

Shiatsu is of course not alone in this, in fact its one of the cheaper 1:1 alternative treatments available.

We are in a place with Shiatsu where the middle class can afford treatment, the very poor with 'issues' often get treatment for free through schemes but that the 'working poor' who make up most of the population (including most Shiatsu practitioners) can only afford treatments on rare occasions, as a treat or in serious crisis. 

If you can afford the price, then I suppose its OK, but I love Shiatsu, I feel its fantastically effective, can make huge changes to people lives. So I have a strong feeling that Shiatsu should be for everyone and everyone should be able to afford it as often as needed.   

But how do we make this happen? 

There has been a quite revolution happening in acupuncture which I think the Shiatsu community could learn from. Starting with Working Class Acupuncture in Portland Oregon, USA

a movement of multi bed affordable clinics has sprung up.  This movement has spread to the UK with the The Association of Community and Multibed Acupuncture Clinics spreading the word in Europe and the UK.  

The model is that patients get treated in a shared environment at the same time, that chat is kept to a minimum, but that professional effective treatment is retained. 
In this way the clinics can charge much less, typically £15-40 on a sliding scale. 
So one acupuncturist can  treat many people at the same time, which is not an option with Shiatsu. 

So how can we (Shiatsu folk) take elements of this approach, or at least the spirit and make it work for us? Two things come to mind; 

Room rental, many Shiatsu therapist do not treat at home, so have to rent a space, we are then  forced to pass on the cost to the client. I get around this at the moment by treating in a friends room, she gets a free treatment and I get to offer low cost treatments. 

Another way of doing this would be the idea of many practitioners treating more than one client in the same room at the same time, and splitting the cost of room hire. 

One of the features of the multi bed model is that a very quick but accurate diagnosis is made, then root treatment is given on the most pressing and underlying imbalance. So is this possible with Shiatsu, to offer a stripped down treatment where only the most underlying/pressing issues are treated in a shorter time. I feel it should be, and it's something I am going to offer to clients who really can't afford a full hour treatment and see how the feedback goes. 


We have a long way to go before Shiatsu does become affordable but the debate needs to happen. Its such a fantastic treatment, its a shame to exclude the 'working poor'.