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'.
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'.
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