What did you think?

I made time to watch the show.
It was inspiring ! It would be
nice to get the insurance companies
to acknowledge us.

prepare for stricter regulations

I TiVoed the show but haven't watched it in its entirety. I did see the clip with Pamela Miles where Dr. Oz endorses Reiki as his favorite alternative treatment. Pretty awesome! I agree this may eventually lead to changes in how we practice if it becomes more mainstream and accepted by the medical community.

Dragonfly wrote:I TiVoed the show but haven't watched it in its entirety. I did see the clip with Pamela Miles where Dr. Oz endorses Reiki as his favorite alternative treatment. Pretty awesome! I agree this may eventually lead to changes in how we practice if it becomes more mainstream and accepted by the medical community.

I see the insurance companies being selective, folks who have been registered with and approved by hospitals It will become an inclusive form of practice only. Selected by the hospitals. Brigham and Womens in Boston use Reiki Volunteers they will pay for your training to become a Reiki practitioner. That will take business away from Reiki Teachers in the area. We want to be included and looking ahead we might very well be excluded as Reiki makes its way into the medical field.

Hi All

Before everyone who saw Dr Oz endorse Reiki on national TV gets carried away, let's look a little closer about how Reiki was portrayed on that show. Admittedly, the segment was very short (too short) to give a proper understanding about what Reiki is and what it can do for you but despite Pamela Miles' attempt to give her usual grounded explanation of Reiki, the vast majority of the viewers will remember Dr Oz's summing up of "things to remember from today's show":

"...try Reiki. This alternative medical treatment can manipulate your energy and cure what ails you!"

What is wrong with the above sentence?

"Alternative?" "Medical treatment?" "Manipulate energy?" "Cure?"

Is this accurate information we want the general public to rememeber?

Don't get me wrong, it is great that Reiki has had exposure on TV to a huge audience but I think it bears the marks of a sensationalist, viewing figure-grabbing script writer, rather than a serious attempt to educate the public, which unfortunately is all too common in the media.

Comments, anyone?

I agree, Colin. I don't claim to be a "medical practitioner", nor do I claim that Reiki "cures" anything. It worries me that something intended to be positive could turn out to have a negative impact on the way we practice.

If the medical profession get
to control /change the Reiki
system to lure "alternative "
thinking clients into their
traditional medicine,Reiki may
get lost due to lack of scientific
answers.

The only way to combat this, is to come up with our own form of regulation and control. William Rand, and my local organization the Meta Institute have created regulated forms of teaching and a list of requirements to be certified with that organization.

Without this form of regulation, how can a government or insurance institution justify paying out. They can't ensure that the practitioner was taught in a consistent way with some official school that is accredited. That isn't to say that you can't have 5 or 6 different styles that all are accredited.

In this case, Wayne is right when he says consistency should be mandatory in Reiki classes. All this other stuff that keeps getting added to Reiki classes, and the unscrupulous practice of charging $600 to become a weekend Reiki master without manual, or barely teaching anything. Just getting the attunements.

Scientific concerns aren't mandatory. Hell, the FDA releases drugs without full scientific testing.

Results is what will matter the most, I believe.

But without some form of official organizational structure of teaching, textbooks, et. al. it will be very hard to get Reiki legitimized with the Insurance companies.

good points Andy. How does one join
Rand or Meta institute or do they have
to take courses over again to become
re-certified.

I think with Rand's certification, you have to complete 200 or more Reiki sessions and document them before you can be certified by the ICRT. Not sure if you would have also had to complete the ICRT training itself and if there are other things you're required to do. I looked into it once but at the time they had said they weren't accepting new applications, because of the volume of requests.

I also agree that Dr. Oz's description was rather sensationalistic but that's pretty much what you'd expect on that show's environment. I think its value is that it allows us to initiate discussions so that we can explain and clarify in more detail what Reiki is and what practitioners do/do not do.

chi_solas wrote:good points Andy. How does one join
Rand or Meta institute or do they have
to take courses over again to become
re-certified.

With the Meta-Institute you have to have taken your level 2 and 3 classes through them to be certified with them.

With Rand, you have to do all kinds of stuff, including auditing their classes, and set up classes of your own that one of their certified instructors will audit. Something like 100 documented sessions, etc. Very time intensive.