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CMT Program Enrollment & Admission Procedures

CMT Program Enrollment Application

When you are ready to begin your advanced training in massage therapy, there are several avenues to take. You can take a smorgasbord type of program, which gives you a little of this and a little of that. Or you can engage in an in-depth, goal-oriented program that provides you with a strong theoretical framework and a toolkit of practical techniques, which can be applied to a variety of clinical conditions. At THAI's Massage School, we have designed a second semester that is far more comprehensive and valuable to the serious therapist than a smorgasbord education. THAI's second semester is our Clinical Massage Therapy Program.

THAI's CMT Program not only prepares our students for the National Certification examination, it trains them to be adept in assessing, treating, and re-evaluating clients in addition to providing them with the research tools and skills for clinical support.

Clinical Massage Therapy (CMT) is the manual manipulation of soft tissues to resolve specific chronic and acute issues of physical pain or dysfunction. In this advanced, 290-hour program, students will learn to focus on assessing the client's structural bodywork needs. Following training in assessment skills, students will be taught to integrate various manual soft tissue techniques into a unique therapeutic program designed to meet the needs of individual clients.

The Clinical Massage Therapy Program at THAI prepares therapists to address specific postural and structural client complaints and to relieve chronic and acute musculoskeletal pain. The clinical massage therapist approaches the issue of persistently shortened soft tissues by restoring their natural pain-free function through touch, all the while keeping the whole client in mind. The mastery of these critical palpation and assessment skills, and their implementation into your practice, will increase your marketability as a professional massage therapist.

CMT employs both a body worker's creativity and his or her desire to be a truly effective massage therapist. The palpation and assessment skills taught in the CMT program will enable therapists to break away from performing a "routine" massage in which every client gets the same therapy regardless of body work issues. Structural massage, deep tissue massage, trigger point therapy, myofascial release, postural analysis, muscle strength testing, and range of motion testing are some of the soft tissue manipulation and assessment techniques students will learn to master.

What is special about the CMT Program at THAI?

• The program is nationally recognized by the National Certification Board for Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork (NCTMB)
• The THAI CMT Program prepares professional therapists to address specific postural and structural issues presented by clients. The primary focus of the program is to instruct CMT therapists to effectively relieve chronic and acute musculoskeletal pain.
• The CMT curriculum was developed by our directors, both of whom have PhDs and come from a background of teaching at the university level. The directors have over twenty years combined bodywork experience.
• The manual bodywork techniques and assessment skills taught in the CMT curriculum are designed to enable the bodywork therapist to become more marketable by providing a highly valued and skilled professional health service.

Program Curriculum

Ninety hours of advanced anatomy, physiology and pathology are included in the curriculum. These subjects are woven into the techniques classes to facilitate dynamic, hands-on learning. The course is taught at an advanced level with a high degree of instructor-student interaction. Included within each curriculum section is body work theory, muscle anatomy and physiology, muscle pathology, palpation and assessment techniques, activation and perpetuation factors of dysfunctional conditions, release techniques, treatment protocols, and corrective exercises and stretches. In addition, thirty hours of the program are spent in clinical massage internship during which students assess and treat clients.

The CMT course curriculum begins with an introduction to Clinical Massage and Assessment. Then you embark on an in-depth study of the theory and technique of clinical massage of the following regions of the body:

• Shoulder, Chest & Upper Back
• Head & Neck, Arm & Hand
• Vertebral Column
• Low Back and Abdomen
• Muscles of Ribs and Breathing
• Pelvis
• Thigh,Leg, Ankle & Foot

All of the teaching units are carefully designed to build upon one another. As a new region of the body is introduced, you are taught to use all that you have learned in the previous sections in order to assess and treat your clients holistically.

You will learn a comprehensive approach for treatment of musculoskeletal pain using structural, postural and gait assessment and will develop the skills to provide reliable results for your clients suffering from numerous soft tissue dysfunctions. Myofascial release and trigger point therapy are two of the important techniques you will learn to use with logical, caring expertise

CMT Internship Clinic

The CMT class is designed to be a hands-on educational experience. Application of theory to practice is a vital part of the program. Throughout the course, in a closely supervised setting, we invite the public to participate as models so that you are able to apply the assessment skills and release techniques that you have studied.

The greatest application of your education comes during internship. In order to refine the skills and techniques learned in class, our CMT students complete a 30-hour internship clinic. These massages focus on one or two specific areas of the body. They are not full body massages; instead they are massages that address a client's specific pain complaints and deep tissue needs. In order to provide the specific work a client needs, the interns communicate with the client more than they would in a relaxation massage.

Interested in Sports Massage?

Traditionally, Sports Massage has been defined in three ways based upon the time the massage was performed: pre-event massage, intercompetiton massage, and post-event massage. Post-event massage has been categorized further as recovery massage, which can include remedial, rehabilitation, medical and orthopedic massage. The traditional time-based classification system for Sports Massage is losing favor to an goal-based definition that focuses on two important goals: 1) to assist the athlete in achieving and maintaining top performance, and 2) to support the healing of injuries. THAI's CMT Program offers one of the most effective ways to learn goal-based sports massage.

National Certification

Texas requires 500 hours for certification, and if you want to be able to move around the country, you will most likely be required to obtain more education. THAI's 790-hour program is recognized by NCBTMB, so that you can apply to sit for the national boards.

Instructors

Eri Weinstein PhD, MTI, School Co-Director

Dr. Weinstein holds a degree in anthropology with a background in archaeology, physical anthropology, biology and botany. He taught at the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University and was a private archaeological consultant for many years. Dr. Weinstein specializes in chronic and acute pain of the low back, hips, and legs. At THAI, he co-instructs the Clinical Massage Therapy Program, and teaches anatomy and physiology and continuing education courses in myofascial release, trigger point release, and advanced techniques for the low back.

Kirsten Kern, PhD, MTI, School Co-Director

Dr. Kern is an interminable student and educator. She has taught at The University of Texas at Austin, Texas, Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, and Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. During college, Dr. Kern studied biological sciences and worked with marine mammals in Newfoundland and Alaska. Dr. Kern has studied advanced courses in Maya Abdominal Massage, CranioSacral therapy, myofascial release and trigger point therapy, and Zen Shiatsu. She specializes in neck, shoulder, and abdominal massage. As a member of community theatre, she has studied movement and bodywork for over 20 years. At THAI she co-instructs the Clinical Massage Therapy Program, and teaches anatomy and physiology and continuing education workshops in advanced techniques.

Paul Keltner, BS, LP, MTI

Paul graduated Texas A&M University after earning a Bachelor of Science degree in Community Health. He has been a Licensed Paramedic since 1993 and has served as both an emergency medical responder and educator. Paul is a former faculty member of the University of Texas Health Science Center-San Antonio (Department of Emergency Medical Technology. He has also taught at Heartwood Institute in California. He has completed several programs at THAI, where he currently teaches Anatomy & Physiology, Clinical Massage Therapy and various continuing education courses. Paul also maintains a private practice on the THAI campus. Paul continues to enhance his understanding of the human body via the study of classical martial arts, qigong, and yoga.

Charlotte Westbrook, BS, LMT

Charlotte holds a BS in Psychology from UT at Austin and she continued her studies in German and Psychology at the Universität Würzburg, Germany. Charlotte is a graduate of THAI's Clinical Massage Program and she is a practioner of Arvigo Maya Abdominal Massage.

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