IASI was incorporated in January, 2002, as a non-profit membership organization (501c6), for the following purposes:
- To link all practitioners of Structural Integration into a professional membership organization.
- To establish and administer a professional certification process that will foster high standards of practice and provide a means for government licensure in those states and countries that require it.
- To provide venues for exchange and dissemination of ideas, research, and explorations between practitioners, schools and philosophies.
Why Should I Join?
Structural Integration is well established in the field of bodywork, with practitioners across the world. While the schools do a commendable job in teaching Structural Integration, there has never been an organization dedicated to representing the interests of the practitioners of SI. IASI was formed to do just that. The time is ripe to establish our identity as a distinct industry. We are at a crossroads with the massage industry—a place where we either establish Structural Integration as a distinct modality of work, like acupuncture or chiropractic, or face becoming simply a sub-set of massage therapy. What do we want our profession to look like in twenty years? As practitioners of Structural Integration, we ask our clients and ourselves to commit to a long-term vision of change for the human structure. We should do the same for our profession with an international organization.
The field of Structural Integration has enjoyed a reputation for high standards of education and practice. IASI is dedicated to maintaining these standards, and for this reason we are developing a certification process that will establish basic guidelines for beginning practitioners. Also in keeping with this goal, approximately 3 days a year of continuing education classes will be required of current members. To allow members time to comply this requirement will not become effective until 2005. We are currently working on ethics and grievance procedures which will inform practitioners and provide assurance to the public.
IASI is developing a forum suitable for the diversity of its members facilitating the free flow of ideas and teachings previously unavailable to other groups. IASI needs and values your input as a practitioner.
Proficiency Exam
First of all, let us ease some fears by assuring all members are grandfathered in without taking the exam. After the grandfathering period, which will extend through 2003, new members will be required to take an exam. We will probably ask you to take the exam as an experiment to test its fairness, but your membership will not rest on the result in any way. Rather, your feedback will help refine the exam process.
As we think about the exam / proficiency demonstration process, please remember that within a couple of years, we will be testing, almost exclusively,
practitioners who have just graduated. So the question is, what is the proficiency level we need to see in someone just getting started—as opposed to what we would like to see in the experienced practitioner.
We would like to create an examination process that includes hands-on evaluation. We are working with several formats that can accomplish this and be workable for the examinees. There are so many advantages to this type of examination process that we are dedicated to finding a way to make it work.
The following six areas are being considered for testing:
- Knowledge of the recipe and anatomy / basic physiology / contraindications
- The ability to bodyread structural and movement patterns
- The ability to construct a reasonable session strategy
- A wide vocabulary of touch styles and SI techniques
- Quality of contact and rapport
- Professional demeanor and basic command of psychosomatic and transference/ countertransference issues
There will be a couple of years of refining the test until it is an accurate reflection of the skills required as a basic Structural Integrator. To be as fair and objective as possible each of these areas needs to be broken out into specific behaviors or skill sets that we want to see. As these are developed they will be published so that all is out in the open.
We hope you will be involved in this process by reviewing the requirements as they come out, and helping to ‘test the test’ when it is available. Any ideas you have about how this test procedure should proceed may be forwarded to: [email protected]
