ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the processes of learning professionalism and regulation in CAM by offering a geographical reading of training for massage and reflexology. As two types of CAM, massage and reflexology have become more widely practised and consumed over the past 20 years (Andrews, 2003). In particular, moving beyond a specialist medical intervention, their place in mainstream health and wellbeing service consumption has grown significantly. With a ‘rediscovery of the senses’ in consumer culture, a ‘new pleasure in the body’ has been validated (Jutte, 2005: 238, in Paterson, 2007), binding the embodied and the affective. The growth, use and practice of massage and reflexology are just two examples of this sensual commodification.
