Charging Something of Value is Vital to Careers in Health, Wellness and Medicine

My experiences as a massage therapist and a reiki healer have taught me important lessons about how your work, in any field, can suffer if you do not charge something for your expertise. It is psychologically important for your clients, whether strangers, friends or family members, to invest something of value in your advice or treatment. It is equally important for yourself to receive some type of compensation; both psychologically and physically it allows you, as a therapist or medical professional to do your best work.

Why there has to Be an Exchange of Value

In reiki healing, as in psychology and other types of medicine, the client’s mindset and belief in the treatment can greatly influence its effectiveness. Thoughts and mind state can greatly affect the physical body. Worry can wear a body down, just as peace and relaxation can increase and speed healing. Investing value in your advice or labor gives credibility and weight to both your work and your judgement . If you give advice or treatment away to people for free, and they make no investment in your work, they are far less likely to follow your prescription or after care advice. Additionally, they are less likely to use your services again; far worse, they might expect free services on a recurring basis. Either way, respect for your time, energy and expertise is lost to some degree if it is given away completely free.

Money, Food or Friendship

Master Mikao Usui, the founder of the art of reiki taught that there must be some type of exchange of value. In his view it was a fundamental aspect of the art that the patient or client pay something of measurable value for receiving reiki healing. This principle can be related to virtually any profession or career, not just medical or healing fields. Usui didn’t require that the payment for services must be money. In the case of friends, family or people in need, an exchange of value could be a variety of things. A service for a service, a meal, an item of value, all of these things are acceptable payment for your healing work. Publicity and advertising is a type of payment you can take in cases of charity work or public events. Don’t forget to pack your business cards.

Keep Ethics in Mind

“Free” work is done best in public settings. Any time you are taking payments in kind, such as meals, goods, publicity, or contacts, you should be performing your services in some type of public setting. Trade shows, community and charity events, and family gatherings are all examples of public events where minor fees can be acceptable. Public settings maximize the yield of tiny compensations such as advertising or making contacts. Extra people besides the client and therapist can also be helpful in ensuring that one of the parties is not taken advantage of by the other, and that you are compensated fairly, based on your normal fees.


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