This week on the podcast Stevie Ingram joins us to chat about all things licensure.

As a topic that is much discussed, and much lusted after fpr a few reasons, I have invited on several thinkers to talk about being a licensed profession would mean for us individually—and as a whole.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

*Gatekeeping is SUCH a problem for us as an industry. It is one of my biggest pet peeves, even in the organizing space.  We tend to keep secrets and say only the bare minimum while doing all the real information sharing behind the scenes with only a few people able to participate.  I reeeaaaalllllllly hate this practice.  We need to model transparency behavior amongst ourselves so that we can live up to the moral standards we claim are so important to us.

 *Yoga as a liberation practice. And it recognizing this, we must also understand that proximity to power is a thing.  This idea that licensure will get us closer to the power and financial wealth we perceive that the medical community has (this is not always the case) pushed conversations.  While perhaps we will decide as an industry that licensure is the way to go, deconstructing this idea is key for us being clearheaded when we make that decision.

*Gravitas is not inherent to us if we do get integrated into conventional medical practice. Being “accepted” by Western medicine will never mean we will be taken seriously.  I actually believe we need to do a lot of “inner work” as an industry to believe in our own value first.  

*We need to talk about license creep.  License creep is A common tactic is to broaden the definition or scope of practice of a licensed occupation, a practice we term “license creep.” Licensing legislation ordinarily describes the activities that define the practice of the occupation.

*insurance adds a lot of work behind the scenes.  I think a lot of people do not understand this, but insurance companies literally hire former nurses to comb through that charts of patients to see if they can get a “gotcha” moment where the healthcare system didn’t ask the right questions, do the correct protocol in the correct order, and more.  Hospitals also hire those people on the other side to combat this move by insurance companies.  If you are a yoga therapist consider if you are ready to take your charting and protocol up about 100 notches. 

*Residency and Peer-reviewed systems were two if the solutions that Stevie offered, that I love.  We do not need to consider other innovative ways for us to keep the status of a self-regulated industry.  

RESOURCES

Working In Yoga Website

Working In Yoga Newsletter

Stevie’s Instagram

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