De-bunking the Myth: I heard that only Qualified Sound Therapists can be insured to hold Sound Baths is that True?
This is a question I am being asked more frequently. There is now an increasing amount of mis-information online published by those who really don’t have sufficient knowledge & experience to be giving this kind of advice.
As a Complementary Therapist and a qualified Workplace Trainer, who has worked with Sound & Frequency Medicine since the mid-1990s in a range of clinical, education and research settings. I have the first-hand knowledge, experience and expertise to give you the correct advice.
My role as a Workplace Trainer includes keeping up to date with industry requirements to ensure everything I teach is always valid and relevant. This also means I work closely with insurance companies on a regular basis, so I can stay up to date with the latest insurance requirements for practitioners of every therapy I teach. The following advice can be confirmed by your insurance company.
If you have at least one main qualification to work professionally with people, and you have completed either our Sound Therapy Level 1 module, or our Sound Bath Training Masterclass, there is no insurance requirement for you to be a qualified Sound Therapist in order to hold a Sound Bath. Your sound bath training completed with Irish Academy of Sound Therapy is accredited and recognised by your insurance company as an add-on skill to your existing relevant main qualification(s). I have trained a diverse range of working professionals in the Art of Sound Bath Meditation.
You can email your insurance company a scanned image of your Certificate of Completion and ask them to add “Sound Bath Facilitator” to your insurance policy.
Of course there is one exception to this rule which every Sound Bath Facilitator should know. To understand and implement this exception correctly, it’s important to know and understand the following 6 Essential Facts about Sound Baths.
The 6 Essential Sound Bath Facts:
- There are many different types of meditations, Sound Bath is one of them. Yes – Sound Bath is a type of meditation for relaxation and deep rest.
- During a Sound Bath meditation, the participants either sit or lie down comfortably whilst the Sound Bath Facilitator expertly plays music in a meditative style, live in the room with a variety of instruments to induce a state of deep rest and relaxation, to encourage natural self-healing of mind and body.
- If you are qualified as a Yoga teacher, you are already qualified to teach meditation. For this reason Sound Bath training is not essential for Yoga teachers, or any qualified meditation teacher unless they wish to fast-track their learning in the shortest time possible by learning from the experts here at Irish Academy of Sound Therapy.
- The healing which occurs during a sound bath is self-healing in response to sound expertly played & there may also be a certain amount of healing energy channeled by the facilitator if they are also qualified in energy healing, including Reiki healing.
- It is absolutely not essential for a Sound Bath Facilitator to be a qualified Sound Therapist to conduct a Sound Bath. The only reason where you must have a Sound Therapist qualification for insurance purposes to hold a Sound Bath, is if you will be placing any sound therapy instruments directly on the body of the participants during the Sound Bath. (This includes tuning forks and/or singing bowls)
- Before placing sound therapy instruments on the body of an individual as part of treatment, a qualified Sound Therapist is required to take a full case history of each individual’s current state of health n a private consultation (in accordance with GDRP requirements) to establish if there are any contraindications to be aware of before placing sound therapy instruments on the body during the Sound Bath.
The role of the Sound Bath Facilitator is to encourage deep rest and relaxation by expertly playing live music in a meditative style with a range of instruments, in order to trigger the body’s own natural self-healing response.
Author: Sharon Quigley, Principal, Irish Academy of Sound Therapy
