Valuing Shiatsu
What is the connection between hotel shampoo and Shiatsu?
I formed this question whilst reading an article on value engineering on the BBC website. Value engineering is the business practise of determining what a customer is willing to pay for a service. In short a company will only provide a service if the cost of that service is less than the price the customer will pay for it. So if you stay in an expensive hotel you expect all the frills, including “free” shampoo. In a cut price establishment you really only want a bed for the night so the freebies can be cut back to a minimum.
So what has all of that to do with Shiatsu?
Shiatsu and other complementary therapies compete within a crowded healthcare market. For them to attract clients they have to demonstrate some value. Why would clients keep returning to a private Shiatsu practise when they could be receiver cheaper or free care elsewhere? In the end it is because they value something in the therapy they are receiving.
When looking for the proof in alternative therapies we tend to focus on the evidence for the effect of that therapy. However, there is something in these treatments that people want. They value that treatment despite the existence of any other alternative.
A client returning to Shiatsu is demonstrating the effectiveness of that treatment for them. That client is deriving a benefit from Shiatsu that dry statistics and arguments over evidence cannot explain.
Tony Brown @ May 28, 2007
[…] It may be true that we value alternative therapies individually but there is a growing debate about how these therapies should be provided. In the UK scientists have called for the NHS to stop paying for homoeopathic treatments calling it an unproven therapy based on magical thinking. […]