Healthy Living Books Books

Rating: - How not to write a textbook
There's so much wrong with this book I don't know where to begin. Its tone is patronising, it contains factual errors, opinion is paraded as fact and descriptions of massage techniques are thin and inadequate.

I've just finished my ITEC holistic massage, reflexology and aromatherapy exams. It's frustrating, but you will need these LT books to pass the exams. ITEC like to put obsure bits of Louise Tucker misinformation into theory exams.

Get it as cheap as possible because you won't learn much from from it and you won't to use it once your qualified.

By the way, I don't belive that the rave reviews of this book are real. They can't be. They cannot POSSIBLY be talking about the same book!

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Rating: - More poor information from a poor "professional" body
The fact that this book is required reading for any course shows just how endemic poor standards of teaching are in this country. Any teacher using this text as their reference and not refusing to pass it on to students should be ashamed of themselves. If you are thinking of joining a massage course and this is the main source of information then PLEASE find yourself another college with some dignity.

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Rating: - Quite poor for most purposes
This is the coursebook for the ITEC holistic massage course. It is written by people who run ITEC so you need it. But it isn't all that good.

I definately would NOT recommend it to anyone not doing that course. It spends far too much time talking about physiology and anatomy that you don't really need to know in order to do a massage. You would be spending your money on about 10 pages worth on info. Other books either go into more detail on swedish massage or cover other forms.

Even for the course taker it's pretty empty of specific info on how to actually do a massage. Also the physiology and anatomy are a bit low level and not consistent. You will find a description of a muscle on a chart yet it doesn't appear on the picture! How hard would have that been to get right? If you are doing that course then you are going to buy this anyway because it teaches you the terms that will be used in the exam, even if they are not correct!

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Rating: - conflicting information
I have purchased this book and the anatomy & physiology by the same author as they are the study books for the ITEC course this year. You definatley need both books as not all of the information on the muscles is in both, they do seem to conflict slightly yet written by the same author.
I do feel concerned that this is the recommended book of study and this author also sits on the ITEC board. As a registered nurse I am glad that I have my medical text books to cross reference with as I think you would struggle if you did not use a validated medical text book.
A good started book, but you would need to spend more money buying a more indepth book, so you could save the money that this has cost.

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Rating: - Comprehensive easy to follow text book for massage students
As a College Principal it has been very difficult to find a book that was pitched correctly for my ITEC students. This book contains all the relevant course material for serious students without burying it too much in unecessarily complicated pseudo-medical terms. Excellent section on the Muscular system which is challenging for most students especially origin,insertion and action. I would urge Lecturers as well as students to buy this book, but not those who simply want a touchy-feely guide to better relationships!