Empathy and not being afraid of contact and touching people of different ages, origins, gender and physical condition is essential for a job as a health masseur / health masseuse. A completed vocational training or secondary school certificate is required by some schools, but not by all, as is a minimum age of 18 years. Massage knowledge or other skills are not usually necessary for admission to a massage course for beginners.

Training to become a health masseur or health masseuse can vary greatly in scope and is not always suitable for self-employment. When choosing a suitable school and training course, please consider what you want to achieve with this course and whether the skills taught there correspond to this goal. If you want to gain initial massage skills that you can use on your partner or with friends and family, your skills will be required differently than if you are thinking of becoming self-employed as a masseur or masseuse. For part-time or full-time employment in health massage, a comprehensive training course is recommended, which includes knowledge of anatomy, pathology and first aid as well as various massage techniques. If you are aiming to become self-employed, you should also consider whether you are seeking ASCA or EMR recognition before registering for continuing education, further training, which will enable you to bill your services through supplementary health insurance and will certainly bring you more patients. You can obtain information on this directly from the schools or in our education guide "Education, further training in the fields of health and medicine" (see "Education guide" navigation bar above).

In most cases, classical massage is taught in a health masseur / health masseuse seminar, but depending on the training institute, other massage practices are also on the timetable, such as sports massage or foot reflexology, finger pressure massage, wraps and packs, Shiatsu acupressure, Dorn-Breuss massage, Russian-Tibetan honey massage and others. Ask any school you are interested in to send you non-binding documentation and find out exactly what content and techniques are taught during the massage training.

The duration of a massage course for basic training as a health masseur/health masseuse varies depending on the educational institution and can range from two days to one year and beyond.

Training to become a health masseur/health masseuse is not a federal qualification, but an internal continuing education, further training course that awards an internal school certificate. A federal continuing education, further training would be the Federal Diploma of Higher Education in Medical Massage.