That's an excellent question.
Diane Jacobs, talking about dermoneuromodulation (DNM)--a practice that she has developed, and that we'll talk more about here later--answered that intellectual property question first, and better than I could have come up with off the top of my head.
When asked:
What's a good name for working top down and bottom up?
she answered:
Dermoneuromodulation.
It covers the manual territory from skin cell to self of self and leaves out the mesoderm entirely. It is not a copyright term.
Anyone can use it, to describe what they do, manually, if they want. This made-up word is not copyright. I give it away. Please take it. Use it to get away from words like "fascia" and "muscles" and "joints" and "bones" and "ligaments" and "tendons".
In the same way as Diane practices with regard to her development of DNM, I don't claim any restrictions on anyone's access to use of the term through copyright or ownership over the term "biopsychsocial massage (BPSM)".
I give it away to the community to use freely, in the same spirit of open access and Creative Commons licensing that POEM is founded on.
There is only one condition of usage--you cannot apply the term to something it is not, any more than someone can make a dog into a cat, just by calling it one.
Source: Left, http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8c/Poligraf_Poligrafovich.JPG; Right, http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/Feral_cat_Virginia_crop.jpg accessed 18 November 2012
In a similar way, you can't make non-BPSM practices into BPSM simply by slapping that label on them.
Diane explains that, although she gives the term away freely, that
It should contain only nervous system considerations though, because really, when push comes to shove, only the nervous system can respond (short term, OR, and ESPECIALLY, long term) to what we "do" to another person, manually. Of that I'm convinced.
Similarly, if you're not practicing biopsychosocial massage, the term does not apply to what you actually are doing.
You have every right under principles of freedom of conscience to reject classical Newtonian physics, for example, and to say that it does not apply to the work that you are doing. But that claim is inconsistent with the principles of BPSM, and so that inconsistency means, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that your practice is not a biopsychosocial massage practice. Which is fine in itself; you are entitled to practice any way you want to, subject to professional ethics and to regulations in your jurisdiction. All it really means is that you don't get to label it something that it is not--no more, no less.
There is a Cambodian saying that men are like diamonds and women are like silk--if you drop them in the mud, you can wash the diamond and it's as clean as it ever was, but the silk is stained forever.
«បុរសជាមាសទឹកដប់ ទោះធ្លាក់ចូលភក់ ហើយលើកមកវិញ ក៏នៅតែជាមាសទឹកដប់ដដែល តែនារីវិញ ប្រៀបបាននឹងកំណាត់សំពត់ស បើកាលណាធ្លាក់ចូលភក់ជ្រាំហើយ ទោះខំប្រឹងបោកគក់លាងសម្អាតយ៉ាងណា ក៏មិនដូចដើមដែរ» (courtesy of Frank Smith)
Source: Left, http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8f/Apollo_synthetic_diamond.jpg; Right, "Weathered Memories/2008" by Joan H. Calloway ("wishes, true and kind") http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Q8uC-dZACLA/TJ7nFt-t2cI/AAAAAAAACaY/eDRBb_GeD38/s400/DSCN0956.JPG accessed 18 November 2012
Let's put aside for the moment the blatant sexism in that proverb ("dropping them in the mud" is a metaphor for their being sexually active, and this is the classic embodiment of the double standard against women in so many traditional societies), and see if there is any useful imagery there for us to communicate a distinction in a totally different domain, without being insulting to more than half of the population.
The term "biopsychosocial massage" refers to massage practiced in an evidence-based, science-based, client-centered way, that understands health, wellness, and disease in terms of natural (not supernatural) processes in the material physical universe among biological, psychological, and sociocultural aspects of life, as well as their interactions and the emergent effects that arise from them.
Anyone who practices massage in this way is practicing BPSM.
If that term is consistently applied to only those practices, then it is a clean and brilliant diamond that clients and other massage stakeholders can use as a baseline to understand exactly what BPSM has to offer.
If the term is (figuratively) dropped in the mud by applying it to anything and everything, no matter whether or not it is consistent with the principles of BPSM, then--like the silk--it is stained forever, and it becomes useless for clients and other massage stakeholders to use as a guide to understand what BPSM has to offer.
So I give the terms "biopsychosocial massage" and "BPSM" to the community to use freely, on the one condition that they not be diluted by applying them as mere buzzwords to massage or other practices that are not massage practiced in an evidence-based, science-based, client-centered way, that understands health, wellness, and disease in terms of natural (not supernatural) processes in the material physical universe among biological, psychological, and sociocultural aspects of life, as well as their interactions and the emergent effects that arise from them.
(Not yet clear on what that means in actual practice? That's ok; there's a great deal of rich material there to explore in depth. We're going to spend some quality time connecting the dots, and translating them into what they mean for actual practice. I just want to get that general principle out there; now that it is, we can do some real work on establishing what it means in practice.)
So the answer to the question in the post title, "Who owns BPSM?" is: It is entrusted to the responsible and sustainable stewardship of the massage community.
cheers, to Diane Jacobs!
UPDATE, 18 November 2012, 10:57 AM PT:
Gayla Coughlin points out that some of my statements above, as written, are unclear in what they mean for actual practice, and might result in outcomes that I don't want.
I thank her for giving me the opportunity to correct my inaccuracies, and to get closer to my intended outcome.
I am thus taking out a Creative Commons license on biopsychosocial massage (BPSM), and here are the conditions attached to that license.
The particular form of the Creative Commons license that most suits my intent for this work is Attribution-ShareAlike CC BY-SA.
Their blurb explains:
This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. This license is often compared to “copyleft” free and open source software licenses. All new works based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also allow commercial use. This is the license used by Wikipedia, and is recommended for materials that would benefit from incorporating content from Wikipedia and similarly licensed projects.
--"About the Licenses", http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ accessed 18 November 2012
What this means is that you can build on, develop, and grow biopsychosocial massage, but only on the condition that you share your work with the community in the same way ("license their new creations under the identical terms")--you cannot take the work that I and others have done on biopsychosocial massage, and trademark or copyright it for yourself. This license thus protects biopsychosocial massage for use by the entire community, rather than having someone seize it away from us in a proprietary way.
You are free:
- to Share— to copy, distribute and transmit the work
- to Remix— to adapt the work
- to make commercial use of the work
This means it is approved for Free Cultural Works
Under the following conditions:
Attribution— You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).
Share Alike— If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one.
With the understanding that:
- Waiver— Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder.
- Public Domain— Where the work or any of its elements is in the public domain under applicable law, that status is in no way affected by the license.
- Other Rights— In no way are any of the following rights affected by the license:
- Notice— For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. The best way to do this is with a link to this web page.
--Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) page accessed 18 November 2012
If my statements above sounded like I objected to commercial use on anyone's part, then that was due to my inaccuracy--I have no objection to anyone earning a living by teaching classes, writing books, or anything like that, as long as you honor the moral rights that attach to my Creative Commons licensing of biopsychosocial massage. And by "mere buzzwords", I was not objecting to using the term to market your works based on biopsychosocial massage. I specifically meant slapping the label on practices where it does not apply, in order to market something that is incompatible at its core with biopsychosocial massage.
By "moral rights", I specifically mean that I do not want anyone to use the label "biopsychosocial massage" to endorse practices that are anti-scientific or pseudoscientific, or that are not client-centered. Those violate the spirit of biopsychosocial massage, and are an infringement of my moral right to delineate a set of massage practices and theory that are consistent and compatible with modern science and with evidence in the material physical world.
If you respect that moral right, then you are free to build on and develop biopsychosocial massage for non-commercial or commercial uses, but you cannot take it away from the community by trademarking or copyrighting it for yourself.
So I believe that the conditions of this license protect my intent to release it to the responsible and sustainable stewardship of the community, at the same time that it protects the content from being distorted by misuse of the label to apply to something that contradicts the heart of biopsychosocial massage.
cheers, to Gayla Coughlin!
Biopsychosocial massage (BPSM) by Ravensara S. Travillian is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at http://poem-massage.org/content/biopsychosocial-massage-bpsm-new-lineage.
