August 8th, 2007 Julie Onofrio
Building relationships with clients is an art form. It is really the basis for healing. While your techniques may get people in the door with promises of relief from pain and stress, what heals is your ability to be present with another. This is the therapeutic relationship and I would say that it is a sacred part of being a massage therapist but is the least talked about subject in your massage training.
People can learn massage techniques and use those techniques to help others but the thing is that after working with a variety of people you will find that the same technique does not work for all situations. You can also teach 10 massage therapists the same exact technique in the same class and you will get 11 (not a typo) massage therapists whose work all feel different to the same person and of course that effect multiplies by the number of people who are worked on. Each persons touch will differ because of who they are and their ability to be present with the client. Each client will perceive the touch in a different way depending on who they are and what they are thinking/feeling.
Being present means that you are totally focused on the needs of the client, the healing relationship and not on yourself. Your presence requires attention, interest, acceptance, compassion, empathy and a non-judgmental response. While this may seem like what you are doing or may seem easy - the challenge is to do this but be able to feel whatever is coming up in you without acting on it. When you react to a client, you are acting on the basis of your old patterns and beliefs which has nothing to do with the client. This is countertransference and it happens in all relationships. There are two types of countertransference negative and positive. Negative countertransference is when you are reacting on old issues of your own. Positive countertransference is when you can feel your own feelings but not act on them and stay present with the clients process. This requires that you have a certain degree of individuation -the ability to separate your own feelings from what is happening in the client and the ability to feel your feelings without acting on them. Peer supervision and Psychotherapy can help with the process of individuation.
The book “The Psychology of the Body” by Elliott Greene is a great way to get a better understanding of all of these things related to the therapeutic relationship. He explains some of the components such as transference, countertransference and projection. While this is a much needed start for the massage profession, the book talks about it mainly from the aspect of what the client is going through. What is most important is what the massage therapist goes through and the process of learning to be present with a client in order to be of service to massage clients. It isn’t just something you need to understand from a mental aspect. It is something you need to be able to experience internally. The best way to get that experience is through the process of peer supervision.
The other part of the therapeutic relationship requires that the massage therapist be able to create healthy boundaries for this therapeutic relationship to occur within. This involves setting clear policies and procedures around such things as payment, late fees, cancellation fees, length of treatment session, dual relationships, dating clients, being friends with clients to name a few. The clearer your boundaries are in these simple things the more successful your massage practice will be. People will respect you more when you respect yourself and creating boundaries that serve you will show people that you respect yourself.
Posted in Building Your Practice, Ethics, Peer Supervision, The Code of the Caretaker | 2 Comments »
July 13th, 2007 Julie Onofrio
I was just about to take some books to the used book store to trade in when I came across a copy of a book written in 1986 called “living in the Light” by Shakti Gawain.
I am sure I read it a long time ago but when I started re-reading it yesterday I was delighted to find another explanation of the theories I write about - the ‘code of the caretaker’ - which involve learning to take responsibility for ourselves and take care of ourselves first before taking care of others. It leads to learning to be of service which is different from helping.
There are a few great chapters - on on the “Tyrant and the Rebel”. Here is what she says:
“The tyrant is the inner voice that tells us what we should and shouldn’t do. It’s all our rules and rigid expectations. The rebel is the part of us that refuses to do anything it’s told to do. It reacts in total rebellion and trusts no one. When the tyrant says ‘do this’ the rebel says ‘No way’.
The rebel was developed early in childhood in response to pressures and demands from outside authorities. The rebel originally protected our feelings by refusing to believe anything our intuition knew was untrue.
The tyrant wants to be heard and wants cooperation.
Neither the rebel or the tyrant are listening to or protecting you anymore. They have taken on their own personalities and are working in reaction to each other. When this happens, people feel stuck.
Neither the tyrant or the rebel are truly you. By learning to trust and follow your intuition both the tyrant and the rebel dissolve and you emerge into who you really are.
So when you are struggling in your life somewhere it is a good idea to take a look at who is speaking and taking the actions. Is it the tyrant who keeps driving you making you think that you should or should not be doing something? Is your rebel reacting and stamping their feet saying “no”?
Learning to trust your intuition is a process. Taking it easy and being gentle on yourself and taking very small steps can help you get unstuck. When the tyrant and the rebel are fighting it really is a form of beating yourself up which is what you were probably taught to do at an early age. It happens when we are told things like “big girls don’t cry”, “stop crying or I will give you something to cry about”, “you can’t sing - you should be an accountant” and all of the other critical voices of others told you. Everytime you beat yourself up you are continuing the cycle.
Learning to be gentle with yourself requires that you develop a certain amount of strength
Gentleness comes from a place of spiritual abundance. We can
only afford to be gentle when we are secure enough to lay aside
our instincts for self preservation, defensiveness or aggression when
we know what we need.
Taking the time to really go inside and find out what you need is really about taping into your intuition - your inner guidance system - your feelings.
The wealthy massage therapist is able to honor both the tyrant and the rebel and get in touch with their deeper selves and finds out what they need and value and is able to start taking the steps to tune into their intuition and take care of their inner needs.
Posted in Ethics, Peer Supervision, Recommended Reading, The Code of the Caretaker, The Wealthy Massage Therapist | No Comments »
July 5th, 2007 Julie Onofrio
Working as a massage therapist has ways of bringing out the best and worse in us. We are faced with the expectations of relieving pain and of knowing what a person should do. Massage school teaches us techniques to use to do just that. We take continuing education classes in techniques and theory.
We are trained in knowledge of anatomy and physiology and how massage affects the body and are taught to be authorities on the subject. Massage therapists are taught to fix and be responsible for others health or lack of it.
We work closely with people who are in pain which is usually much more than just a physical issue. As a result of such close encounters our lives are constantly touched which sometimes leads to our own wounds.
It isn’t so much what technique you use with a client but rather who you are as a person that will lead you to success in the massage profession. Being able to be with a client who is in pain and not give advise or try to fix -but just being present for the other and experiencing their presence and not just their symptoms allows a deeper level of healing to occur.
Our techniques are tools that allow us to communicate with the client. Working with different techniques with a client allows us to learn about ourselves. Taking a technique and making it your own requires that you take a look at what is in your heart and assimilate that technique into your own way.
The client really does not care much about the technique. They don’t care if they are getting cross fiber friction or if they are getting effleurage. They only care about how it feels.
Bevis Nathan in his book “Touch and Emotion in Manual Therapy” asks the question “What is it that heals - the technique and its tissue-specific physiological effects or the experience of being held/healed?”
“The intention of touch is to create a therapeutic physiological event in the tissues of the patient, and the rationale underlying the technique is physiological, kinetic or mechanical in nature. From the patients point of view, the touch has it’s roots in non-verbal communication or communion. She does not experience the touch as merely a technique or procedure on her body tissues, it involves her self. She is being held, cradled, stroked, caressed, valued, cared-for, healed”.
He goes on to say “If most therapeutic touches will evoke emotional responses in addition to mechanical ones, the question arises: which component is responsible for the healing?”
Posted in Changing Your Beliefs, Ethics, Peer Supervision, The Code of the Caretaker | No Comments »
July 2nd, 2007 Julie Onofrio
Empathy is one of the driving forces in a therapeutic relationship that happens between a massage therapist and their client.
Empathy is the ability to understand others in a deeper sense not only in acknowledging their pain or discomfort but actually taking it a step farther and sharing that pain with others. This requires that you have a deep understanding of yourself and be able to process the feelings that arise in you when you are dealing with someone who is in pain and not necessarily act in the way that the feeling pushes you to act.
Being able to stay present with the other person is one part of empathy. Our ability to provide empathy for another begins with being able to be empathetic with ourselves. If we don’t receive the empathy we need at an early age from others we begin to get an distorted view of who we are. If you laugh and no one laughs with you or if you cry and people tell you to get over it or grow up, you learn to stop expressing those feelings. As children we have no way of knowing what that it is ok to express those feelings. We start behaving in ways to please others rather than expressing our truth - our true self. When our feelings have been discounted at an early age, we begin don’t learn how to soothe ourselves and nurture ourselves. We don’t learn to vaulue ourselves.
Arthur Ciaramicoli and Katherine Ketchan in their book “The Power of Empathy” says
“We mirror back the neglect and inattention we were given and our focus remains on our own unmet needs and desires.”
The thing is that we often bring those unmet needs to the massage table and use the client to get them met in one way or another. Massage therapists who talk about their problems or do massage because they need to feel needed and validated as a person risk develping co-dependent relationships with a client that do not foster healing unless you can get to the other side of the codependence. Always wanting to give advice and be the expert takes away from the client’s ability to heal themselves. Fixing others takes the power away from the client.
The thing with empathy is that the only way we can get it from someone else is to first be empathetic towards others so that they can get the nurturing they need and give it back to you. This often requires going through a process of acknowledging the fact that you have been deeply hurt by not getting your needs met and learning to grieve the loss. It requires that you learn to provide empathy to yourself so that you can hold on to yourself more while others come to you in a state of neediness. It requires becoming more self aware and being able to see how you project these unmet needs on others.
It is a process of developing self esteem and learning to care for yourself in a deeper way than you ever thought. The book “The Power of Empathy” has some suggestions for practicing empathy. It requires that you learn honesty, humility, acceptance and gratitude among other things.
Joining or starting your own peer supervision group is a great way to learn more about giving empathy and receiving empathy.
Posted in Ethics, Peer Supervision, Recommended Reading, The Code of the Caretaker | No Comments »
July 1st, 2007 Julie Onofrio
Being wealthy means different things to different people. It is more than just having money - it is having money to take care of yourself and your family in the way that you need.
So many massage therapists say things like “It isn’t about the money” but the fact is that it is. You have to be able to make the money that you need to stay in business. You have to have the money you need to pay your taxes, your bills, your health insurance, your website and other marketing tools, save for vacations, retirement. It will allow you to send your children to the best schools and help your aging parents when they get sick and it will allow you to take care of yourself in the deepest way so that you can care for others more.
When people say things like “it isn’t about the money the chances are that they don’t have any.
The word wealth brings up so many different feelings and is a good opportunity to take a look at your beliefs about wealth. Do you think that people who are wealthy are bad in some way? Do you think things like they must have had to sell their soul to get that money or be shrewd and step on people’s back on the way up?
Wealth is what will allow you to contribute to those who have less.
Defining wealth for yourself requires that you take a look at your beliefs about money and being wealthy. Suze Orman in her book “Women and Money” says
“How we behave toward our money, how we treat our money, speaks volumes about how we perceive and value ourselves. If we aren’t powerful with money,we aren’t powerful period. What is a stake here is not just money- it’s far bigger. This is about your sens of who you are and what you deserve. Lasing net worth comes only with you have a healthy and strong sense of self-worth.”
One of the first things she says to do in her book “Women and Money” is to define what wealth means to you.
Posted in Changing Your Beliefs, Massage Therapy Jobs, Money issues, Peer Supervision, Recommended Reading, Starting Your Practice, The Wealthy Massage Therapist | No Comments »
