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Putting energetic touch therapies aside, most types of bodywork involve practitioners touching their clients. Although applying healing techniques with hand, elbow, forearm, or foot contact is expected during a massage session, responses to a therapist’s touch can vary greatly. Since reactions to touch can be unpredictable, massage therapists who go out of their way to create a trusting physical bond with their clients are more likely to help those who need a healing experience.

One in Five

Some instantly melt under the hands of a skilled bodyworker, while other massage recipients tense in an automatic protective mode. While there may be many reasons a person cannot relax and enjoy bodywork, previous emotional scars rank high as a cause.

Regardless of the practitioner’s or client’s awareness of an abusive history, many bodywork recipients are likely survivors of some touch violation. On average, one of every five clients a practitioner sees has a history of trauma or abuse. These statistics demand sensitivity to how trauma or abuse can impact bodywork clients. However, the facts also call for establishing a safe-centered touch routine to recruit a client’s trust. These two approaches enable massage therapists to circumvent ethical complications and help affected clients welcome their healing touch.

Intimacy and Sensitivity

Since providing or receiving bodywork is an intimate process, traumatizing events can re-surface. Even in the most professional settings, intimacy can expose vulnerabilities leading to uncomfortable or awkward situations. In Ethics of Touch, psychologist Melissa Soalt explains a predicament familiar to survivors who receive bodywork:

“Being present in one’s body is a double-edged sword for survivors: On the one hand, working through the body can stimulate the trauma and evoke confusing or frightening feelings, on the other hand, it is this very ability to be present and in one’s body that ultimately allows one to feel more grounded and thus safer and more in control.”

Massage therapists risk crossing a professional boundary if they counsel such a client. However, understanding this dynamic could enhance a practitioner’s sensitivity. A bodyworker’s compassion for someone’s emotional response to touch creates an atmosphere of security. In addition to a practice prioritizing trust between recipient and caregiver, this safe feeling encourages clients to have any reaction that feels right.

There is the possibility that bodywork’s impact on an abused survivor goes beyond what can be handled solely by a massage therapist. Often decipherable by persistent and traumatic flashbacks, withdrawal from reality, personality regression, or deepening depression, practitioners must recognize when the assistance of a mental health professional is needed.

Routine Considerations

Since predicting who may have trust issues around receiving touch is nearly impossible, it is in a bodyworker’s best interest to establish a routine that embraces a recipient’s feelings of safety. However, because even regular clients can be surprised by a touch-inspired fear, never get lazy and skip an element of your safe-centered touch routine. Some considerations to either include in every session or at least keep in your awareness are:

  1. Ensure clients that their comfort is your priority by encouraging them to communicate with you from the session’s start.
  2. Avoid any suspicions of your intentions by adhering to the highest level of professional draping standards.
  3. Give clients the power to choose what, if any, clothing they wear for a session.
  4. Be clear about your professional boundaries before a session and during one (if necessary) to allay any apprehension.
  5. As much as possible, maintain continual contact during a session so that your client knows where you are at all times.
  6. Stay grounded, present, and supportive if a client has an emotional release.

Clients who relax once you lay your hands on them should never be taken for granted. Because touch can elicit a wide range of responses, massage therapists are more likely to be trusted by a trauma survivor when they emphasize professional boundaries and client safety. A practitioner can transform client’s lives with awareness of and sensitivity to their trust issues and a willingness to enlist a counselor’s help when necessary. By combining these efforts, even the most wounded clients can reap the benefits of your healing touch.

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