massage therapy journal

keeping you in touch.

  

12 Ways to Desexualize the Touch Experience

  1. Observe and know yourself.
  2. Be clear about your intentions toward your clients.
  3. Determine the client’s intentions and goals before you set the first appointment.
  4. Maintain a professional appearance and demeanor.
  5. Establish a professional therapy space.
  6. Provide informed consent.
  7. Allow for privacy when clients are dressing and undressing.
  8. Use proper draping techniques.
  9. Be mindful of body contact; prevent straying strokes.
  10. Keep accurate records.
  11. Treat all clients equally regardless of age, gender or attractiveness.
  12. Commit to continuing education classes in ethics.

Understanding Power - a Visualization Exercise

Imagine you’re in a foreign country and you’ve developed a bad rash in an embarrassing location. You find a doctor, but don’t know him or the language he speaks.

  • How are you feeling when you walk into the office?
  • Would you like to see a diploma on the wall?
  • How would you like the doctor to be dressed?
  • What do you want the office to look like?
  • How do you want to be treated when you need to remove clothing?
  • How will the physician accommodate for the language/cultural differences?

Take your answers and apply it to your practice. What changes do you need to make to accommodate for your clients’ vulnerability/modesty?

Understanding Boundary Infringements

Type of Boundary Definition The Boundary is Infringed When You...
PHYSICAL BOUNDARY Body space, where and how touching is allowed.
  • Use an inappropriate amount of pressure.
  • Touch the client in ways that are not part of the agreed upon modality.
  • Make value judgments on the client’s body or lifestyle, e.g., whether they exercise.
  • Act in a way uninvited by clients, e.g., hugging them without their invitation.
EMOTIONAL BOUNDARY Feelings and emotional responses to current and past events.
  • Make insensitive comments that tap in to the client’s pain points or insecurities.
  • Reveal (or criticize) the client to other individuals, or other therapists.
  • Use inappropriately intimate language.
  • Allow clients to have massage without payment (out of “friendship”).
INTELLECTUAL BOUNDARY Thoughts, beliefs and opinions.
  • Ridicule, criticize, ignore, dismiss or punish the client’s viewpoints.
  • Pursue personal or private information about the client’s past.
SEXUAL BOUNDARY With whom, where, when and how we express our sexuality.
  • Have a sexual relationship of any type with a client.
  • Reveal a client’s body for your enjoyment.
  • Make subtle sexual remarks to a client or receive them from the client without drawing a boundary.
  • Put your hands underneath the draping.
  • Fantasize about a client during a session.
ENERGETIC BOUNDARY The client’s energy determined by his or her emotional and mental state.
  • Take on the energy of your client (stress, physical ailments, etc.) or give them yours.

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