Article by Bruce Stark
As human beings we are designed to grow, develop, learn, explore, and try new things–illustrative of our evolutionary process. Once the primary needs of safety and survival have been addressed, we have a natural curiosity and impulse that can initiate our desire for continued change and development. In the bodywork session we as bodywork therapists are routinely presented with people who are experiencing impediments or restrictions to that evolving nature–they may have a physical injury preventing them from doing what they need to do; stress may be impacting on their ability to respond in a relaxed and engaged way; or past or present traumatic events have short circuited their usual coping mechanisms.
Transference is one of the tools that we as humans use to support this evolutionary growing process. Transference is a normal, psychological phenomenon in which unconscious thoughts, feelings, expectations and biases of our clients are projected onto another–for example, us as bodywork therapists–and these projections may affect how our clients interact with us. For example, because we are in a helping role, our client may see us as a “parent” or other care giver and may perhaps subtly respond to us as if we were that parent or care giver. From the somatics perspective, transference represents an opportunity for the client within the context of the therapeutic setting to practice new ways of being or relating to their body or to the injury or distress that supports their learning and integration of new patterns or understanding.
In the massage or bodywork session transference can present itself as a transfer of power. We are often seen as an extension or adjunct to the field of health care and our clients may expect that we will be the “experts” about their body and that they are coming to us in order to get “fixed”. They give up the responsibility for their healing process or their sense of well being and expect that we will do something “to” them that will make them better. Somatically, healing is a process within each of us which utilises our physiological and mental/emotional resources for healing, and our role as massage therapist is to facilitate the body’s ability to access those resources to heal and balance itself. By doing things with the client we are able to support these self-regulation and self-healing processes of which the body is capable.
When we work with the body we model the awareness of and the attention for our clients so that they may come to a greater understanding or awareness within themselves. We help to transfer the power back to them so that they may be able to recognise and experience these self-regulating resources directly. Therefore, when we take a facilitative approach instead of a “fix-it” approach we begin to empower our clients to directly experience their self-regulating mechanisms. Evolutionarily, they get the opportunity to experience themselves in the therapeutic relationship in a way which helps them to trust the healing process and to be more directly involved in their healing or repatterning.