Article by Bruce Stark
In the massage and bodywork field we have spent a great deal of time studying – anatomy, Physiology, massage techniques, treatment protocols and assessment skills. But interestingly, “what” we know from our training can actually get in the way of our client’s healing process. Specifically, if we work with an intention for a specific outcome with our client we may indeed miss the very self-regulating responses which are part of the healing and balancing processes which we want to promote.
In somatic work we maintain the fundamental philosophy that the body has a self-regulating and self-balancing capacity and that our role as therapist or practitioner is to facilitate the ability of the body to access and utilise these regulating resources. When we follow a linear way of thinking we are no
longer observing our clients from a holistic perspective. We can easily miss the myriad ways in which the client is responding to the work – and in fact, there will always be a great deal more happening for them than we will ever know as the practitioner. By allowing ourselves as practitioners to get “fixed” in a mindset that there is a specific protocol for addressing specific physical problems without paying attention to how the client responds we can easily impose onto our clients our assumptions about what should be happening in the session and we are no longer “responding” to them.
An simple example would be a client with a frozen shoulder. Depending on the bodywork modality we use and the training we have had we will naturally utilise the techniques and thought processes which we have learned to address the client’s pain patterns and to increase the range of motion in the joint. And often we will incorporate techniques which have demonstrated their usefulness for us in the past. Usually these techniques will be effective in releasing the muscular pain and tension and for increasing ease of movement. But sometimes we may find that there isn’t as much change or that the client’s body doesn’t seem to be as responsive. We may work “harder” in an effort to get the shoulder to release. But might we actually be interfering with a healing process? Or perhaps we may continually try to work harder to get a change or release to happen without noticing that some other issue may be presenting itself?
The reality is that in order to support long-term change and healing we need to work with the regulating processes of our clients’ bodies and these processes may not follow a linear progression. Somatically, we are always striving for an embodied connection since the sense of presence and “holding” is integral to the experience of change and balance. If we try to “fix” our clients we interrupt the emergence of the healing mechanisms that we are trying to engage. We cannot fix our clients – ever. What we can do is provide the environment and the support for our clients to achieve their own healing. When we allow the understanding to emerge we facilitate the healing holistically. When the changes are coherent within the client’s body, recovery occurs more quickly, there is greater proprioceptive awareness, and the client is less likely to injure themselves in the future.