The Therapy of Touch VI: The Existential Question

If you are a Massage therapist, you don’t need to be a qualified psychotherapist to talk to your clients or find out why they are coming for a treatment. This is perfectly within your legal ‘scope of practice’. Interestingly, by training to become a psychotherapist I learned to say much, much less to my Massage clients. I learned to let the touch really do the work. Of course this is a bit of  a ‘no brainer’ as the thing that is most missing in this world is ‘a lot more touching’. You can get plenty of ‘psycho babble” at every coffee shop in the land, but getting powerful deep and safe touch is a true rarity.

However, even when dispensing healing touch in a touch starved society, I still need to know just why my client is here. Eric Berne, the founder of Transactional Analysis called this ‘asking the existential question’. He asked himself: “Why is my client here and not having fun doing sex, drugs and rock and roll?” He also asked himself: “Why am I here and not somewhere else, having fun doing sex, drugs and rock and roll?” It was the sixties, after all. You probably get the point.

If the client has a tight shoulder, what difference will it make to their life if it is alleviated? How important is it to them? What caused that structural problem in the first place? They are made of soft tissue that is more affected by energy, emotion and thoughts than any other substance on the planet. Do we just ignore this fact? If they have a knee problem, what was happening when they injured it? Were they under stress? Was life particularly hard at that time and is it possible that their soft tissue hardened at the same time?

Is any of this psychotherapy? Of course not - it is simple human interest. It is also good healing, by going to the roots of a problem rather than endlessly and tediously addressing the symptoms that will always keep appearing as long as these root causes are not addressed. My analogy of ‘the shrunken suit’ should explain this:

If a client walks into the shop with a tear in the shoulder of their suit, a tailor can build up a great income and lots of business by simply repairing the tear. Because the suit has shrunk, that tailor is guaranteed return business as other parts of the suit tear, year after year. The honest tailor asks how the suit actually shrunk in the first place? Perhaps we have grown. Perhaps we went out for a walk in the rain and left it damp for a while.The expert tailor says “we need to stretch the suit, not keep fixing the tears that will keep reappearing."

Are such questions invasive? Well, if I turn up with a tight shoulder and I don’t like being asked what the causes of this tight shoulder might have been, or how much difference it would make to my life to have it fixed, then I will make that very clear in my responses. I cannot help but show my discomfort or irritation. A good therapist is a good educator who may then explain that they need to ask these questions to properly help the client. Or a good therapist will realise that the fear levels are so high right now, for the client, that such questions are therapeutically counter productive.

Such probing for the real reason why a client has come only becomes invasive if it is done invasively. If you cannot tell the difference between a client keen to share their story and one who is uncomfortable talking about herself, then it is time to take up another profession. The art of all healing therapy is to know when the time is right to invite the client to share more about themselves and the right way to do it.

Knowing the full story and identifying the correct treatment is at the heart of all effective therapy.

I once met a physiotherapist who had no training or qualifications in psychotherapy, tell me how she no longer touched or did any physiotherapy with her clients at all. She simply asked them what was going on at the time of their injury. She said this speeded up the healing so much she found herself unable to ‘do’ anything that was more effective, as a healer.

Some of the most powerful Psychotherapy I have ever received or given has happened in the silence of simple touch. Being ‘held’ or holding someone else can be the most powerful psychotherapeutic transaction of them all, but only if it addresses the real reason why that client came for treatment.

The beauty of Massage is that clients turn up and simply pay to get powerful deep and healing touch. Rather like ‘being held’.

Asking the existential question is the only way to fully understand what I and my client are actually doing on the planet at this particular time and in this particular space. Once we know these basics, we can be much more effective, whatever therapy we practice.  Asking such questions is how we care for another human being. It is also discovering the essential causative factors of their symptomatic pains.

To simply accept a tight shoulder as a structural problem is no better than calling poverty “a shame” and carrying on regardless. These things all have causes and history. Like Sherlock Holmes,we must trace each symptom back to its historical cause, if we wish to be more than some kind of ‘Mr Fixit dullard’. That is not healing touch. It is squashing human beings into a tiny ‘physical only’ box.

Every human deserves to be seen and heard and to be touched. Do you really know why they have invested this money and this time in coming to see you? Do you dare to ask the existential question? Is the pain really just physical?

Yeah ‘right’.

The Therapy of Touch IV: 'Merging'

One of the most valuable things I learned when I trained as a Transactional Analysis psychotherapist was to learn the difference between my “self” and the “other”. This is particularly important in a therapy like Massage which offers so many opportunities to ‘merge’ with our clients. Before my training I had gotten myself into difficulty with merging. I had assumed that what I felt or experienced was what the client felt or experienced.

This is what I mean by ‘merging’. It is when I confuse what I am experiencing and thinking with what the client actually experiences. It is an “I - Thou” issue. This sounds a bit obvious, doesn’t it? However, one of the most common mistakes I witness in my training of Massage therapists is precisely this problem. Many Massage therapists actually foster this delusion and pride themselves on their ‘sensitivity’ and their ‘psychic’ abilities, even. They simply love to prove their abilities by telling clients exactly what they notice about them and what their ‘energy’ is doing. Yet if it was really happening, wouldn’t the client be telling them?

What is really going on here, is a manipulative ‘power play’ in which the client is encouraged to disable their critical and ‘Adult’ faculties. In Transactional Analysis terms what we have is a lack of grown up Adult communication. Instead what we have is a therapist’s Child ego state that is living in a fairy tale world of wizards and witches doing its very best to convince the Child ego state of the client that all this psychic and magical thinking really works.

To ‘out’ this process we must see it in the following transactional terms:

Client: “May I have a Massage”

Therapist: “Yes, but first may I magically discern what you need, thereby disabling your ‘Adult’ ego state and discounting any ability you have to think or talk for yourself?”

Client: “Is that what I must do to have touch?”

Therapist: “Yes, and having disabled your ‘Adult ego state’, let me now anaesthetise any critical and evaluating Parent ego state you have by using the hypnotic and merging power of touch to give me total power over your interpretation of reality”

Client: “Oh goody goody, this is such fun!”

What we now have are two children ‘running the show’ which is generally a total disaster for the therapeutic relationship. Most of this merging is simply ‘projection’. We feel uplifted so we say to the client “I notice how uplifted you are”. In the power relationship of Massage, the client is bound to agree. Occasionally, a client with a strong ego will simply walk out and not return, as a result of such insulting and manipulative behaviour.

What I teach to Massage therapists is how best to ensure it is the client’s own experience they are describing in their own words. To do this, I invite the client to spend a few minutes lying on the table at the end of the treatment. This is so they have time to integrate the effect of the Massage. I leave the room so they really are in their own space for this phase.

The second part of this ‘Integration phase’ is when the client is dressed. Here, I still avoid ‘chit chat’ and deflect the inevitable “what did you notice, Doc?” game, by simply asking the client to: “Walk around the table and notice how your body wants to walk after this treatment. Tell me anything you notice that feels different from before you got on the table - if anything.”

What is remarkable is that clients never say “Wow, I feel so myofascia-ed!” or “I feel like my ilio-psoas is now so much longer!” Unless that is, they are structural bodyworkers who have virtuously ‘fought off’ the implications of letting in powerful healing touch throughout the whole treatment. Only Massage therapists and professional bodyworkers talk such daft and unnatural language. If clients really do speak this way, then they have simply been ‘educated’ in the same way that Freudian clients have been trained by their analysts to dream in Freudian imagery and Jungian clients to dream in Jungian imagery. What clients actually come out with, without such professional brain washing is, well, absolutely anything!

It is so exciting to actually listen to clients’ own words without any merging or attempt to ‘influence’ their findings. I genuinely never know what will actually come out of their mouths, despite 28 years of watching clients get off the table and walk around the room. One client may walk like a zombie carrying lead weights on his feet and still exclaim “I feel so light and free”. Another may prance around like the sugar plum fairy saying “I feel so grounded and centred”. Who am I to say what my client actually feels or experiences internally? What is certain is this:

Everything I learned about the power of touch and Massage came from the mouths of my clients. None of it can be found in the Massage or Psychotherapy text books which, of necessity, only speak ‘bodywork’ or ‘Psychotherapy’. Yet to really understand the immense power of touch, we really need to turn each client we Massage into our teacher, by truly listening to their words. We need to learn how to

‘speak client’.

The Therapy of Touch III: Frightened Psychotherapy?

Just as the current obsession of the Massage profession with ‘fixing’ the structure of a body suggests a rather worrying and fundamental fear of touch, so too the Psychotherapy profession’s aversion to touch suggests a fundamental ignorance of what makes us truly human and what makes us better.

We are not just mind. Touching the body can release patterns of energy, emotion and behaviour that have remained undisturbed for decades. In just a few minutes. Whether this comes from our oral phase or our anal stage is largely irrelevant except to those who would avoid contact and ACTION through endless theoretical disputes. Like those mediaeval scholars tediously arguing over how many angels might fit on the end of a pin…

Does accepting contact from a client who reaches their hand out for comfort constitute a breach of the therapeutic relationship? Or was it a rediscovery and reassertion of that most fundamental of healing beliefs, namely that “I am not alone”? Who made up such rules and regulations? Did these regulators ever do any work on their own fears of touch, intimacy and life itself? Are they qualified to regulate? The only people who should be scared of touch are those who have not examined the issues of boundaries, genuine intimacy and personal motivation. This should be a fundamental part of any psychotherapy qualification training, surely?

Once qualified, is a Psychotherapist not competent to utilise that most universal of all human communications - touch? Are they not capable of assessing the right intervention, verbal or physical, for this individual? Is some ‘professional ethics panel’ more informed about this particular client’s needs? If the body never lies, why do we shun touching it in our therapy? Do we want to only work with that aspect of the self which is capable of self delusional lies - the mind?

Congruency is when what is said and what is done actually match. If we make up unnatural and touch phobic ‘rules’ around our therapy, how then do we ever assess our clients’ congruency? How do we know if what is said is meant, or that what is meant is said or that what is done is both meant and said? Young children reach out and touch those they are safe with. In our great psychological wisdom we would forbid this. So just what message do we give about humanity and life when we sit so apart from each other and stay so uninvolved? “This is a scary world and I am not going to risk my professional separateness from you”. Great. Such wisdom. Such profound teaching about the really important things in life.

A touch phobic profession is literally ‘flying blind’ to congruency, unable to assess the truth of what is unfolding. Body language and body movements are but insipid and weak indicators of truth when compared to the intensity and searing honesty of touch. When you touch me or I touch you, I am immediately and intensely aware of my issues and my difficulties with you. This powerful intimacy of touch brooks very little theoretical dispute. Our reactions to touch are there for all to see and feel. They are instant, observable and powerful. Just what types of touch can be used powerfully in a therapeutic setting goes beyond a mere blog, but touch is one of the most powerful psychotherapeutic interventions of them all.

Working for so many years with Massage therapists, I have witnessed a whole room full of people knowing INSTANTLY when the touch just ‘got right’ and when the client just ’let it in’. The visual clues were minimal, though on reflection and discussion some unconsciously recognised ‘micro-signals’ may have been present. By ‘micro-signals’ I mean skin hue, subtle changes in breath and minute alterations in posture. However, as these were done with the clients lying ‘rested’ on a table (face down) there really was only about as much ‘body language’ to go on, as in a morgue. There was none of that highly visible ‘shifting of position’ seen in seated posture.

What was INSTANTLY and universally experienced by all in the room, whether watching or giving a treatment, from the most inexperienced to the most ancient bodyworker, was the SENSE that touch was accepted at a certain moment in time. The whole room as an organism seemed to just say “Yup, I can let this healing and soothing power of touch in”

In psychoanalytical circles we might perhaps say that the id, ego and superego all opened the gates to this touch. In Transactional Analysis we would say that the touch scored a ‘bull’s eye’ where all three ego states were happy to accept this touch, Parent, Adult and Child.

When touch is either accepted or rejected it always comes with a story. That story is KNOWN by the client and much of its dynamics can be FELT by the therapist and the group. After the experience of touch comes much fruitful sharing and discussion of our ease or difficulty with intimacy and human fellowship. As 90% of all psychological dysfunction and healing relates to our difficulties with intimacy and human fellowship, touch becomes one of the most useful therapeutic tools on the planet.

And the Psychotherapy ethics committees around the world in their wisdom would ban this amazing tool of discovery and healing.

Such wisdom…

The Therapy of Touch II: Masculine Massage

The current obsession of the Massage profession with ‘fixing’ the structure of a body is rather worrying to me. Have we really not had enough of this ‘masculine’ leadership of the Massage profession? Do we really have to ‘subjugate’ and ‘control’ the body? Must we still follow these apparently ‘touch phobic’ leaders of the Massage profession (whether male or female) who seem so very frightened of simple nurturing touch?  Do we really have to follow blindly as they insist on our touch becoming so ‘male’ and so ‘medical’?

If I had wanted to be ‘medical’, then I would have trained in Medicine. Yet so many of the profession’s ‘leaders’ seem to want me to become a ‘wannabe doctor’. “Be like me!” they proclaim. “I couldn’t be bothered to train properly as a doctor or a physiotherapist, but I want to do their work, nonetheless”

Well, that dog simply ‘don’t bark’, for me. You see, I chose Massage because the body is the most magical self-healing organism on the planet, and guess what triggers that self healing? Simple Healing Touch. 

Any Massage practitioner who has spent any time at all in the treatment room observing their clients’ reaction to touch, knows that the muscles in the body have only one ‘origin’ and one ‘insertion’ - the mind. Experienced Massage therapists KNOW that nurturing touch enables clients to release all their  tight muscles in just one breath. Because they are ‘letting go’ in their minds.

Now is this structural, emotional or psychological Massage? You tell me. Annoyingly, the human being has this habit of confounding all our healing systems and crying out instead “I am unique, I am complex and I am made up of all five P.E.E.M.S.”

So if I am your client, please stop trying to tell me which bits of my body are in the ‘wrong’ place and trying to put me ‘right’. Just give me touch that respects the journey of my life, and properly values the history that twisted my spine and compressed my tissues. Then I will release what I am ready to release. In my own time. In my own way.

Please don’t just sit there taking a ‘case history’ that only addresses one fifth of what makes me human. I am more than just muscle, tendon and bone. I am made of SOFT tissue. This is the softest tissue on the planet and it responds to the slightest thought or mood that passes through me. Don’t you realise that 90% of my tension was created by my MIND? Over years?

See all of me. Listen to all of me. I will not think you a prostitute if you touch my body gently.  I know the difference between therapeutic Massage and sex. Do you? I come for touch. Deep touch. Soothing touch. Touch that connects me with

my very soul.

The Therapy of Touch I: P.E.E.M.S..

This series of blogs aims to explore just what the power of touch brings to the therapeutic relationship. It challenges the Massage profession to take more account of the psychological, emotional and spiritual aspects of touch and it questions the psychotherapy profession’s almost blanket refusal to use touch in the treatment room. It is a selection of thoughts and reflections after a lifetime’s work in both fields. Your comments and thoughts are welcome. Use the Follow By Email box on the right to receive each installment direct to your inbox as they're published.

So just what is it then, that makes us truly human? Are we really just muscle tendon and bone as the Massage profession would currently have us believe? Are we really just a collection of ‘complexes’ or neuroses as the psychological professions would have us believe? Or are we much more than this?

To understand what a human being is composed of, I use my ‘P.E.E.M.S.’ acronym. It is a model that has served me well for 28 years of clinical practice. It simply stands for:

                        P -  Physical

                        E - Energetic

                        E - Emotional

                        M - Mental

                        S - Spiritual

When we touch a person’s skin, it is impossible to only touch their ‘physical body’. In giving over 20,000 Massage treatments as a Massage therapist, I have found it impossible to Massage another human being without having a powerful impact on their energy system, their emotions, their mental outlook or indeed their spiritual state.

In almost as many years as a psychotherapist, I have found it utterly impossible to do any profound work at all with my clients without completely altering their physical state, their energy system or indeed, their spiritual state, whilst supposedly working on their mental and emotional issues.

So why then, the Massage profession’s current and obsession with only the person’s physical structure? Is someone out there in the Massage profession afraid of how touch affects our emotions, our thoughts or our spirit? Are we afraid of what a human being really is?

Why then our psychotherapy profession’s highly Oedipal fear of touching our clients? Is someone afraid that if we use touch in therapy all a client will want to do is “sleep with their Mummy or their Daddy”? Do they really believe that qualified therapists and grown up clients cannot handle transference? After all, if we have trained and worked on our professional boundaries, then they should be used, not put away in a dusty cupboard entitled “too scary to try out”.

Does a Massage treatment that simply says “Touch is healing, that is what I shall give you” really turn us into prostitutes? Does a psychotherapist who addresses our fear of intimacy through reaching out and touching my arm or giving me a hug really only want to sleep with their client? Do clients that are touched become overwhelmed by an irresistible desire to sleep with their therapist? Have you seen these therapists? Would you want to sleep with them?

In Massage, so many bodyworkers I meet seem to just want to ‘prod and poke’ and frantically ‘fix’ the body; as if it is an ‘enemy’ to be ‘controlled’. Just like we ‘controlled’ the native American Indians or subjugated the Indian sub continent. Likewise, it seems that many psychotherapists want to hide behind their words and theories as if they too, are afraid of the great primaeval forces of nature that threaten to engulf us, should we ‘dare to touch’. If we reach out and in any way touch our clients, it seems they really do fear that we may perhaps enter into ‘The Heart of Darkness’ described so well by E. M. Forster. Of course such touching must be consensual and contractual. That is why we train psychotherapists. Of course it must have a clear purpose.

If a human being is comprised of P.E.E.M.S, then how can we limit our impact to just one of these areas that constitutes the miracle that is humanity? A Massage therapist who does not allow a client the chance to explore their emotional and psychological reactions to a treatment is surely no better than a psychotherapist who does not allow a client the chance to explore the physical implications of their work and their relationship with touching?

Both are in danger of hiding away in some remote professional forest, far away from the scary glare of the ‘Queen who sees’, living in houses that may be safe but are too small for us, just like dwarves in a forest. We spend our professional lives always looking over our shoulder at this scary thing called ‘intimacy’ and touch. Like Snow White, far better to just hide away with ‘the little men’ who make up regulations to keep the witch at bay.

For those of us actually in clinical practice, however, we often find it impossible to keep the door to powerful and healing touch shut all the time. Sometimes we must open the door, and it is a risk, this touch.  We may well fall foul of old ladies who are not always what they seem, offering apples. What fairy tales tell us, of course, is to ‘feel the fear and do it anyway”. So far both professions seem to only be ‘feeling the fear’ and not doing it at all.

Just how we work with more touch in Psychotherapy and Massage is a big issue. If we want to be effective with clients who are suffering, then we need to use the most powerful tools at our disposal. If we wish to demolish a bridge we must use dynamite. We do not sit around making regulations about the the risks of dynamite and put a lock and key around our dynamite storage depot. Demolishing the bridge one pathetic tap of the hammer at a time, is all that will result. For Massage and Psychotherapy professionals alike, touch is that powerful tool called dynamite. We need to learn how to handle it safely, whether in Massage or Psychotherapy, not lock it away.

The integrative, intimate and healing power of touch is always there, no matter how far into the ground we wish to bury our ostrich heads.