a community of practitioners

What are ways to maintain a healthy working relationship with your clients?

I chose this discussion because there are many avenues to health. Healthy Massage Therapist must also have healthy working relationships, provide healthy environments etc. Share some of the ways you conduct business that keep your clients coming back. I know you are all awesome massage therapist, but other than that. What is it about the service you provide that makes a person want to be your client. I am a student, but after studying the ethical principles I would say RESPECT, Veracity and Professionalism are great ways to maintain healthy working relationships. It establishes a mutual trust to me.

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Carri Smith, LMT NCTMB on May 3, 2011 at 4:38am

Respect, veracity and professionalism are an absolute must! In our session together it is ALWAYS about them...the only part of me in there is my ability to help them feel better. I check in periodically through the session about pressure, whether they are warm enough, comfortable enough, etc. I pay attention to their breathing because I have learned that we, as humans, have learned to tolerate pain without saying a word (keep a stiff upper lip, no pain no gain, etc) and I check in at that point about pressure as well. My school taught me that I should always guide my client away from conversation...that I am not their emotional therapist...but if a safe space to vent is what my client needs in that moment, that is what I give them. I always have water for them and I always follow up with them in the next day or two to see how they are feeling.

Permalink Reply by Shama Kern on May 5, 2011 at 12:29pm

Regarding talking to clients, that depends very much on what kind of personality they are. People who are highly auditory, in other words they prefer to perceive most of their information through the ears, like to talk more than kinesthetic people who prefer to just feel the session. An auditory type will feel more comfortable and trust you more if you do talk a little and explain what you are doing.

I think as therapists we will always have to play the role of emotional therapist to a small degree, there is no way around that. I think there is nothing wrong with listening to a client. We don't have to come up with specific answers, just listening is mostly enough.

I have had my share of clients who love to talk, and I let them do that. If they are happy when they talk during the session, I see little reason to stop them from doing that. Sure, it is true that they feel the session much more if they don't talk, but not everyone comes to feel the session. Some people just need to be in a situation where they can talk about things that clog up their mind. In my opinion we cannot strictly separate the body work from client's emotional issues. We are dealing with a bodymind.

I wrote an article that deals with the different types of clients that we all encounter as therapists and how to deal with them: http://thaihealingmassage.com/how-to-deal-with-different-types-of-m...