By Frank Merillat
In 2003 I was presented the opportunity to work with a massage school in Johannesburg, South Africa. My wife was working in Southern Africa and I established contact with the school and started teaching a two-week unit based on the Florida School of Massage approach to massage therapy. To help introduce the unit I wrote a paper called The Art of Specificity. We still use this paper as part of the NMT curriculum. It was my attempt at that time to explore the elements of massage practice that contribute to a deeper therapeutic experience for both client and therapist. The article identified elements that help deepen and support the therapeutic relationship. The elements included awareness, intention, contact, communication, whole listening, technique, knowledge of anatomy and skeletal muscle function, and self-care. The idea was when all these elements were present and active in a massage session the possibility of positive therapeutic results were enhanced. We would read and discuss the paper in small groups and then a larger group sharing. At the end I would invite each participant to evaluate their own practice and what would be growing points for them. I also invited each to write their own interpretation of what is necessary to make therapy possible.
As I have done this introspection myself over the years, I find that I keep coming back to the concepts of awareness, intention and contact. This has sharpened my awareness around speed of the work, effort that I put into my work and the great importance of communication with my client and myself while I work. Out of this I realized there were two elements that I need to add to the mix, safety and trust. The sense of safety and trust are what allow the nervous system to move out of the sympathetic reflex and into a more parasympathetic state. Over the years I have realized that my main work is creating a space that allows the body to relax, release and be more at ease.
I found as I gained experience as a therapist it required more than knowledge of muscle and movement, protocol and technique to reach the whole person. I must remember my work is not to fix a problem, but to help my client explore, feel and incorporate the possibilities through effective touch. For me one of the greatest challenges was to feel the subtle textures in tissue. To do this I had to slow down, let go of agenda and protocol, and rely on working with what we both were feeling in the work. Communication is key in supporting this process, the client feels what is happening in response to the work and either opens or resists. It helps to be able to explain why, how, and what I am attempting to accomplish with my technique to maintain my client’s sense of safety and trust. I also need to receive honest feedback on what their experience is so I can adjust what I am doing to make it more effective. It is amazing how just a little adjustment in technique can open the therapeutic door. This is how the work becomes more specific to each client’s individual need. The ability to respond to the client’s feedback also is essential to strengthening the sense of safety and trust. You are not disturbing the client when you need specific information about what they are experiencing, you are gaining the information needed to deepen the work and make it more effective.
Another element that has caught my attention and is often not considered is self-care. Early on I only focused on what I thought the client was feeling, the depth, pressure, specific technique, etc. I often was not paying attention to what I was experiencing while I worked, thus I was sacrificing my own body and comfort to meet what I imagined as my client’s needs even as it cost my own body. I realized that the more comfortable I was while working, the more effective it was for the person on my table. They would feel when I was working too hard or inefficiently, it interfered with therapy. The work we do is a two-way street, both our nervous systems must be at ease for the work to go deeper.
The practice of massage is an ongoing process. We learn and hopefully change through our experience. It is a dynamic growth process. Everyone we touch offers the opportunity to learn and adjust what we do. This is why awareness is such a useful component, it offers the possibility of change and truly allows us the opportunity to evolve.
Where are you in your therapeutic process? Where are you wanting to grow, improve? What would strengthen your process with yourself and your clients. This is what the intention of continuing education is, to deepen skills and grow in the practice. What would help and deepen your practice?
I will be offering my Getting Specific with the Neck and Shoulder workshops the weekend of August 15 and 16. This will be an opportunity to go deeper with these areas of the body and to explore the elements discussed in this article. To get more information go to the FSM website under workshops.
You can contact me directly at fmerillat@mac.com and I would be happy to send you a copy of the Art of Specificity article if you would like to read it. Hope this finds all well and I hope to see you down the road.
