Advanced Business Strategies: Holding Space Benefits Both Clients and Yourself

(Massage Magazine Column: "Advanced Business Strategies" June 30, 2023; Author Amy Bradley Radford)

How do we provide caring and compassionate touch for our clients while not taking on responsibilities we should not be? The answer lies in holding space—space contained by professional boundaries—which benefits the therapeutic relationship for both client and therapist.

When coaching others on how to run a successful massage business, I find many therapists on the brink of burnout. This exhaustion typically revolves around trying to figure out how to not give too much of ourselves to our clients or to not be taken advantage of by our clients—all while trying to follow professional boundaries and make money.

I have observed over and over again how these difficult boundaries issues impact personal time and scheduling, and can lead to loss of energy and emotional struggles.

Most of these boundary issues fit into two categories: What professional boundaries mean to the therapist; and not understanding how care and compassion fit in with those professional boundaries. 

We all receive training on how to maintain professional boundaries with our clientele; however, it is natural to feel compassion and to care deeply about each client’s well-being and the client themselves. Maintaining professional boundaries can prove difficult within that reality, especially if we find ourselves becoming emotionally invested in clients’ health and well-being.

Along with this, so often our clients confide in us in ways that are outside of our scope of practice. Referring a client to professional counseling is the standard, but that does not necessarily stop clients from vocalizing their feelings. Even a seasoned professional will find themselves wanting to offer comfort, give words of advice or create a place where the client can step back, observe themselves and verbalize emotions.

These complex situations can leave many massage therapists struggling to find the balance between truly caring for another human being and maintaining healthy, ethical and silent professional boundaries.

What Does Holding Space Mean?

Learning how to work from a place of neutrality teaches how to maintain professional boundaries while trusting the neutral space created for the client is plenty.

Holding space for our clients means we put our needs and opinions aside and allow someone to just “be.” It is a time when we can donate our hands and heart—and many times, our ears—with the knowledge that by simply being present we can fulfill the client’s needs.

This sacred place is the space where healing often occurs. It takes a synchronistic approach of focused attention and letting go of any agenda to provide this opportunity. It is about being neutral to the outcome of the session and supporting the person through massage. 

Working from withing this space also allows us to practice empathy, compassion and acceptance without words or crossing professional boundaries. Staying neutral in your mind and presence while holding space for another is how to accomplish this approach to client care.

When a therapist can focus on performing their best work, breathe with their client, and allow the client to be present within themselves, there exists a solid boundary of the therapist as a facilitator and the client as a receiver of good, healthy touch. Nothing else is required. These types of sessions can leave you fulfilled instead of exhausted.

It is the knowledge that your presence is enough.

What Is Massage?

Massage is an art.

It is something you create to become uniquely your own.

It is an expression of yourself and your growth in life.

Massage is also an ultimate gift of giving.

You circulate and interact with the energy of the person you work on,

share the energy of yourself, and between and around the two of you

is the universal energy that feeds us all.

The interaction of all these energies creates what we feel as massage.

Massage encompasses more than the physical body.

It is a triad of healing: physical, emotional (mental) and spiritual.

As the therapist, we facilitate or allow the healing process to take place.

in this vessel we call a “human-being”, something concrete

is in a constant state of change, by creating a space for them

where there is peace, calmness, compassion and healing.

We must remember that it is the individual that does the healing.

We only create and support that healing space.

We do not control it neither can we make it to work or bend it to our will.

We merely dance with this “being” and allow them to “be.”

You as a massage therapist have a responsibility

to not stand in the way of the process of healing.

Yet without you, different depths of healing do not occur.

We must always be present when these beings entrust us with their care.

One of the greatest words and actions for a massage therapist

to fully understand is “allowing.” We allow the body to change.

We allow the being to trust. We allow the being to experience.

We allow them to process. We allow them to cry.

We allow their emotions and spirit to come forward.

We hold the space for them so that the mind, body and spirit come together.

And as it is the truth in all things, we must first be “allowing” to ourselves.

We also have an incredible responsibility with these beings.

Never break their trust. Never hurt them.

Never betray them or their bodies.

Approach the body with reverence; head bowed with grace in your touch.

It is amazing what will happen to your “be-ing” and their “be-ing.”

And that, my friend, is massage.

—Amy Bradley Radford wrote this on the topic of “what massage meant to me,” as a graduation speech for a class of new massage therapists. She believes it describes perfectly what the essence of holding space and being neutral means for the massage therapist.

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Amy Bradley Radford