The importance of safe bodywork

Especially when you are new to a bodywork practice you can feel uncomfortable and even unsafe during first treatments. Passively, you allow a therapist to contact you physically while, in some cases, being unable to see them when you receive the treatment face-down. This can make you feel physically vulnerable and exposed, even though you remain properly covered and draped throughout each bodywork session.

You may feel more vulnerable when you release the effects of unresolved or unaddressed trauma, which is usually expressed emotionally. At such moments it is essential for your therapist to keep you safe, comfortable, and physically protected.

We use two models to help you manage your physical and emotional responses to bodywork treatments. Our Five Key Emotions model simplifies the range of emotions and feelings you may experience during and after treatments. Our Seven Steps of Bodywork Healing model conceptualises your healing journey, which can make it easier for you to assess your progress, as you continue your treatments.

Because the effects of our treatments can still be felt sometimes 24-hours after your sessions complete it is important to understand how to care for yourself properly during those periods, and how to create and maintain a safe space for your recovery and development.

Protecting your comfort and safety

You may be challenged specifically by four characteristics that make our bodywork treatments both effective and unique. To explain how we work as safe therapists who only offer safe therapies, we discuss each in detail below –

Touch

Touch is essential to bodywork. To compel your body to eventually re-adopt an optimal posture your therapist needs to work on it directly. This can be challenging if touch is uncomfortable to you.

To perform bodywork well, touch must be controlled carefully. It must always have a justifiable therapeutic purpose. Even during sessions, your therapist will plan every step of the treatment in advance to make sure that the methods and techniques that will be applied are appropriate and effective. Your responses to each – many of which can be very subtle and unnoticeable to you – are monitored constantly to keep you safe and relaxed. The treatment will be paused as soon as your therapist notices an adverse reaction to a particular method or technique. This can be discussed before the treatment continues.

Discuss any touch-related discomforts you may have with your therapist in advance of your treatments. In most cases, treatments can be modified to start on areas that are least emotionally sensitive. Treatments on other areas can then be introduced at a pace that remains comfortable and acceptable to you.

Silence

We prefer to perform treatments in silence. This allows us to focus on the innumerable subtleties of our work, and offers you time to focus exclusively on yourself. However, it is not mandatory for you to stay quiet during treatments.

Please let your therapist know when silence becomes uncomfortable to you. You will always be allowed to articulate yourself and to ask questions whenever these arise. You may also ask your therapist to narrate the methods and techniques that are applied during the treatment to learn why and how they are performed.

Background music will always be played softly during treatment.

Feelings and emotions

It is usually best to expect an emotional response to your treatments. These can be unpredictable and take any form, including the sudden manifestations of anger, grief, shame, guilt, and joy. Tension is typically associated with ranges of unexpressed feelings, which may suddenly arise with more clarity when your body relearns to relax. Physical releases are almost always accompanied by emotional releases. Some of these can be subtle, whereas others may manifest more profoundly.

Discuss with your therapist how you normally deal with feelings and emotions. This can inform the design and delivery of your treatments so that emotional overwhelm can be avoided. Regular feedback during treatments can be useful to evaluate how physical and emotional responses are associated.

Physical privacy

You will always be given privacy to undress before your treatment, and redress after sessions are completed. For this, your therapist will leave the treatment room and will only return after receiving your express permission.

Before any bodywork session commences, your therapist will discuss the details of treatment with you. This allows you to ask questions in advance, and to share any concerns you may have about the proposed approaches. Once you consent to these you will be asked to expose those parts of your physique that will receive treatment.

Genital region

Your genital region is defined as the area between your pubic bone and lower sacrum. We will never work in this area without your express permission, and only if no alternative approach for the treatment is available. As a general rule of thumb, and for any treatment type, we will never work in an area closer than approximately 7 centimetres (3 inches) to your ‘true’ genital area. For both males and females, lower underwear will always be worn during treatments.

If you do not usually wear lower underwear, please inform your therapist in advance of your treatment so that alternative ways of draping can be applied.

Some exceptions may apply if plastic or cosmetic surgery has been performed on your low abdominal region. Especially if you have undergone birth-related surgery in this area we would like to inspect the state of post-surgery scars before continuing with our work. This helps us understand how incisions and further surgical work may have affected your fascia. We will view these scars only after we receive your express permission.

Exposure of breasts

Female breasts are broadly defined as the areas that arise from the chest due to the presence of adipose tissues. No myofascial release work will ever be performed on your breasts. However, to access parts of the muscles that underlie your breasts, your therapist may ask your express permission to work immediately under your collar bones, on the sides of your midriff, and on the sides of your upper torso. When permitted, your breasts will remain properly covered and draped. Exposure of your breasts will not be necessary.

You will be asked to remove your bra for any treatments on your neck, shoulders, and back regions. This will be elective for all other treatments.

Some exceptions may apply if plastic or cosmetic surgery has been performed on your breasts. We would like to inspect the state of post-surgery scars before continuing with our work. This helps us understand how incisions and further surgical work may have affected your fascia. We will view these scars only after we receive your express permission.