Chatty Clients
From the "Find a Massage Therapist" professional organization:
Their Question:
If your client talks the majority of the time in a session do you let them or do you encourage them to refrain from talking? What tips to you use to get them to stop talking or ground and center?
Our Answer:
What a blessing to have a client that talks. Let them process whatever's on their mind. Avoid talking about yourself, repeatedly bring the focus back to their awareness, their experience, whether it's mental, physical, emotional, memories, or whatever. Encourage them to delve deeper into it. Avoid giving advice and definitely avoid talking about similar experiences you may have had. Look into Hakomi Therapy or Huna for specific techniques you can use to guide their awareness. The mind-body connection is powerful and massage can bring up memories. The ability to skillfully allow your client to process those memories into healthier (for them) beliefs, forgiveness, resolution, or whatever they personally need, can alleviate chronic holding patterns of tension that caused them to need massage in the first place. On the other hand, if their chat is very superficial (i.e. grocery lists), you can ask questions to guide their awareness deeper or into the physical (i.e. "What are you experiencing now?"). Above all, avoid judgement or getting wrapped up in their "story". It is their personal experience that they are processing, so let them. If you have the skills and wisdom, it is possible to loosely guide their consciousness towards a place of greater internal awareness (softly, gently), allowing whatever needs to be released or is crying out for attention to release, availing whatever gifts of peace or resolution they are seeking through the clouds of their story, or perhaps just the next step in a complex unwinding...
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