I just went on YouTube and looked at a few deep tissue massage therapy instruction videos. It seems like everyone is in on the video track these days so I have to come up with a plan to overstep them in quality. I need to show how I work. Most of them had inappropriate comments saying, “He/she can massage me any time!”

Clients are paying for a professional service in an office, not a hook-up! The fact is, it doesn’t matter if your office is in a public building or private building in terms of perception because the perception is in the client’s mind not in your office. Whether those perceptions are affirmed or not has to do with how the practitioner conducts themselves and whether the client understands that most everything these days is public. In that case, keep your private comments about your sexual needs out of the healthcare office. That’s my boundary.

I work in Medical Manual Therapy in the Naprapathic tradition. It’s a healthcare office. It’s not traditional relaxation or therapeutic massage where platform hands, pointed thumbs, elbows, forearms, and spa treatments are used after only 500 hours of training or less. We’ve worked to raise the standard of soft tissue work to that of healthcare level, past prostitution massage. There must be clear boundaries when you’re touching people’s bodies and for most, there are no clear boundaries; not even in the chiropractor’s offices. I’ve worked in six different ones and they weren’t much different than a spa and had shenanigans going on with the massage therapists and the chiropractors. Massage therapists get hit on in the chiropractor’s offices as well.

It’s not as bad in my office in the front room of my home as it has been in the public offices and doctors offices I’ve been in. I run a tight ship and clients can tell they can’t get one over on me and need to respect my boundaries. Those boundaries are actually State Law. We’re state licensed practitioners or should be. Be sure and ask your therapist. Their license should be hanging on the wall. That may also be why I’m not booked up, just busy. They want a massage therapist they can push the boundaries with, humans being who they are. You give someone an inch and they will take a mile.

Clients need to come in knowing what who their practitioner is, what kind of treatment they’re going to get, and ready to be focused on getting their body aligned. That’s all.