L i s te n to T h e A B M P Po d c a s t a t a b m p.co m /p o d c a s t s o r w h e reve r yo u a cce s s yo u r favo r i te p o d c a s t s 53
T
hink about how you want
your client to feel at the
end of a session with you.
Floating? Floppy? Full of ease? Now
think about how you feel (more often
than you would like) after giving a
session. Frozen? Fixed? Full of tension?
This is a terrible contradiction.
Our client's relaxation should
not require the opposite in us. In my
continuing education classes, therapists
often shrug off their own tension as part
of the job—as if feeling bad in our own
bodies is the seemingly inevitable result
of making our clients feel good in theirs.
Indeed, some therapists are even proud
of their tension, whether consciously
or not. That tension, we seem to tell
ourselves, is proof of how much we care
about our clients. Proof that we are real
therapists who are willing to sacrifice
ourselves to make others feel better.
"The basic somatic task during our lifetime
is to gain greater and greater control over
ourselves, learning to flow with the stress
and trauma of life, like a cork floating on
top of the waves."—Thomas Hanna
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By David M. Lobenstine
