Issue link: https://www.massageandbodyworkdigital.com/i/72195
TOUCH FOR HOMELESS CLIENTS Defi ning Boundaries Massaging the homeless isn't a simple process. This population can be tricky to work with, and therapists need to be prepared, Mary Ann Finch says. Body issues are paramount with the homeless. "Our training is about how you touch the boundary of another person, which is their body," Finch says. "For homeless people, that boundary is very vulnerable. For these folks, the integrity of their body is all they have." The massages CT practitioners provide to the homeless are chair massages of the neck, shoulders, and feet. "For the most part, homeless people are far too traumatized to be able to experience the kind of massage most massage therapists are trained in," Finch explains. Therapists who work with homeless people need to be She started to wander the streets, going into the parks. And one day, she went into a coffee shop and got two cups of coffee, then walked up to a park bench and sat down. On the other end of the bench was an elderly man she'd seen there before. "At that moment, I had the same feeling that I'd had when I'd gone into the circle of lepers the fi rst time," she says. "I didn't know how to start the conversation." Finally the man said to her, "Did you want to say something to me?" She offered the coffee and he accepted, but then they settled back into an uncomfortable silence. "Is there anything else you wanted to say to me?" he fi nally asked. "I wanted to offer you a neck and grounded and prepared to receive some of the pain these people might bring to a massage. "When we're working with people's bodies, they not only bring to you the obvious condition that they're aware of, like a headache or back problems, but they also bring a lot of unconscious feeling, things that are just too unbearable for them to put into words," Finch says. "We get to experience a lot of those unspoken, unmetabolized thoughts and feelings." She says the therapist's willingness to enter into a real shoulder massage," Finch said. He didn't answer, so she stood up and came around and stood in front of him. "I told him my name, said that I was a massage therapist, and that I was looking for ways in which I could help the homeless who sit on park benches. He looked at me and replied, 'You can start with me.'" She began massaging his neck. relationship with the homeless person is critical. "This is a ministry, it's not a business," she says. "You need to come from a place of compassion, which is not about pity. You need to believe, 'I'm coming here to give what I have to give you and to receive what you have to give me. We're both healers, and who is to say who is the healer at this moment?' The playing ground has to be even." She encourages massage therapists who want to pursue this sort of outreach to begin by contacting an area agency that works with the homeless. "See what services are already off ered, and if massage therapy might fi t in with those services," she says. And other people began to wander over and ask him how it felt. He told them it felt great. "From there on, it was all morning long," Finch says. She knew then she had found her calling. "The people who can't come to a clinic—because they're too sick or too afraid or too inebriated or demented—this is where we need to bring our care." writer who specializes in issues related to spirituality and social justice. Contact her at killarneyrose@comcast.net. Rebecca Jones is a Denver-area freelance massagetherapy.com—for you and your clients 79