Massage Therapy Journal Summer 2025

Summer 2025 • 27

The Client/Therapist Relationship’s Effect on Emotions One factor of a massage therapy session that goes beyond technique that can drastically improve its effect on mental well-being is the therapist’s ability to honor the client’s conceptual boundaries. “Conceptual boundaries are the way the client sees their world. Their belief systems about the nature of reality; their political beliefs; their experiences with race or gender; their age, and many more factors will affect their conceptual boundaries,” Hubbard says. “When a massage therapist listens to a client from the client’s perspective, and does their best to reduce or eliminate their own implicit bias, clients feel safe, listened to, nurtured, validated and relaxed. Then, they tend to process emotions more easily.” It is always important to respect a client’s boundaries, both physical and emotional, as doing so creates an environment of trust, which, in turn, can help a client relax and in some cases experience an emotional release.

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Massage therapists are not psychotherapists, however, and that is critical to remember when working with all clients. If any client experiences some sort of emotional release during a massage session, the massage therapist should simply allow it to happen and not attempt to intervene or offer any advice. “What really makes the massage session a safe place for emotional well-being and healing is the practitioner and how comfortable they are with the client releasing emotional energy,” says Carlton. “If the practitioner is uncomfortable with a client crying or needing to express how their feeling about something, then the client’s physical body isn’t going to feel comfortable or safe to release the emotional energy being held in the tissues.” The communication between a client and the massage therapist can help the client improve their interoceptive awareness, which includes a sense of one’s emotional state. “In addition, the style of communication between the therapeutic massage and bodywork practitioner and client encourages the view of symptoms as messages, fostering the act and art of noticing,” Larson says. Massage Therapy’s Effect on Stress: What the Research Shows One study 1 examined infant massage as a stress management technique—not for the infants, but

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It is always important to respect a client’s boundaries, both physical and emotional, as doing so creates an environment of trust, which, in turn, can help a client relax and in some cases experience an emotional release.

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