[Written while listening to this. Comments are welcome below.]
Massage therapy can go down in the books as a healing art, but all art is healing on some level. Be it physical, psychological, or emotional, or all of the above. Art is creative, intuitive, and dynamic. Music is art. Writing is art. Dancing is art. Psychology is an art. Sculpting is art. Surgery is art.
As massage therapists we are artists who may be catalysts for some sort of processes via touch, but we are not healers. To assume the title of healer places an unrealistic burden on a practitioner and robs the client of realizing their own true innate ability. It also lends to a ludicrous exaggeration of our role by claiming victory over a resolution that isn’t ours.
Who is the healer?
Our clients are the only healers in the room. Just because we happen to be 
present at the time, does not make us the conductors who orchestrate their healing process in any way. It’s happening in spite of us and will continue to do so. However, being present gives us the honor of witnessing it on occasion. Our clients are the conductors. We are both the audience and ready instruments. But our instrument does nothing unless the conductor raises the baton of consent and allows us to behold their musical composition. A place in their orchestra is not guaranteed. The show will still go on.
It’s easy to take credit for being at the right place at the right time and think someone was “healed” all because we performed a special technique, but it’s not exactly warranted. What about all the times it doesn’t happen so dramatically, if it happens at all? This isn’t to discredit the wins by any means, it’s to dismantle the idea that there is a healer outside of anyone’s own body. A win is still a win. However, healing is a complex phenomenon we have no business taking credit for, as tempting as it may be sometimes.
We are helpers.
When a client feels better after a session with me, I realize someone else could’ve been just as effective (there are many other qualified professionals on the planet). It could be the luck of the draw, but everything that went well with that client happened as result of them trusting me enough to allow a pure connection at that moment. That is the nature of the therapeutic relationship. Though there is nothing magical about that idea, it is profoundly meaningful and humbling. When you think about 
the delicate nature of our work, it is a privilege when a client chooses one of us to help them. We are helpers.
I admit, helper doesn’t sound as majestic or glamorous as healer, but that’s just the ego being nit-picky. For some reason, there are those who prefer the mental image of us as cloaked druids with glowing auras upon Crystal Mountain as opposed to just being regular-Joes who give someone a hand-up after a fall. Our job is to be like Joe. Druids are considered weird nowadays and incantations don’t actually work (we should at least agree on that much if you’re on this website), but it is genuinely cool and beneficial to lend a helping hand. That is what we do. I like to think we offer that very well.
I used to be mildly Type A-ish
I understand the earnest desire to try to “fix” something. Humans are wired to want to improve upon any kind of condition, internal or external. But when we find we can’t, it becomes very frustrating. This is where egos can get bruised and things get weird.
- Type A: the martyr is prone to unhealthy self-punishment and will think something is broken when their “healing powers” don’t do anything extraordinary. This leads into the lonely abyss of sacrificial lamb-ness and the fantasy that client’s are somehow “draining” their precious energy reserves. Counter-transference much? Clean that up!
- Type Z: the delusional guy goes so far as to absurdly attribute ailments to obscure past life karma and/or resort to victim-blaming the client when his “healing powers” fail to work. Often it’s to the tune of you’re just not believing in my special powers enough (yeah, probably because you’re a complete nut-job).
- Healer-types can go in 2 extreme directions: the Type A of martyrdom or the Type Z of complete delusion, with non-binary degrees in between:
No joke. I’ve actually heard things like, “he completely healed me of my of my past life whatever and then my headaches were gone”. To which I say, that is a sweet illusion. You healed yourself by means of a belief. And that’s awesome! But it is you who accomplished that. Your “healer” only helped remind and convince you of your own healing capacity, somehow, at that 
moment. And that surely does take skill. Whatever that skill may be, however it may be applied, and the environment it is applied in is the art part. We have helping skills.
Vague truth
Certain arts will appeal-to-or-actually-help certain people often, sometimes, or not at all and that may very well be attributed solely to belief. It is indeed rewarding when someone believes in you enough to trust you with their discomfort and understand you will do your best to help them. No matter what the scenario, trust is sacred. I call that a humble-win-win.
It’s not just semantics, it’s just annoying.
Paul Ingraham of PainScience.com addresses this exact point here and coins the term healer syndrome. He writes about it with such pointed accuracy that anyone, even self-proclaimed healers, would have a hard time denying it.
I know a massage therapist here in Vancouver who actually refers to herself as a “healer” on a regular basis. She seems to go out of her way to use the word, looking for excuses to mention that she’s a healer.
Ick.
It’s arrogant and distasteful, obviously. It’s an absurd conceit, incompatible with competence and professionalism. Humility is an essential ingredient in health care: if you don’t have it, it’s almost impossible to do a good job…
When therapists wear the healer identity on their sleeve, it makes them easy to avoid! Unfortunately, not all of them do. Acute healer syndrome is just the tip of an iceberg of less obvious ego problems among freelance therapists. For every therapist who actually uses the word “healer,” there are a dozen who have the attitude without being foolish enough to put it right on their business card.” -Paul Ingraham
Paul nailed it. It’s tacky at best, evokes the barf-factor, and warrants a deep, slow eye-roll.
Selling healers
When I was younger, I was sold on the idea I could be a healer and consequently believed I was after completing massage therapy school. I mean, who wouldn’t want the ability to miraculously heal someone else? There were so many classes and CEUs selling healing with YOU-as-healer, and yes of course I’d like to do that, sign-me-up. It was new and exciting. But professional maturity and common sense set in. I discovered this is a realm where helping someone relieve a back ache, walk a little straighter, or rehab a sprained ankle was considered a “healing” by many. Bonus if that ankle was also sprained in a past life! Please.
The idea may be born from a good place, but invariably the ego gremlin gets fed and it turns into a case of healer syndrome. That holier-than-thou mentality gets in the way of a client’s true healing by blocking their access to a deeper understanding of themselves and their sovereignty. Who would ever want to do that? Oh, a “healer” would.
The truth is the whole “healer” bit is just marketing. It is a term and concept that appeals to the ego. And everyone’s ego loves a good stroking. Oh, look what I did! (um….. this time… sorta? errr… ummm…). I have no issue with sales of safe and ethical techniques, just recognize what someone is trying to sell you. Check within to see if it’s marketed to feed your ego or if it can truly help your client. Hint: if it involves a “guru”, “master”, “proprietary technique” (may use the word “ancient”), or has the gate-keeper-secret-certification kind of model, it’s probably a marketing shtick 😉 Basically, all bodywork is “ancient”. Duh. I bought into enough of these gimmicks to smell them a mile away, and it’s not always because of patchouli, ifyaknowwhatimean. There are better places to invest your money.
Think about it
You know those amazing surgeons who perform hours-long life-saving heart transplants? And the nurses who tend to critically wounded vets on the battlefields? And seeing-eye dogs? And nuns that devote their lives nurturing children in orphanages? And the scientists that help extend millions of lives by improving upon medicine and technology? If I could crown anyone “healers” it would be them. Realize even they don’t address themselves that way and look at what they do. How dare anyone else? Please.
When a client tries to credit me by saying “thanks so much, you fixed my…..” or something like that, I must point out: “I couldn’t have done it without you, so thank YOU. Your body did the work”. We work together and they deserve all the credit. That’s the truth and it is our job to remind our clients and ourselves of it every chance we get.
Thank you for this! I’m quite happy being a massage therapist. We don’t have to make dubious claims or exaggerate our credentials or abilities. Massage is awesome on its own.
A client-centered practice returns the locus of control to the client. The healing really does come from within them. We can do things with our hands to make them feel good and relaxed so they can feel safe in the world and feel comfortable in their body. We can point them towards information that might help them to help themselves. Ultimately, though, it’s the client that makes the change. That they trust us enough to allow us to create a safe space for them in which to do it is an honor. We should accept it with humility and give credit where credit is due – to the client.
Thank you for making this so clear.
ditto, Alice! What we do rocks, as is. Thank you for adding to the conversation.
Great job, Tania. Thank-you for taking the time to write how many of us feel. You’re so right about the ‘barf-factor’, and of course about druids being weird. I have posted this on my Facebook page.
Thanks Bruce. The only time druids are not weird is if you’re playing Dungeons & Dragons. In which case, they’re awesome 😉
GREAT article, thanks. I get so frustrated at times w/ some clients that like to use the term “fix” (i.e. can you “fix” this issue or you “fixed” my back), to the point that I now refer to it as the “F” word. I politely try to remind them that I just “help” their body facilitate its own healing process.
Ha, “the F word”! That’s hilarious.
In order to “heal” some tissue disconuity should be ascertained, sometimes and sometimes this is easy and sometimes it is not. In order to “heal” time, position and metabolic economy are required. Many things don’t require “healing” but correction. This is where things get complex.
By tissue discontinuity, do you imply there should first be a lesion of some sort?
And could correction also be correlated with a reinterpretation of stimulus (or lack)? Lastly, is this in reference to chronic or acute? Injuries or pain? Thank you doc.
I am a massage therapist and I don’t refer to myself as a healer. But I do think that word has vast historical and psychological meaning that can’t be reduced to some kind of trivial epithet ascribed to ego driven self-aggrandiing people. They may abuse the term to boost self importance – that is sad and unfortunate .
But the root of the word is the same as the root or the words whole and health. In a benign and helpful use of the term we can conceive of healing as the restoration of health and wholeness as opposed to measly “fixing” an isolated issue that may arise from deep underlying multiple causes.
It’s an acknowledgement that we are whole beings with problems, not an amalgamation of diagnoses, each to be “fixed” – and yes “health care” has at times very much degraded into that attitude – where it has ceased to do so it is largely due to people not afraid to use embrace the term and the concept of “healing”.
I won’t give up on that idea just because some people abuse ithe term “healer”. I won’t project my own derisive attitudes onto people who use that term – I will ask then what they mean when they say that and it will quickly become clear if they are “trying to seem important “ or are authentically acknowledging the power of one person humbly offering help and resources to another to aid in the healing process.
I would never call myself a healer- but I would be honored if someone I was present for in their healing journey thought that I helped them along the way even a little bit- helped them to heal.
I have had many serious health issues and crises and I think of the people who really saw me and really help me as healers. It seems the thing to do now to treat them term with scorn- and it makes me sad.
Hello,
Thank you for your comment and feedback.
The post’s intent is not to scorn our fellow MTs, but to strongly call out the disservice of having this God-complex. It’s unfortunately common. This is hands-on work. We are not Harry Potter’s. It’s flattering when a client fans us with compliments like “healer”, and thus dangerously tempting to let the ego fall for believing we are. However, it’s egregious narcissism, at best, to actually tout oneself- or introduce oneself- as a healer. This is not about analyzing the Oxford-dictionary definition of the word. It is exactly about addressing the abuse of it, which is present in every instance it is self-ordained.
I expect more maturity and self-awareness from professionals. That high-expectation won’t waver anytime soon!
Not only is it self-aggrandizing and delusional, but as the post states, it steals self-efficacy from the client, their autonomy, their true innate capability and it’s just plain false and presumptuous. I make no apologies for calling it what it is. I challenge the self-acclaimed “healers” to recognize the true, humble honor in being chosen to facilitate another’s well-being and that they are not the key. The client holds all the keys 😉 It takes self-awareness, grounded-ness in reality, and humility to grasp that. Pros know this.
It’s beautiful and very touching that you see the people who helped you as healers. They are lucky. What is likely most beneficial, for YOU, is realizing YOU and your body-mind did all the hard work! I hope they proudly reminded you of that every step of the way 🙂 That’s what integrity in the therapeutic relationship is built upon: Helping clients/patients realize their own wellness and strength. That is the truth.
May we all stand for our clients in such a way.
Your amazing insightful information entails much to me and especially to massage lovers. Life is stressful — it always has been, and anyway, massage therapy helps us!
Thank you for your comment, Bella. I agree, massage therapy is AMAZING 🙂
Your article about ‘massage-therapist-healer’ looks very helpful for me, I love it. Thank you for sharing it.
Hi Rosamonde! Thank you for checking it out. Happy to help in any way. Visit the free member library, if you haven’t already. There are lots of great articles in there and other free references 🙂 You can join here https://pinpointeducation.com/free-library/
Thanks again!
-T
Very nice article. I am a PT, but have trained lots of Osteopathic stuff, including the ever-popular cranial sacral approach, which is an area of MT fraught with issues of the kind you mention above.
Interestingly, what many don’t seem to realize, is that cranial ranges from the extreme of some people believing they are manipulating “energy” (news flash – it’s all energy – like when I smack you upside your head), working with all sorts of esoteric “rhythms” while processing emotions through the body (watching a Reiki Master – meaning that they stayed for the WHOLE weekend – try to “dialogue” with a client using their cranial rhythm as a guide to discuss a childhood emotional trauma is like 10,000 fingers scraping down 10,000 blackboards) and of course healing past lives by doing shamanic visionary work (followed in at least one case by “sacred” sex, which is about the creepiest thing a practitioner can do to a client). These are typical the light to no-touch folks who seem to think that “placebo effect” is a dirty word.
On the other end of the spectrum there are those of us who see it as just another way of influencing structure/function through mechanical input to the body (which, to me at least, is pretty amazing intrinsically – I don’t need mysticism to be constantly in awe of the coolness of the human organism such as it is). While we tend to use light touch initially to come onto the body, we can end up using considerably firm touch, sometimes even squeezing the head / sacrum pretty hard (but always in function of what the tissues under their hands “ask” for);.
Anyway, because stuff like cranial can have a real nice effect on increasing parasympathetic tone, whether from placebo, or just that the nervous system tends to respond to certain types of contact through activation of things like deep proprioceptors (c.f. – deep pressure used in Sensory iIntegration treatment), cranial-based practitioners seem to get all sorts of strange ideas as to what their role in the client/practitioner interaction involves. As you mentioned above, counter-transference is HUGE, and you get a lot of the “healers” (particular the unlicensed, untrained in professional conduct, doing-it-because-the-universe-called-me-but-told-me-not-to-go-to-school types) working out their *own* stuff, often at the expense of the client’s actual needs (although sometimes to their delight – a lot of clients seem to want to have very esoteric solutions to their issues). Boundaries blur ridiculously (c.f. – “sacred” sex; ugh, sooo icky). I am friendly with clients, but I am not friends with them (obviously I occasionally treat family/friends for short periods / one offs, but not for a sustained program of therapy), because I know that this interferes with the clarity you need to be able to work with someone and see what’s really going on.
And that’s what helps keep you honest about what your role is.
Now, granted, it’s more than a bit tempting to feel a bit “messianic” when you are working with a complex client who has a lot of issues going on and who, when they get on your table are a mess, and when they get off are largely pain-free, or when you are working with a baby who can’t move around much at all and after you squeeze them starts crawling a few days later. But that’s where being a professional comes in.
People talk about the “healer high”, which probably has a lot to do with you getting a serotonin rush because you are doing some cool stuff and seeing results. And that’s great, but at the end of the day, you have to remember to basically “build a bridge and get over yourself”.
So thank you very much for this article. Frankly, this sort of thing should be required reading for all LMT, PT, chiro, LAc etc. students and practitioners, and it’s refreshing to hear it put out there as such.
Hi Chris!
Thanks so much for adding your keen insights to the conversation. Great input! I love this:
“I occasionally treat family/friends for short periods / one offs, but not for a sustained program of therapy), because I know that this interferes with the clarity you need to be able to work with someone and see what’s really going on.
And that’s what helps keep you honest about what your role is.”
Absolutely. It takes lots of humility to step back. And our existing relationship will almost always muddy the waters of a productive therapeutic alliance. One-offs here and there are a different story.
Good stuff. Thanks again Chris!
-T