Latest / The STA Clinician Podcast / STA297: Protecting Your Massage Therapy Career: Lessons from a False Allegation – with guest Bodhi Haraldsson

Transcript

STA297: Protecting Your Massage Therapy Career: Lessons from a False Allegation – with guest Bodhi Haraldsson · The STA Clinician Podcast

0:00
You're listening to the STA Clinician Podcast, connecting clinicians across healthcare.
0:17
And we're live. Hey, people. Welcome to episode 297 of the STA Clinician Podcast,
0:24
formerly known as the Sports Therapy Association Podcast.
0:28
I'm your host, Matt Phillips. And as always, this episode is being recorded
0:31
live on the Sports Therapy Association YouTube channel and Facebook page at
0:36
eight o'clock UK time on a Tuesday.
0:40
In this episode, entitled Protecting your massage therapy career,
0:44
Lessons from a False Allegation.
0:47
I will be very shortly joined by Bodhi Haraldson, a registered massage therapist,
0:52
clinician, and education department director at Pain Pro Clinics in British Columbia, Canada.
0:59
But first of all, a big thank you as always to my guests from the previous episode,
1:04
episode 296, which was entitled Collaboration Over Competition,
1:08
Five Strategies to Grow Your MSK Practice Without Burning Out,
1:13
in which I was joined by Andy Hosgood and Andrew McCauley, founders of The Unbound Project.
1:20
The episode, for those of you who haven't caught up with it or didn't attend
1:22
live, tackles the all-too-common feelings of frustration, isolation,
1:26
and burnout in our industry,
1:29
and looks at ways of avoiding this, including defining one's personal success,
1:34
shifting identity from clinician to leader, managing capacity and reflection,
1:40
using peer collaboration and coaching,
1:43
um i'm very biased myself i can't stress how wonderful andy hosgood and andrew
1:47
mccauley are and how useful they are to the industry they do some amazing work,
1:51
so i do urge you to check out whether you're a clinic owner or work independently
1:56
with a team i do urge you to check out the unbound project website it's all
2:00
free the group we talk about on the episode is free the community.
2:07
Um and if you're coming to therapy expo sorry therapy show my mouth therapy
2:10
show this year formerly known as therapy expo at the nsc birmingham uh in november
2:15
then both andy and andrew are going to be presenting there so i recommend that
2:18
you try and squeeze that into your day or two days,
2:22
So that's episode 296 of the STA Collection podcast, available as always on
2:26
the Sports Therapy Association YouTube channel and all popular podcast apps.
2:32
All right then, back to tonight's episode. Protecting your massage therapy career,
2:38
lessons from a false allegation.
2:39
For those of you who are unaware, my guest Bodhi Harrelson was accused of sexual
2:44
assault in clinic by a patient in November 2022.
2:49
Went to trial. He was found innocent and acquitted in July 2024,
2:54
but then had to go through a further investigation and hearing to clear his
2:57
professional record with the College of Complementary Health Professionals of
3:01
British Columbia, which went on for another two years.
3:04
So given the nature of the topic of this episode, I'm going to give a warning
3:08
now that there will be talk of sexual assault and being accused of sexual assault.
3:13
And if you are likely to be triggered by subjects like this,
3:16
You may want to switch off now or listen to it at a better time,
3:20
maybe with somebody else, something that suits you.
3:23
If you do proceed and you are affected by the content, do please make sure you
3:27
reach out to somebody, maybe your professional association, or if you feel super
3:31
alone, there's obviously organizations like the Samaritans.
3:35
If you're an STA member, then you can email or call Gary Benson,
3:40
founder of the STA, pretty much 24-7.
3:43
Details are all on the STA website.
3:47
Right, so without further ado, let's bring up my special guest for tonight, Bodhi Harrelson.
3:56
Hey Bodhi, how are you doing? Doing good. How are you doing?
4:00
I'm okay. I'm still, I didn't mention it off air, but I'm still kind of inside
4:04
like a kid, just enjoying talking to somebody called Bodhi.
4:07
Because in my life, there's only ever been one Bodhi. And I'm sure you can imagine
4:11
who that is for someone living in the UK.
4:13
Nope, nope, nope. Okay, I'm pleased that I'm, I'm pleased you're not hit with this the whole time.
4:18
Well, I'm talking about a little 1980s film called Point Break.
4:21
Oh, that one. Yeah, yeah. That one, that Bodhi. It's my only Bodhi in my life,
4:25
but now I've got a second one. So yeah, I never thought I'd ever meet a Bodhi.
4:28
So I could tick that off my bucket list.
4:30
But anyway, that aside, thank you so much for coming on the show.
4:34
I really appreciate you giving up your time.
4:36
My pleasure. I'm happy to be here.
4:39
So yeah, very tough topic we're going to talk about tonight.
4:43
I mentioned in the introduction what the scenario is, but I think maybe before
4:48
we delve into that, would you like to give our listeners, some brief details,
4:53
taking a step back about who you are, how you got started in massage and how
4:57
you have been and are involved in the industry.
5:00
Yeah, I've been at this for 33 years now.
5:04
I started in Ontario, went to school there. In 1991, I moved from Iceland to
5:11
Ontario to go to Msovstirby School.
5:13
Because at the time in Iceland, if you wanted government loans,
5:17
student loans, you had to either go to Germany or Canada.
5:20
And my English was a lot better than my German, so I jumped over to Canada.
5:25
And I've been at this since.
5:27
In my years. I've been active with our professional association here,
5:33
both as a board member, vice president, and then running the research department.
5:38
I've also been teaching both at schools in Ontario and here.
5:43
I'm currently teaching at a college called Vancouver College of Massage Therapy.
5:48
And I've also been active, ironically, on our regulatory board in the past,
5:54
both on committees and on the board itself.
5:57
So yeah, I published a few research papers, so I'm still quite opinionated about that.
6:04
So research, evidence-based practice is sort of where I'm quite comfortable.
6:10
This topic we're talking about today is sort of, I've embraced it as I've gone
6:15
along to advocate for a healthier and better environment for practitioners.
6:21
So yeah, that's sort of, that's where I'm at.
6:23
But then I'm in Vancouver, Greater Vancouver region in British Columbia, Canada right now.
6:28
Thank you. Thank you for that. I think it's important that people realize how
6:32
much you have contributed to the industry and continue to do so and your history.
6:37
And also just to point out again, I had Jamie Johnston on the show a while back.
6:42
There are differences between registered massage therapists in Canada and massage
6:46
therapists in the UK. Maybe, yeah, you could elaborate on that.
6:51
What does it mean to be a registered massage therapist in Canada compared to the UK?
6:55
Well, I don't personally, obviously don't know the UK situation fully,
7:01
but in Canada, we only have one type of license. There's not multiple different levels.
7:07
And so you're either what we would consider a body worker or a spa massage person.
7:16
To be a registered massage therapist or massage therapist, we can use both titles.
7:20
Licensed misose therapist, certified misose therapist, anything that is sort
7:23
of derivative of that term, is legislated in six provinces in Canada to be exclusive
7:29
to those that graduate from our programs,
7:32
which is about anywhere between 2,000 to 2,500 hour programs on average across the country.
7:41
And so in those provinces where you where the it's regulated we have that tidal protection,
7:49
and our education program similar to what Jamie said it is we have fairly extensive
7:57
scope more so in Ontario than BC.
7:59
BC restricts it a little bit more and most of the other provinces outside of
8:03
BC we're allowed to use all kinds of,
8:06
electrical modalities so ultrasound, shock wave, they can do acupuncture or
8:13
dry needling, those kind of things.
8:15
In BC, our college has taken a very restrictive view of it and does not allow
8:20
us to use that, but we can use.
8:23
Diagnostic process assessment clinical reasoning we can't diagnose say that
8:28
you have x or y we can use a variety of manual therapies only thing we're not
8:34
allowed to do is high velocity grade 5 manipulation,
8:38
and we can work intraoraline and for the tmj we cannot work intra in intra pelvic
8:46
regions if that's needed then we refer out to physios they can do that here in bc,
8:53
and then patient education and exercise that's sort of what we're about.
9:00
Yeah, so in the UK, because there isn't, and we've talked about this a lot on
9:05
the show, because there isn't regulation or standardization,
9:08
then being a massage therapist can mean lots of things. There's a lot of difference in there.
9:13
But yeah, basically, I don't like saying you're the equivalent of a physio,
9:17
but you've got a lot more going on when you're a registered massage therapist
9:20
than potentially a lot of massage therapists do have in the UK.
9:23
And I think that's relevant as well when we get to talk a little bit later about
9:27
kind of what work you do in your clinic and things like that.
9:30
But anyway, so yeah, there we go. Thank you for sharing that.
9:34
Right. I guess we should get down. In the intro, I gave a very kind of short
9:38
account of a little timeline of what you've been through.
9:41
But if you're happy to do so, then I guess we should go through the whole accusation
9:47
and when it started. And yeah, in your own words, if that's okay with you.
9:51
Yeah. So on November 14th in 2022, a patient of mine that I had been seeing,
9:59
for over two years at that point decided that she wanted me to essentially masturbate
10:05
her while I was finishing up with working on her hips and her legs.
10:10
Grabbed my hand and asked me to do that, which was a massive shock to the system.
10:16
And at the time, I pulled my hand away, continued working on the leg,
10:22
worked my way down to the feet close to where my door is, and exited the door,
10:29
out the door a few minutes later.
10:32
And following up with my front desk and with that patient, I discharged her,
10:41
from my care the morning after with a letter saying inappropriate behavior,
10:45
you know, longer welcome.
10:47
And then 11 days later, I was charged, arrested and charged with sexually assaulting that patient.
10:56
And the way our legal system works here in BC is that the only thing that is
11:03
needed for a charge of that fine to be laid is the accusation from that person.
11:09
There is no other evidence, no other collaboration, et cetera,
11:14
needed for them to do that.
11:16
And generally, unless the claim is quite outrageous, they will move forward with that.
11:23
My lawyer, who serves both as a defending lawyer and a Crown prosecutor,
11:30
says that their guideline documents say that they are not to reject these kind
11:37
of allegations on cases unless they are quite outrageous and.
11:44
They feel that there's zero validity to anything that they're saying.
11:48
And so this is what I'm just going to jump in because I'm just imagining what
11:54
listeners thank you so much for sharing this by the way I'm going to say that
11:56
a few times because it's just so immensely powerful for you to share this but.
12:02
We've talked about how this is common in our industry, how there is always a threat of this.
12:07
I think, I can't remember what the statistics are, I think it was like 70 to
12:11
80% of therapists will go through something, not the same as this,
12:15
but some kind of situation where massage has been sexualized in some form or the other.
12:21
So I'm wondering, when this happened, how prepared were you for it in the sense
12:28
that you'd probably come across maybe other people?
12:31
Had you ever had advances like this yourself or did you find yourself because,
12:35
there was contact and she grabbed your arm physically, was it kind of a freeze?
12:41
How did you feel when this actually happened with the experience you already had?
12:45
Yeah, well, I froze. And the days after that incident, I obviously was talking
12:54
to my wife and my colleagues and sort of going through my head,
12:59
why did I freeze the way I did?
13:01
Because this wasn't the first time this happened to me. It was the first time
13:04
it happened with this intensity.
13:06
I'd never been grabbed in that way, never been outright asked to perform that act.
13:14
I've had people being with innuendos, you know, pulling sheets,
13:18
both men and women, accidental touching of my legs, etc., etc.
13:23
So, you know, I've had males have erections, I've had females pull their sheets
13:28
down off their breasts, etc.
13:29
So I've been able to manage that, and up to that point, I felt I could handle anything.
13:38
I had 30 years at that point behind, under my belt, dealt with various scenarios like this.
13:44
When I was in school, one of the teachers there actually brought in an educator,
13:49
of how to deal with boundary violations, which was quite uncommon in those days.
13:53
Think back to 1991, 1992.
13:55
That's something we used to talk about much.
13:58
So i had background i had experience i thought i could deal with it and this
14:04
one you know like i explained earlier i i pretty much froze and i didn't wasn't sure,
14:11
how i could extract myself out of that situation without ruffling feathers and you know without.
14:20
Putting it mildly that way you know i was wanting to extract myself out of the
14:25
room without further escalation of the situation it's so interesting isn't it because,
14:32
you can't help i don't even like hearing myself thinking this but you can't
14:35
help if if it was the other way around if it was a guy who had grabbed a female
14:41
therapist hand and done that,
14:44
then it would be society would condemn that very quickly,
14:51
But in this situation, I can imagine already the social media comments of,
14:59
oh, wow, I wish she'd come, I'd give her a massage and stuff like that.
15:02
And I know social media shouldn't represent the whole of society and it doesn't,
15:05
but it's so interesting hearing that you, a man in that situation, you're a human being.
15:12
You weren't a man or a woman or anything. You were a human being who essentially
15:16
was being assaulted in that moment. Is that fair to say? Absolutely. Yeah.
15:21
And hence the freeze. How can you be prepared for that? Well, and.
15:27
We're used to the freeze response, the fight, flight, or freeze response, right?
15:34
The fourth one is fawning.
15:36
And that doesn't get talked about much. And that's where you,
15:40
instead of confronting or running, you try to smooth things over.
15:44
You try to make the situation as easy to manage as possible.
15:48
And that was my response in that moment and a response that I was afterwards
15:54
thinking about it shocked that that's how I reacted given what I had already
15:59
explained to you earlier,
16:01
you know that and and I actually had booked an appointment with a psychologist,
16:06
my therapist to to work through that it's like okay why did I react this way
16:10
why did I do this why didn't I shut this down why Why didn't I react the way I should have and,
16:17
say, this is inappropriate,
16:19
push the arm down and walk out the door?
16:22
But before I was able to get to my therapist, the police arrived on my doorstep
16:26
and put me in handcuffs and threw me in a jail cell.
16:31
And so, yeah, that's.
16:35
You know, talking with my wife after this, you know, I talked to her the day
16:39
of as I came home. And she was like, yeah, no, you've been assaulted.
16:43
And I wasn't, I was not willing to admit that at that point.
16:49
I was like, no, I can't be. This is not assault. It's just patient being inappropriate.
16:54
And then I was just like, no, you've been assaulted.
16:58
And so it took me a while before I fully accepted that. As a male in the society
17:07
today, we don't hear about males being assaulted by females.
17:12
We don't hear men being raped by females. We don't hear these kind of things at all.
17:18
They do happen, obviously, and a lot less than women have to deal with.
17:23
So I'm not comparing, just so everybody knows.
17:26
Just bringing the fact forward that men do experience this.
17:30
And in my case, I think that was a big part of the way I reacted.
17:36
I just did not want to recognize that.
17:38
Or my brain was like, no, that doesn't happen to you. That happens to other people.
17:45
Okay, so, yeah, I interrupted the story. So, yeah, incredibly,
17:49
suddenly, you've had police turn up, handcuff you, put you in a cell.
17:53
How did it go from there? What happened next?
17:56
Well, there was what they call a police interview, which is more like an interrogation,
18:00
where the first person that comes into the interrogation room,
18:07
it's a small room with a window and a camera and a microphone and two chairs and a table and padded.
18:15
He comes in as a male police officer, and he tries to use my kids against me.
18:23
He tries to use, what kind of father are you going to be? You want to admit
18:27
what you did, and you want to do this, you want to do that.
18:33
In the meanwhile, I'm just trying to keep calm. I'm not trying to react to that.
18:39
When that doesn't work, there's another second police officer that comes in,
18:43
female that starts putting the discharge letter that I sent to the patient on
18:51
the table and say, you wrote this.
18:52
And I'm like, yeah, I discharged this patient. She was inappropriate.
18:57
And she was saying that, trying to use it as a weapon to say,
19:00
I must have done something wrong because I hired the patient.
19:03
You know, whereas that's, that's the, that is the,
19:07
the mechanism that our regulatory body tells us to do when a patient is x inappropriate,
19:13
you write it down you write down what happened and you discharge the patient
19:16
you you don't have to tell them why you just have to tell them that they happen
19:21
and so they try to use that,
19:23
and then when that didn't work then a third one comes in and sort of tries to be my friend,
19:29
you know tries to say oh i understand all that kind of stuff and it's like yeah
19:32
you know you just tell me what happened and all those kind of things and and
19:36
i knew better than to talk to the police at the time without a lawyer,
19:41
because there's no a lawyer allowed in the room with me i'm allowed that's crazy
19:44
as well that's that's that's i think i think listeners will be sorry about it
19:49
but i think listeners will be surprised by that because,
19:53
if i'm right in canada you don't get a lawyer you just get a phone call is it,
19:56
yes you get a phone call if you have a lawyer you can call them and obviously
20:00
didn't have one at the time,
20:01
so you get what is called a duty counsel so it's a lawyer that just sits there and and or it has the.
20:10
The number that the police calls and and the lawyer tells you your rights and
20:15
they tell you the rights which is you shouldn't talk to them you shouldn't say
20:19
anything don't volunteer any any fluids liquids dna fingerprints etc etc,
20:27
and that's all you get and then you're pulled into this room and they try to break you down.
20:34
Okay, we could easily spend five hours criticizing that. I mean,
20:39
it just sounds horrific.
20:41
Okay, well, let's, so how, so I could spend an hour asking about your mental
20:47
state, you know, that must have been horrible.
20:49
But how much time was there between that and the actual trial?
20:53
About a year and a half. Seriously? Oh my God, I'm going to have to ask you then.
20:56
Jeez. So hold on, how long were you, is it a case of being released on bail
21:00
or something then? Or what happens? How long were you being detained for?
21:04
So, yeah, so I was released that night on bail with the restrictions that I
21:08
was not allowed to work on female patients and that I was not to approach or
21:13
be anywhere near the complainant.
21:18
And even then, the bail hearing was via video.
21:26
I had no lawyer at the bail hearing.
21:28
And so there was a judge and there was a representative of the crown there and
21:33
that was it and so there's no argument about arguing or discussing what kind
21:38
of bail conditions you get it's like you get what you get,
21:42
and yeah and then november oh sorry not july 4th 2024 is when the actual trial.
21:50
And before that time the media are having a frenzy are they.
21:55
Yeah, well, there was a lot of articles, and unfortunately, I had a former colleague
22:00
that had been charged with multiple counts of sexual assault,
22:05
and so they tried to link us two together, and the fact that I had.
22:10
Stepped up as a character witness for him in the early part of those,
22:16
and also that his lawyer had asked me to be a material witness in his college
22:23
or regulatory case, not criminal case.
22:26
And he did that because I had worked with that lawyer before on multiple other
22:31
cases as an expert witness.
22:33
So I had been an expert witness in criminal cases, regulatory cases,
22:40
also in injury cases in the profession. So he asked me to be a part of that with him.
22:48
Now, because of that previous relationship, anyway.
22:52
So you know there was a lot of stories around trying to say you know here are
22:56
these two bad guys that work together,
22:58
and um yeah that's horrible i feel so sorry for you having to be involved in
23:03
that and it just makes a mockery of this idea of innocent until proven guilty
23:06
and the powers that the media have but i'm going to try not to go off on one of those,
23:10
well i mean during that year and a half then you lost as well as the horrible
23:16
attack it must have been in your mental health and your family and everything you had no income,
23:21
as such and not the very minimal income i lost about 70 percent of or more of my clientele.
23:29
That's the female portion of it at the time thankfully i had an amazing community
23:35
around me i had people standing up for me on social media, colleagues,
23:42
patients, female patients were defending me on various social media platforms and colleagues,
23:53
both close colleagues and others that just said, you know, this is not.
23:58
Not the person I knew and not the person I ever worked with.
24:02
And so I was really, you know, that, that those kinds of things make a difference.
24:07
You know, when you, when you feel the support, when you feel,
24:10
you know, you go back to my work environment and everybody was,
24:14
you know, supporting me,
24:16
even though I had, you know, only one or two patients every now and then rather
24:20
than a full, full schedule book months in advance that I used to have.
24:27
Uh so yeah it definitely affected everything okay so at the risk of skipping
24:33
forwards the the trial day comes a year and a half i think you said later which
24:37
is horrendous but then then how how is that,
24:41
the trial yeah.
24:45
Well these kind of trials can take you know all week so my lawyer was sort of,
24:51
in the beginning prepping me that this can be,
24:55
a seven to 10-day process depending on the prosecution and evidence and all
25:02
those kind of things that they bring forward.
25:05
It ended up being barely a day and a half that this took to go through because there was no evidence.
25:13
And the complainant fell completely,
25:17
her testimony fell completely apart during the trial to the point where the
25:23
prosecutor herself asked the judge to find me not guilty,
25:31
because they had no reasonable ability to prove beyond reasonable doubt that
25:37
I was guilty in that case.
25:38
And then the judge, she went even further than that. And the standard thing
25:43
is they say you found it not guilty because of reasonable doubt.
25:47
She actually declared me innocent.
25:49
Which is a rare judgment to get.
25:54
I don't get I watch too much TV, obviously, because all these documentaries
25:59
I watch, and maybe this is the UK, but I thought a case needed to be put together
26:03
and then it was taken to the crime prosecution,
26:07
something or other, and then they decide whether there's a case there.
26:10
But it seems from your account that it wasn't done that way around.
26:15
It was only when they found out and started looking at the evidence in court
26:18
after a year and a half of torture to you that they realized,
26:22
oh, actually, there's no evidence here.
26:23
I mean, obviously, this must have crossed your mind 100 times,
26:27
but I'm sure listeners are thinking, how did it get to this stage where it all
26:29
went through that and then in court, the evidence is just thrown out?
26:34
Yeah, it's a question I have and a question my lawyer had.
26:39
And, you know, it's not a... The only thing I can think back is to what my lawyer
26:45
said is that their documentation, their instruction as prosecutors is not to turn down these cases.
26:52
And my personal opinion is that they don't want the heat from them saying,
26:59
no, we're not going to prosecute this case.
27:02
And they don't want the egg on their face in case there actually was something
27:06
there and they could have gotten some kind of judgment.
27:11
They're more likely to get the judge to make that call rather than the prosecutors.
27:17
And the government doesn't want that on their... They're on their docket,
27:21
but that's my opinion, and I have no evidence of that.
27:27
Okay, right. I'm just going to remind, thank you for that. We're halfway through.
27:30
Yes, we are. I'm just going to remind people who are listening live,
27:33
if you've got any questions, then you're happy to take them,
27:35
I guess. Bodhi, you're okay to take questions?
27:37
Yeah, absolutely. right so totally acquitted not just not guilty but the judge
27:43
actually setting the precedence and saying not just not guilty but totally innocent,
27:48
but then the story wasn't open for you it just adds to the incredible drama
27:52
of it because after being totally acquitted and said that you're totally innocent
27:56
there was more wasn't there,
27:58
yeah so i had then to deal with the regulatory body and their investigation,
28:05
and so the way the system works here is that the The regulatory body has to
28:08
wait for the criminal process to be done. That's a higher court.
28:15
The regulatory body is what we call a quasi-judicial body.
28:19
So they do have some legal powers, but they can't overwrite the criminal system.
28:26
And so.
28:29
Their investigation kicked in afterwards. and the process took another year
28:36
and a half for them to look over everything and to look over my notes,
28:43
my actions that I took.
28:46
They interviewed some of my colleagues, they interviewed the front desk people,
28:50
they looked at all those things and they had to go through the court transcripts
28:56
and in the end, they dropped everything.
29:00
There was no no findings of any wrongdoing.
29:06
On my on my part so they look at professional standards they look at you know
29:11
did i document everything did i discharge the patient properly did i you know
29:16
did i do all the things correctly that i was supposed to do and i did,
29:20
and you know the one thing that,
29:24
I've learned through all this, and I knew some of this from before,
29:29
from my work as an expert witness, is your documentation is your foundational defense.
29:38
If you don't write it down, if you don't have good documentation, then it didn't happen.
29:44
No matter what you say, you can change your story afterwards.
29:49
And in my case, I had documented a shift in behavior of that patient over the
29:57
preceding three sessions.
29:59
She had asked for different areas to be worked on.
30:03
She herself had removed her underwear, which I never instruct people to remove
30:10
anything. I always say, you can leave as much on as you want.
30:13
I can work through your clothes.
30:15
And so that's not a process that I will use.
30:19
And so her behavior shifted. And so I could show that she escalated up to this point.
30:28
And so one of the recommendations I always make to therapists is when there
30:35
is a shift in the clinical environment of any kind from the patient towards
30:39
you, documented in your clinical notes,
30:43
lock it, timestamp it, it's there.
30:46
And that can protect you in many
30:48
ways. It protected what was part of what protected me in this scenario.
30:54
But if they claim injury or they claim that you stepped outside of your scope,
31:00
et cetera, et cetera, you write down everything that shifts in the room.
31:04
So if something comes up, you can refer back to that.
31:10
Sorry to interrupt, but I just want to give some weight to that because that's so powerful.
31:16
And I know, I imagine it's the same for therapists all over the world and healthcare
31:20
practitioners, that keeping notes accurate, timely, secure is a ball ache.
31:28
And I know that the temptation is just to rush them. And I know that times are
31:32
hard and people are looking for ways of fitting more patients in.
31:35
But yeah, what you've just said is so powerful. It's not just writing up what happened on the day.
31:41
It's writing up, like you said, the changes in behavior and practice of the
31:45
client or patient in the episodes beforehand of noting that down.
31:51
Yeah, that's so powerful. And,
31:54
I think that should be something which all listeners take away with them.
31:58
Because without that, I mean, obviously there are other factors as well.
32:00
But that was a major part of your defense, I guess, with the college who apparently
32:05
weren't happy with the court.
32:08
Result they needed to test themselves but yeah that was so important then the
32:12
the notes so i just wanted to make sure listeners realize that that's so so important,
32:17
yeah that was also important in the trial you know as her story fell apart and
32:23
and she was not able to maintain the facade of of the lies that she had put
32:28
forward my story only got stronger,
32:31
with all the all the steps that i took and everything that I did leading up to it and after.
32:39
I want to, I'm conscious where we're at 2042. We've got some questions here
32:42
from people, but just before I take the questions, people, and thank you,
32:44
I'm going to get to them. I just want to bring up this little picture here of
32:49
your Facebook now, of your Facebook page.
32:51
This is something which you're very much, this is just that we talked a bit off air.
32:55
This is just an incredible example of human resilience. I think so many guests
32:59
I've had on the show have been through some kind of terrible experience,
33:03
whether it's injury or misdiagnosis, lack of diagnosis, which has led to horrible stuff.
33:09
And you fit into that in the sense that now you're trying to find something
33:14
positive out of this and help other people not go to the same thing.
33:16
So on your Facebook page here, you've put up this defensive,
33:20
I'm going to read it out for podcast listeners, defensive practice for health professionals.
33:24
And it's got underneath psychological, physical, and environmental.
33:27
I guess it's something now, which you really want to help other people defend
33:33
against and notes is part one of it. Keep your notes there.
33:38
Do you think we're lacking in this? Do you think this is something which our
33:41
industry really needs, given the prevalence of sexual inappropriacy?
33:48
Absolutely. And I think, you know, we, as a profession, we're givers,
33:54
we're healers, we're helpers, right?
33:58
And we're just our own psychological makeup is not one of thinking about the
34:05
bad stuff people can do to us.
34:07
And in my case, it's one aspect of that.
34:11
Another one is people blaming you for hurting them or people trying to seek money for damages.
34:22
For the things that they alleged that you did or people having a psychological,
34:30
breakdown and then blaming you for something.
34:34
Right. And so we need to, as therapists, we need to look at not just how do
34:40
we keep our patients healthy and our patients safe on our on our on our in our clinical environment.
34:47
And we also need to look at how do we keep ourselves safe? You know,
34:51
how do we keep ourselves from the intensive and intense burnout that that happens in this profession?
34:58
You know, the stats of, you know, the only, especially this one is from the
35:02
state, particularly that most therapists only last five to seven years in this
35:07
profession, you know, and in the past, we always focused on ergonomics and physical injuries.
35:13
But I think the psychological burden is actually probably higher than the physical
35:19
injuries are in this profession.
35:21
And, you know, the boundaries that we place around ourselves,
35:26
you know, when a patient is demanding surgery.
35:29
Certain pressure or a certain way of working or demanding your time or, you know.
35:39
Demanding of your schedule, et cetera, et cetera, you know, all of those are
35:43
part of the psychological burnout that can happen in the profession.
35:49
And so we need to not just understand the psychological effects our therapy
35:56
has on our patients, which is huge and important.
35:59
We also need to understand these effects on us and how to protect ourselves
36:04
better, how to manage our boundaries better, to be trained in this from day
36:09
one, rather than having to learn it on the job,
36:13
learn to manage patients' behavior on the job.
36:19
You know, that's just ridiculous that we have to do that. some schools are better
36:23
than others some jurisdictions are better than others etc,
36:27
but you know overall as a profession we need to do a much much better job at
36:32
talking about it writing about it learning about it you know and and developing,
36:39
ways of of protecting ourselves,
36:42
from it you know i i've,
36:45
My idea of defensive practice is not mine.
36:50
It's been in the medical professions, the chiropractic profession for a long
36:55
time, you know, that to learn, they investigate and learn about the negative
37:01
outcomes of their practices.
37:03
And they have what they call protective associations, at least here in Canada
37:10
and the U.S., I don't know in the U.K.
37:12
If they have that, that provide the liability insurance for the profession and
37:18
educate the profession on how to protect themselves.
37:22
And they also look at all the negative side effects, red flags,
37:27
and catastrophic outcomes that can come from poor practices or issues that come along.
37:34
You know, one of the examples is in the chiropractic profession of stroke.
37:38
You know, they've done an amazing job at properly researching that,
37:43
looking at the issues around it, you know, looking at what are the likelihood
37:52
of a person having a stroke.
37:54
And a chiropractic office versus a medical doctor's office, you know,
37:57
or, you know, what are the triggers for a stroke, et cetera.
38:02
You know, now these days we know that majority of patients that have stroke
38:07
after cervical manipulations were already on the path towards it, you know.
38:12
And so educating them about what those symptoms are and what kind of patients
38:18
they should not be treating with cervical manipulations, et cetera.
38:22
So they have that process. They have that in their profession.
38:25
We need to do the same thing around boundaries and sexual harassment and assault.
38:31
We need to understand how these things escalate. We need to understand how we
38:36
protect ourselves. We need to understand how frequent it is.
38:40
Here in Canada, we've done four surveys on this so far on sexual harassment
38:45
and assault in the profession.
38:47
It started off with one of the smaller provinces in, I think it was New Brunswick,
38:52
that did this and they actually have a wonderful,
38:56
mentorship program for therapists that have gone through this where they help
39:00
each other so they have sort of a training where they train therapists to be mentors and.
39:08
And and of therapists that have been harassed and assaulted in their practices,
39:13
and unfortunately it's the only association so far that has done this in canada,
39:18
the other ones need to step up and do it too.
39:21
We know what the problem is. We need to look at it better. We need to train
39:24
ourselves better and we need to have a lot more effort put into it.
39:29
Yeah, without a doubt. And you voice it so well. As far as I'm aware,
39:34
I haven't come, I'm sure there are other people.
39:37
Well, we know there are other people who have gone through what you've gone
39:39
through, sadly. But in my circle, anyway, you're voicing it so well.
39:43
And there definitely is a gap in education, in training, and it should be there from day one.
39:49
It's like we were talking about before, we learn so much about how to protect
39:52
the patient's modesty and how to make sure the patient is happy and how to make
39:56
sure the patient knows how much they can undress or don't have to undress and all this and all that.
40:01
But at no point, yeah, we taught how to prepare ourselves for if the opposite
40:05
happens or how not to take pushing a boundary and things and how to not let things escalate.
40:11
Yeah, very powerful. Very powerful. Let's, if it's okay with you,
40:15
I've got a few comments in here from beloved live listeners.
40:19
Let me go through here. The marvelous David Clark Poulter has joined us.
40:24
Thanks, David, for joining us. And he says, probably on a bike,
40:27
cycling at the same time, he says, such a heartbreaking story.
40:31
Thank you for sharing this.
40:32
What steps have you taken moving forward to avert this happening again, if any?
40:37
In my own practice, I,
40:41
limit what the patient removes and so now instead of saying remove what you're
40:47
comfortable with I can work through your clothes I tell them this is what I
40:50
want you to keep on and if I feel.
40:56
Slightest sort of uncomfortableness from the patient I will just say today we're
41:01
going to work over your clothes and and i rather lose a patient,
41:08
than to have to go through this again obviously and but you know the the money
41:13
that you lose from one patient or two patients or even 10 patients not being
41:18
happy with the services you provided because you were too restrictive,
41:23
it's much better than to have to deal with this kind of stuff on any level,
41:27
um you know what i went through is the extreme, but there's other lesser forms of that.
41:36
Complaints to the college, the regulatory college, online complaints, those kind of things.
41:42
It's better to have people complain that you're too conservative than the other aspect.
41:52
And so that's the mentality that I go into every session with now.
41:58
I guess also just crossed my mind that you, I don't want to say you had the advantage.
42:04
Well, you did. You had the benefit of having colleagues outside you could talk
42:07
to, which I understand was a benefit as well, because then you've got documented
42:11
conversations and witnesses and that sort of stuff.
42:14
But a lot of our listeners, particularly in the UK, are solo practitioners with
42:20
having clients or patients coming to there where they work or maybe going to private houses.
42:25
So they haven't got anybody they can talk to there then in a minute,
42:29
which must make them even more vulnerable, I guess, and more tempted once the
42:34
mind starts causing you doubt to maybe think maybe it was me and keep it quiet
42:38
and suddenly a few days pass.
42:40
So what advice would you have for somebody who's a solo practitioner who might
42:43
find themselves in that situation?
42:46
You need to have a network. You need to have a support network around you.
42:50
If it's another colleague, if it's a family member, if it's worked something
42:57
through with your associations or something like that, you need to have that
43:02
network around you. And you need to use it.
43:05
If something happens, your first thing is to write it down.
43:11
Second is talk to someone about it. And it doesn't matter who it is.
43:15
Obviously you know not a spouse or a child because they can't be used in any
43:19
kind of court proceedings and and so have a system set up a system of,
43:26
if this happens this is what i will do and and having that support network is
43:32
is huge so another another colleague,
43:36
doesn't have to be a massage therapist can be any other health professional,
43:40
that you work with or have a relationship with or something like that that you can call and say.
43:46
Hey just had this happen to me and and we can reach out about it and and yeah
43:53
so have have your systems,
43:55
and and don't be shy about shutting down a clinical,
44:01
environment whether it's a at a workplace or in a home or in the clinic or on
44:08
the sports fields when you feel like it's going in the wrong direction,
44:13
it's always easier to shut it up, shut it down.
44:18
Before it gets to the point of no return. And a colleague of mine here,
44:21
Jocelyn Josie, she has put out, has great education around boundaries.
44:28
She has put out a four-hour video on YouTube that you can watch on sexual boundaries,
44:35
sexual harassment and assault boundaries.
44:37
And she has a lot of preamble to that. And she talks about looking at the first
44:42
wrinkle in that boundary violation that happens.
44:47
And so the first wrinkle, it's not when they assault you or sexually harass you.
44:52
The first wrinkle is their resistance to filling out your paperwork,
44:58
their resistance to your assessment or the dialogue beforehand,
45:05
pushing you, pushing you.
45:09
Their innocent jokes that they throw out or the feelers that people put out.
45:15
But these are the things that we need to react to right away,
45:19
because that shuts most people down from their bad behavior.
45:25
Not everybody. Some people will continue.
45:27
But that is, if you think of it sort of like a Swiss cheese model,
45:32
we need to have layers of protection, and that would be the first layer.
45:35
Obviously, things are going to get through, and then you have other processes,
45:40
that you would kick in at that point.
45:43
That's great. Amazing advice. Thank you so much for that. And we'll make sure
45:46
that that video gets linked in the show notes and probably going to virtually
45:51
twist your arm to see if I can get Josie on the show as well.
45:54
But we'll talk about that afterwards.
45:55
Thank you. I mean, there's just exactly the sort of advice that people need to be aware of.
46:00
And also, like you say, just have the confidence to do it. Don't doubt yourself.
46:04
Don't think, am I overreacting? I think there's, yeah, there's so much.
46:09
I think I want to say it particularly in this patriarchal society we live in.
46:14
I think women are gaslit the whole time and second out themselves.
46:17
Am I overreacting? Because that's what they're told by the establishment so
46:20
much. But I guess it shows hearing it, it's so powerful hearing it from a guy as well.
46:25
Because, you know, you're a human at the end of the day. And you react in certain
46:29
ways and try to avoid confrontation. It's anybody.
46:33
You need to have confidence in yourself. And if it looks weird,
46:36
if it looks like a vinkle, then act on it.
46:39
Yeah, amazing. Cecily, let's bring up the wonderful Cecily Hislop who's got
46:42
a comment here. Thanks for joining us. Cecily says, I'm so angry for you.
46:45
I'm sure this question is coming up. But how have you moved on from this?
46:48
Has this experience put you off from this profession? Great question, Cecily.
46:54
Yeah. Well, at this point, I'm doing a lot better. But in the very,
46:58
very, very beginning, it was a daily or an hourly decision to stay, to fight, to continue.
47:06
And, you know, I wouldn't have been able to do it without all the support that
47:10
I had, both from colleagues and family that encouraged me to continue and to
47:17
not leave and just shut everything down.
47:21
And, you know, which I wanted to do, I said to my lawyer in the very beginning,
47:24
I was like, I don't know how I'm going to continue doing this.
47:27
And he said, you know, in my experience with these kind of cases,
47:30
once you're on the other side, things will start looking a little bit different.
47:34
So don't shut it down immediately. And so that was, you know,
47:39
his advice and support of my family, my wife.
47:43
You know, I think the biggest defense and helpers I had was from women in my life.
47:51
You know, they, you know, they were the biggest support and helpers.
47:55
You know, they, most of them were like, you know, they can see how wrong it
48:01
was. They could see what was going on.
48:04
Many of them had experienced this. And so, you know, that was one of the things that kept me going.
48:12
And you know once upon a time a long time ago I was having a battle
48:18
at one of the associations or bodies that I was working with and I sort of people
48:23
said why didn't you just quit why do you keep on fighting and I said well,
48:27
I sort of feel like a whack-a-mole you know.
48:31
I'm the mole I just keep people whack me down and I pop up somewhere else you
48:36
know that's sort of I guess my personality and so you know.
48:41
And that's a big part of it. I just love, you know, I love this profession.
48:46
I love what I do. I love the work. I love the education. I love all that stuff.
48:50
And so all of this combined together, you know, the support I had and all of
48:56
this kept me going. And a lot of counseling.
49:01
A lot of counseling. Medication, you know, those things were big, big assistance.
49:10
Yeah so reaching out yeah and it's great i love the the,
49:15
fact there's women around you amazing women around you who are supporting you
49:18
and and giving you the confidence yeah incredible i think um just a couple more
49:23
comments before we close shop it's nine o'clock patrick chris i think this question's maybe been,
49:29
answered but i'll just bring it
49:30
up how can we protect ourselves from doing corporate on-site chair massage,
49:35
i suppose it's kind of similar it's just not not letting the boundaries bend
49:39
just looking out for signals earlier on is anything you want to add to that
49:42
at all in that environment birdie i think it's the same thing um you know,
49:48
no matter what the environment you you work in it's it's the,
49:52
community around you you're you're you're recognizing those wrinkles and and
49:57
wrinkles is the word it's good it's very good,
50:00
lovely leslie campbell says here i'm so sorry you experienced this horrendous
50:04
indeed thank you for sharing in order to help others is it's it's yeah it's just great,
50:10
david clark thank you for that listening david clark pulled us back and he says
50:13
any thoughts of using a chaperone.
50:19
Yeah, definitely thought about it. My wife and I, we talk about,
50:24
how can disaster therapists protect themselves in the clinical space where you're
50:29
behind a locked door one-on-one with a patient that is often half-undressed or not fully undressed.
50:35
And chaperone is definitely something we've talked about and that is something that has happened here,
50:41
with the regulatory body saying that RMTs need to have a chaperone in the room
50:46
because of allegation and that's how they can continue practicing but it's,
50:51
extremely expensive you know you're thinking of looking at you know,
50:56
paying somebody in Canadian dollars somewhere between $20 or $30 to just sit
51:02
there all day with you each hour.
51:05
And so your income becomes that much less.
51:09
So I think that's an unfeasible thing for us to do, unlike medical doctors,
51:15
nurses that can bring other people in the clinic in when they're undergoing invasive procedures.
51:22
We undergo invasive procedure with every single patient.
51:26
And, you know, we're touching someone that can be, you know,
51:31
if you touch someone without their consent, it's an assault.
51:34
You know, if a person is half undressed and you're touching them,
51:38
you're in an environment where, you know, legally, potentially can be considered
51:44
an evasive procedure continuously.
51:47
And so we would have to have somebody in the room all the time.
51:52
So i guess the idea of having the door open again we say no because it's the
51:56
client's intimacy it's for the client they want the door to be open they want
51:59
to relax knowing they're safe inside their nice warm,
52:02
dimly lit lovely music kind of space but again if we think of ourselves maybe
52:08
we should have the door open what do you think about doors open and closed,
52:12
I do do that on occasion. If I'm working with a patient that is fully dressed
52:17
or has exercise wear on, I will leave the drawer open or at a jar.
52:23
Sometimes I'm working doing more exercise or movement intervention with them,
52:28
maybe going back and forth from the room or.
52:32
Come out once or twice. So definitely in that environment, for sure,
52:38
you can keep your door open or jar.
52:41
You know and in the olden days you know there were just sheet and there's curtains
52:45
between you know you would have,
52:48
the first massage therapy clinic i ever went to had six tables lined up and
52:53
there were just curtains between between uh you know maybe,
52:57
but again you know that changes the interaction and changes the environment
53:01
and so you know you can do that with a certain type practice you know maybe
53:05
more active more sports-based more,
53:09
sort of active release type of work would lend itself to that for sure but when
53:15
you're trying to get somebody to to let go relax and calm their nervous system
53:21
down it's a little bit of a more challenging.
53:27
Definitely yeah right let's wrap this up cecily sums it up nicely here by saying
53:33
thank you for answering birdie true friends will always be there and you need them,
53:37
please keep being the mole this is great it's great be the mole hashtag be the
53:44
mole that's lovely says it's really cool and patrick comes back here saying
53:47
i'm glad you got the support david thank you,
53:50
so much i think sir is quite fitting they're not sure whether you meant so david
53:54
but thank you so much i think that's good uh for doing this,
53:59
he comes back with so much fat fingers thanks david,
54:02
Great. Okay. Amazing. Thank you so much, Brodie, for coming in and sharing that.
54:07
It's, I think, just to remind people, your name was only cleared by the college,
54:14
like this line that's supposed to, in theory, sort everything and make you happy again.
54:20
That was only March this year, wasn't it? So it's still very raw for you.
54:24
So I do appreciate you opening up and talking about this and just trying to
54:29
help other people with your story. So thank you very much.
54:32
You're welcome. This is part of my therapy. That's a good way of looking at
54:37
it. It's so true. It's a good way. I'm sure that will go on for a while.
54:42
Yeah, brilliant. Right. Thanks everybody for your wonderful questions.
54:46
Those who joined us in the live lounge.
54:48
Thank you for anybody listening to the podcast. as i said at the beginning if
54:54
we've talked about anything which has triggered some thoughts and you feel that
54:58
you need to reach out or maybe you're in a similar situation,
55:01
and maybe bodhi's story has given you a little bit of kind of power and confidence
55:06
to reach out to somebody then do reach out if you're this is what professional
55:10
associations are supposed to be about this is the importance of networking but
55:13
like bodhi said just make sure you tell somebody talk to somebody,
55:16
and very wisely, Bodhi said, I mean, of the many wise things,
55:20
Bodhi said, yeah, not your spouse or child or something.
55:23
It's got to be somebody who can be recognized if it did have to go to trial
55:27
as not being biased in any way, like a family member. So if you're really affected,
55:31
then obviously you've got things like Samaritans.
55:33
If you're an STA member, then we're obviously here for you. You can email or call Gary Benson.
55:39
I don't think he minds be saying 24 seven unless he's getting married.
55:42
I think that was the one time where he actually turned his phone off.
55:44
And even that was just for the hour ceremony but yeah details on the sta website
55:48
and if you yeah just make sure you talk to somebody that's the most important thing.
55:54
If you found this episode or any of our other 296 episodes useful,
55:58
then do please subscribe to our YouTube channel and leave a rating and a review
56:02
on whatever podcast app you use because it just quite simply means that,
56:06
when people do put in a search on Google, then amazing knowledge and information
56:12
and the experience of Birdie will come up higher in the search results.
56:14
It's as simple as that. It's just to help spread the good word rather than the
56:17
other load of bollocks which appears at the top of Google, unfortunately, because of bots and and,
56:23
and trump and musk and people like that so yeah just without getting too political
56:27
just leave a rating and a review on the good stuff and it will,
56:30
appear higher there we go oh i got quite angry though right if you're free on
56:33
tuesdays join us the live video podcast recording on the sports therapy association
56:37
youtube channel or facebook page we'll be here next week again until then just
56:42
once again thank you so much birdie for giving your time really appreciate it,
56:46
thanks so much and yeah everybody else take care of yourselves and as i say
56:49
at the end of each podcast,
56:51
remember to take care of each other as well. We'll speak to you very soon.