Latest / The STA Clinician Podcast / Ep.298: Modern Sexual Boundary Management for Massage Therapists – with guest Josie DeLorme

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Ep.298: Modern Sexual Boundary Management for Massage Therapists – with guest Josie DeLorme · The STA Clinician Podcast

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You're listening to the STA Clinician Podcast, connecting clinicians across healthcare.
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Hey everybody, how you doing? We're live. Welcome to episode 298 of the STA
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Collision Podcast, formerly known as the Sports Therapy Association Podcast.
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I'm your host with a croaky throat. It's far better than it was two days ago,
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at least I'm a fairly sensible octave.
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But yes, I'm Matt Phillips. And as always, this episode is being recorded live
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on the Sports Therapy Association YouTube channel and Facebook page,
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hopefully, at eight o'clock UK time on a Tuesday.
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In this episode, looking at boundary management for massage therapists,
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I will very shortly be joined by registered massage therapist and educator Josie DeLorme.
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Before that, I must give as always a sincere thank you to my guest from last
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week in episode 297, who was, or the episode was called Protecting Your Massage
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Therapy Career, Lessons from a False Allegation.
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And it was Bodie Haraldson, who I've wanted to talk to for ages,
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months and months and months. And Bodie's a registered massage therapist,
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clinician and education department director of Pain Pro Clinics.
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And he shared his personal and shocking is probably the only word,
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shocking experience of being falsely accused of assaulting clinic by a patient.
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And the episode was, well, it was incredible. It brings tears to the eyes,
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but also just the strength of Bodhi as well.
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And we looked at the trial that ensued. Bodhi was found innocent and acquitted.
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Then he had to go through a further investigation for another two years.
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Yeah, just crazy, to clear his professional record with the College of Complementary
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Health Professionals of British Columbia.
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Well done, you guys. And then gathering strength and determination from this
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awful experience, Bodhi is now dedicating his time to help change the way in
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which training and massage and manual therapy is centered,
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around protecting the rights and emotional state of the patient or the client.
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But failing to consider the importance of protecting the therapist as well,
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which is a really good segue into what we're going to be talking about tonight. Fine.
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Right, people, you've joined us. I've got some comments. As always,
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if you have joined us for the first time, I sometimes forget to mention this.
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We would love you to leave some comments, share some experiences,
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some thoughts or questions for our guest in the comments.
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When you do that, then I can bring them up onto the screen. So watch what you type.
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For example, Gary Benson, founder of the STA, is in the house.
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And Gary Benson says, good evening all. Hope all is well for you.
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Hey, Gary, thanks for joining us.
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Sarah Jones is here as well. I made it after a very long hiatus.
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It has been a while, Sarah, but great. Thanks for joining us.
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And Cecily Hislop as well has come through the door. Good evening, you lovelies.
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And more people. I could go on. Oh, I mentioned Sir Glenn. Sir Glenn.
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How are you, Sir Glenn? That's the caliber here of the STA Clition Podcast. Sir Glenn's here.
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Nice to see you, Glenn. Hi, Gary and all, says Glenn.
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So yeah, thanks for joining is live as always if you listen to the podcast and
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there are questions you want to ask then feel free to go to youtube and maybe
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put them in the comments there and we will get back to you,
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before we before i bring up the guest shock announce not shock announcement
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but last minute announcement.
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Josie delorme is actually going to be here next week as well doing a q a we found that this,
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topic tonight and last week's topic with body is so important so valuable and
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it's so dependent on people having the confidence to come forwards and ask their
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own questions that we're going to going to devote next week's episode into a Q&A.
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And it's entitled Navigating Awkward Client Boundaries in Massage Therapy.
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There's a reason maybe we called it that. Because what can start off as an awkward
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kind of situation in your clinic, if it's not addressed straight away,
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can turn into something far more serious, as was the case for Bodie last week.
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So, but that's it. Navigating Awkward Client Boundaries in Massage Therapy.
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You'll see on the screen and you'll see on the adverts that there's a QR tag
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because we're pre-taking questions, especially if you want to leave them anonymously.
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Questions for Josie which we'll address next week and also we'll address questions
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live as well so if you scan the QR code either on the screen here or in the
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advert which will come out sometime tomorrow the next day,
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then that'll take you to slido and you'll be able to introduce your question
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leave a name if you want if you want to get mentioned or you can put it anonymous
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and then also if you're not into QR tags then there is a tiny earl for you and that is tiny earl.com
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forward slash STA hyphen QA.
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So that's tinyearle.com forward slash STA hyphen QA.
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And that will take you to the same Slido page where you can leave your questions for Josie.
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You may want to listen to tonight's episode and that may well help give you
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some ideas or decide what you want to share or not share.
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Remember, if you want it left anonymous, then just make sure you don't put your name in. Okay.
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I'll be reading off my phone next week. So that's really exciting for next week.
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We'll mention that again at the end of the show, but I just wanted to get that
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out there before we get into tonight's show.
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Right then, talking of which, I've left them downstairs for long enough.
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So let's crack on with the show.
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Modern, I can say it now, I think YouTube has had 30 seconds.
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So modern sexual boundary management, which we'll talk about in a sec,
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modern sexual boundary management from Assage Therapists with my very special guest, Josie DeLong.
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Hey, doing well. How are you? I'm fantastic. You're very infectious and I'm
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in a great mood. Thank you so much for giving us your time.
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Let's start actually by me trying to edit the whole of my intro and avoiding
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the word sex for YouTube. What's that about?
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So the terms of service guidelines on YouTube, if you use certain words within
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the first 30 seconds of a video, it will flag the video potentially and not
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kind of push it out onto like the algorithms.
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Yeah, with my channel, when I,
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used to post videos about sexual boundary management, the amount of times that
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I would get strikes or flags on my account just for having the word sex in the title was,
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so common that I got assigned a like man, like a real person at YouTube that I,
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talked to, to get these like bands and strikes removed on my videos. So that's crazy.
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And without having too much of a segue this is part of the problem isn't it yes oh a hundred percent.
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You know we want to talk about something so serious i mean so many topics with
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the word sex or sexual in them are massively serious but in this case modern
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sexual boundary management
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is something which people need to know about and we need to talk about it and
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get rid of the taboos but no no no no youtube that's naughty that's gonna be
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porn or something let's get rid of that Crazy.
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Hey, we've played the game and I've avoided 30 seconds and now we can just get
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into it and say what the hell we want.
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So for people who, before we get into it, people who are not aware of you and
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the work you've done, I was so happy,
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to see that Bodhi introduced your name to me, but then I realized,
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you know, people like Tristan, you know, Matt Scar's book, you know,
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the wonderful Aunt Maria Maccieri, obviously Jamie and Eric.
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So it's kind of a massive circle of wonderful word being given out there.
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And it's, yeah, I thought it's a shame we haven't crossed paths before,
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but yeah, it's great. But for people who don't know you, could you maybe give
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us a little bit of an insight, particularly in the massage world,
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because a lot of our audience are massage therapists.
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We explained last week how a massage therapist in Canada has got a lot more
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sway in the world if they're registered and does a lot more,
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probably more similar maybe to a physio over here in terms of that.
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But yeah, let me know how you got into it and how it developed into the area
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of sexual boundary management.
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All right. So I've been practicing for 14 years now in beautiful British Columbia, Canada.
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I'm on Vancouver Island in Victoria, so if you're out my way,
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you know, it's a small town, let me know. And I...
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My career has kind of taken some interesting twists and turns.
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So I got into massage by accident.
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I misclicked where to send my transcripts in high school.
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And instead of the University of Waterloo, they went to West Coast College of Massage Therapy.
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And originally, I had wanted to be an avionic engineer.
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And the same day, I found out that the program needed to take another intake
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in two years because it wasn't, it didn't have enough signups.
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I got a letter in the mail from the massage college that, hey,
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like your marks are good. Come check out our program. So I did and ended up
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really falling in love with the profession.
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And yeah, kind of through kind of more, yeah, just really kind of weird, random experiences.
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I kind of ended up in the treatment focus area, pelvic and sexual health management for people.
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A lot of that came from, was driven actually by my experience of being sexually
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assaulted in my practice.
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And I got so curious about the, you know, the, the, the idea,
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like the relationship between sex and the massage therapy profession,
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because a lot of it is kind of nuanced and like.
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It's kind of murky. And so I really got into the weeds of it as kind of part
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of my healing journey and path after going through that experience.
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And that's what led me to give me the confidence to navigate,
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you know, like sexual health in my practice with patients.
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I really started focusing currently in like men's pelvic health management.
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And through that, But I stepped into these roles of educating and realized that
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while I was teaching pelvic health content, so many massage therapists would
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be excited to, you know, integrate the information.
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But this, like, big elephant in the room of, well, like, I don't know what sexual boundaries are.
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Like, there's this big, like, question mark that I don't know how to navigate.
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And there's like traditionalism in the profession that's like conflicting with,
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you know, what you're teaching and how I integrate this.
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And it led me into creating workshops around sexual boundary management and
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like how to have like uncomfortable conversations with patients.
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And then through that, that's what really led into my advocacy about sexual violence.
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We've had a bunch of surveys come out in Canada right now about really alarming
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rates of sexual violence in the practices of massage therapists.
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And so, yeah, currently I'm trying to work with the leadership in the country
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right now to get them to look at the lack of sex education in the program and
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start to standardize it.
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Great work. I saw the petition as she was sharing, and I think that's gained
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a bit of traction as well, so that was good to see as well. Probably not enough,
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but at least you're putting it out there, which is amazing.
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Yes. Thank you for sharing your own experience. It's horrid as well.
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But like talking to Bodhi last week and so many guests, there's so many reasons
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to not like human beings and our species we see everywhere.
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But it always just warms me up when I see that somebody has been through hell and back.
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And then they managed to somehow have this altruistic, it's the only word,
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desire to help other people and help other people avoid what they've been through.
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And that's, you know, it's a sample of yourself, Bodhi and so many people.
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So yeah so again I find myself saying thank you so much for you know for being
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one of those people it's just like giving something back after experiencing that so.
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I was thinking about the title because the title is kind of modern sexual boundary management.
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I was thinking, has there ever been a sexual boundary management?
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You know, it's kind of like maybe think, what's the traditional?
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Because really, I'm in the UK, okay, and I've been through level three,
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four, and five. And I'm not quite sure at any stage. I've taught it and I follow
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syllabi and I've kind of tweaked it myself as you have to.
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But I'm not sure really in any syllabi I've ever seen, any syllabus I've ever
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seen kind of a sexual boundary management section.
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No, it's really taught, like, it's like a subsection of a subsection.
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It's interesting. Like, I remember when I was in school, the only,
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like, sex talk we got was just around physical arousal during massage.
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And then you get the, oh, it's like a normal physiological response to receiving
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massage. And yeah, as long as they're not being inappropriate,
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it's normal. And then that was it.
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That's it. So yeah, there is no, even I was looking through our educational
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documents in Canada and there's no real carved out section for it.
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So it really is what I call a lineage based education where it's up to kind
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of what educator you have, if they're comfortable talking about it or not.
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It's really going to depend on the level of sex education you get or sexual
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boundary education you get.
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I wonder if that again I don't know what it's like in Canada I normally see
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Canada as just this fantastic,
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kind of juxtaposition to that big country next door to you with the orange guy
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leading it and I just kind of worship Canada I think you do so much good and
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there's so much great pain scientists and researchers that come out of Canada
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but I know in England I think we've got,
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this kind of stereotype but maybe it's based on truth that we've got a bit more
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taboo and we don't talk about that and it's all kind of but do you think this
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sort of thing comes out of taboo is like you know, the authorities,
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particularly the patriarchal authorities, just don't talk about stuff like that,
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particularly if you've got female students.
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Oh, I mean, well, you watched the four hour video.
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I dove into the to the origins of the massage therapy profession.
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So they were founded in Britain at a time where like conservatism was really,
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you know, that was kind of the default.
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There was a tie between the religious institutions and the medical institutions.
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And so a lot of the sex education, if we want to even call it that,
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was like, you just don't say anything. You just don't. We just don't talk about
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it. And we still see that baked into the profession today.
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Even, you know, you look at the history of Canada, the massage therapy in Canada and the UK.
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Like, it was that program was, I'm thinking, was brought over here,
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like, through, like, the colonization of Canada because massage was first regulated
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in 1919, I believe, in Ontario.
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So, like, the program made its way, or those beliefs, that education,
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it made its way over to Canada.
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And I think we just haven't really sat down with, you know, the baseline assumptions,
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and presumptions that lead to a lack of, you know, standardization in this area.
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Yeah that's really fascinating so yeah it's part of this whole taboo problem,
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so it's part of you youtube as well it's part of you kind of saying that you
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mustn't do that it's all part of it i remember in the video you mentioned,
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this kind of idea it was kind of a sports court analogy which i thought was
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quite nice maybe you could expand on that because i think that really is a nice
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image absolutely so i like to
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get people to think of their boundaries as kind of like a court of play.
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So boundary management is a very proactive process.
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It starts with like, if we're thinking about like.
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Modern sexual boundary management is, or kind of the way I like to conceptualize
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that, is this proactive process of reflection, self-reflection,
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thinking about how you're going to establish, maintain, and communicate boundaries
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to, you know, your used clients in the UK or in England. I'll say patients.
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But so the way you want to do that is thinking about like a court of play.
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I played a lot of basketball, so that's why I use a basketball court.
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But you're you're in the position of the coach and you need to understand like,
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if people want to come into my court what is going to what about my court is going to,
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make people opt into wanting to play here how am I setting up those lines how
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am I communicating those boundary lines of the court and what they mean and certain
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you know like aspects of you know playing basketball And then once you know, kind of,
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once he's laid that foundation, then when the actual play happens,
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you can kind of be proactive about like, oh, hey, I see you're heading out of
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bounds here. Like, let's redirect that.
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So that's kind of why I like that analogy, because if we look at the surveys
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in Canada, for example, something like 96% of massage therapists,
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they know what to do when the boundary has been encroached upon.
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But where the biggest problem lies is the ambiguity leading up to that boundary
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encroachment. They don't know how to recognize it or they don't know how to capture it.
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And so I really think what's powerful is conceptualizing your boundaries as
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some kind of sports court,
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so that you can, it feels a little bit more empowering for you to say something
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before the boundary gets crossed or the, you know, the whistle blows and the
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foul happens or something.
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That's really cool i mean i think yeah especially for someone who's played sport
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on a court or something that makes so much sense but yeah it's like not waiting until.
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The fouls be made if you like it's noticing when people are moving into different
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zones and you've got to react to it like you would in a game and spotting when
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this is happening and rather than just going crazy and breaking down it's just reacting,
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probably in a more calm collected manner to avoid the foul happening later on
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so that was really cool and there's plenty of that in the video and let's get onto the video because i,
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think you mentioned it was a four-hour video which you know for reasons we were
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going into it wasn't a problem with me it was just like fitting it in and and
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staying awake till about half two in the morning
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but there is i want to kind of let people know that it's not just a four-hour
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video option let's bring a little bit of visuals up here for the people who like the visuals,
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there's a alternative video which i think i don't know whether it was i don't
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know whether you were kind of spitting your dummy out afterwards when you realized
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hour and a half video after the four hour video. I could have done it.
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It was just after, wasn't it? You released the four hours and there was an hour
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and a half you did, which was for the, who is that for the RMTAO, wasn't it?
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Which is a shorter version, which people could watch if they don't like the idea of four hours.
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Is that the options, yeah? Yes. I think we had a question in the chat here.
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Oh, was there? Question in the chat? Yeah. Okay. I'm glad you're watching it.
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Oh, do you want to go for that, Cecily? Yes. Okay, Cecily never fails to let
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us down. Let's go, Cecily.
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Cecily here, Slop. Thank you, Cecily. Says, may I ask if prostitution is legal in Canada?
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I may be wrong in my perception here, but I think that sexual boundaries are
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abused more in countries where it's illegal.
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Oh, this is such a great... Never let us down, do you, Ceci? Oh, great question.
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So, I can't speak for all of Canada, so I'm not quite sure on the legislation,
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but I can speak for where I am locally. So here, sex work is not illegal,
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but advertising for it is.
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And it can't be your primary source of income. So those are,
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yeah, it's kind of interesting.
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But you can get an escort license in my city and run a sex work business here.
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So that has changed. And like what I've noticed anyway is,
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like less being solicited less in your practice because people know kind of
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like where to find it if that's what they're looking for.
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And decriminalizing it actually protects us from people who are like maybe looking
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for that, but they know it's illegal.
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And so they might utilize like pressuring a massage therapist into some kind of sexual service.
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Because that is somehow like less legal to that individual.
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So yeah, I would agree with the take that the sexual boundaries are abused less,
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sorry, abused more in countries where it is illegal, just from the American
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massage therapist that I've talked to over the years.
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I mean, I don't know if this is too much of a tangent now, but tip culture is
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very big in America with massage.
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And, you know, when we were talking, I'm not sure if it's the same over your
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way, but I often talk about how tipping skews the power dynamic in that situation
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in a very potentially dangerous way.
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Especially when you have someone who's always a generous tipper and then they
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build you up to solicit you for something sexual and it makes it even more difficult
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to say no in that circumstance,
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that's so interesting that you said that because i well first of all cecily
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great question thank you for asking that that's such an example of a,
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i mean we want some questions like that for next week as well and some people
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would be thinking i'm not gonna ask that might be a ridiculous question but
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cecily you have no filters to use that's great but yeah great question really
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relevant um it's funny you say about the tipping because i.
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I was in the states for about six months in orange county and that and,
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over there i mean the waitresses i talked to it's all tipping so they want a
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very basic low wage but their wage basically comes from the tipping so they
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are doing everything they can
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to give that extra level of service and a lot of the time i think that's why
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it ends up with things like if you're not working at hooters for example or
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something you're kind of going to be tempted to dress
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in that same kind of way because you know that's where the money is,
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you know and and it was interesting because that tipping culture as opposed to just saying,
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your time is worth this this is what you'll get you haven't got to do anything
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extra which which is really cool and i never thought about that with the effect
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on massage as well that's so interesting great question cecily thank you very much,
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Yeah, brilliant. But I've got to stop thinking about that now,
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Cecily. That was great. Anyway, so for people who are interested in it,
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Bodhi mentioned the four-hour video, which we'll talk about in a sec,
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but there is, I just want to make sure people realize there is an hour and a
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half video, which we will put into the show notes.
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Is there any particular difference between the two? Would you recommend if somebody's
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kind of, do I watch the four-hour, do I watch the hour and a half?
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What would you recommend? recommend if you like history and research the four-hour
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one is like that's that's the one you want to watch if you are more focused
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on just implementing kind of the practicality of a framework,
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this the shorter one is the one to watch and i think the framework introduction
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because i go into some of the history in the beginning of that webinar i think
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it's about 15 or 18 minutes in that I start talking about,
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the frame, like setting up your court and defensive strategies.
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They're a little bit more too long. Didn't want to read all the research version
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of it. So yeah, make your decision. That's really cool. It's great to have those
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two options and people can choose, which is always nice as well.
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So yeah, so we'll make sure the show notes go into there. Basically you just
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go to the website, you scroll down a little bit and then you'll see a link to the video.
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You are best, I've done it myself.
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It's really set up kind of best for desktop if you are on your phone and you
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want to watch on your phone then just right click and do open on vimeo,
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if you've got then then you'll be able to watch it on your mobile it's a little
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bit of a kind of three click thing that is possible but otherwise yeah desktop is is easier.
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If they want to go for the four, I was interested on the four one.
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I want to find out why this is the case and who kind of chose this.
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But it starts off very much with the big black screen.
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This video may be inappropriate for some users.
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Was that YouTube or you or both? Or what was the reason for that?
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Okay, maybe both, but more me. So in having to coordinate with my person at
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YouTube, they said to get around some,
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of the AI slagging or the bot slagging that occurs is to just select having
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the video only available.
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For like 18 and above so if i do that then it kind of helps like disable some
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of the automatic flagging that occurs so that's why this this pause stuff like
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i think it even makes you sign in
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to like show that you're over 18 or 18 and over this content okay.
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Do you think before people see that do you think people need to know the content
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before they watch it or do you think this is just getting around YouTube and
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some of its probably British-inspired,
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kind of boundaries what do you think or is there a bit of a trigger warning potentially,
24:39
yeah there i don't talk too much about the details of my sexual assault in that
24:45
one just because again i get worried about getting flagged and then also like,
24:50
you know i don't know who's watching the video and i don't know how triggering
24:53
that's going to be to someone uh so yeah i tend to leave the dirty details out
24:59
of that but i think this also i kind of like it,
25:02
the dramatic side and And he kind of likes it because it's like,
25:05
ooh, what's inappropriate about this?
25:07
And then when you actually listen to it, you're like, oh, this is nothing is
25:13
really inappropriate about this. It's just having frank discussions about sexual themes.
25:19
Yeah, I think that's the kind of, I keep saying juxtaposition today.
25:24
I'm trying not to, but I can't find a better word. That's kind of like the effect
25:27
it had where you get this and then you watch the video and you're thinking,
25:29
but this is so appropriate. You know, this is so necessary.
25:32
Why would we ever kind of yeah it's that's especially if you work with people
25:36
and you put your hands on people and and,
25:39
i think verdi was talking in canada giving some stats of how many massage therapists
25:43
actually do come across some kind of scenario like this where they're feeling
25:46
unsafe and going through kind of all the negative turmoil i think it was i'll
25:50
comment what he said do you have you got stats on that yeah it's,
25:53
80 i was gonna say 80 yeah yeah which is crazy which is such a problem that's
25:58
consistent across the four surveys that we've had here yeah it's like i think,
26:03
the national one is says 80 and then the three provincial ones that we've had
26:08
they're all in like a 75 percent range it's a very consistent number yeah,
26:15
that's just like we got a problem it's like houston yeah that's like you couldn't
26:19
get clear on that could you,
26:20
all right anyway but then we get into the video an amazing four hours it is
26:23
just dried it up little chunks people you can do it um it's worth it it's it's
26:28
a such an informative journey everything seems to be necessary in there for me anyway.
26:31
But I want to pick on some questions, not just about the video,
26:35
but also about, you know, the topic tonight, if I may.
26:39
I was interested, I think we kind of covered this, but why do you think so many
26:44
therapists feel unprepared when sexual themes arise?
26:49
Okay, this is a multifaceted question, so I'm going to try to answer it in like chunks.
26:55
I think the first and foremost is just the lack of education,
26:59
coupled with the shock value of experiencing someone being inappropriate live.
27:06
When you don't have like a clear protocol to follow coupled with
27:11
you're experiencing a form of dysregulation whether that's like a freeze a fawn
27:16
i know bodhi talked about that on the last week's episode a flight even fight
27:21
or you can experience what's called a flood,
27:24
which was we talked about on the episode last week but that's when you experience a huge rush of.
27:31
Emotions that almost seem disproportionate to what's happening and that can
27:36
cause like just cognitive like freezing like you just don't know how to respond in those moments,
27:43
so when we don't have standardized education there's no protocol it's just kind
27:48
of like oh like end the treatment,
27:51
and you're not clear you're not clear on what to do,
27:55
you tend to just revert back to what you've known in those in those cases and
28:00
for a lot of people what they know is,
28:03
the pull on previous experiences that they've had which may like emphasize more
28:09
of this fawning or freezing response or even a flood response,
28:14
and it can be even more difficult to even physically get out of that situation
28:20
i mean we hear boney's story last week and how it,
28:25
it happened and he still continued to treat until he got down to his patient's
28:30
feet and then left the room because
28:32
he was just like so shocked that this happened and experienced I think he's
28:36
had some fawning because you know this was like he was just trying to.
28:42
You know, diminish what happens to try to buy some time to figure out like how
28:46
to get out of the situation.
28:48
So yeah, when we don't have education and then you couple that with the shock
28:52
value of someone acting inappropriately in your practice, that is going to make
28:59
people feel very unprepared in those situations.
29:03
Yeah. It's shocking. There's so many things, isn't it?
29:06
When we think it through and go, why the hell is this not being taught?
29:09
Why are we not adjusting this and it's like amazing that it's not but it's not
29:13
and people like your good self and Bodhi are doing something about it I'm hoping
29:17
someone in the UK jumps in as well but.
29:21
So let's look at early warning factors then, because that's very much what your
29:24
message and your advocacy is all about, is don't wait until it happens,
29:27
don't wait until they're fouled, look at the zones and stuff.
29:30
But what are some early warning signs you think therapists should be paying
29:33
attention to that maybe they don't, and that's what causes some of the problems?
29:38
Okay, so to explain this, I'm going to use a little bit of like an analogy here.
29:43
So when you use like a like a pyramid of light and you shine a white light through
29:48
it and then you have all the rainbow of colors comes out the other side of it.
29:52
So the rainbow of colors are all our different boundaries. So your physical,
29:57
emotional, sexual, financial, administrative, intellectual, spiritual,
30:03
whatever other boundaries you have makes up the rainbow.
30:06
You shine that back into the pyramid and then it comes out as like a flat white light.
30:11
So when you think of your boundaries, you kind of have to think of them together
30:17
as one concept instead of like, oh, I'm just looking for the sexual ones.
30:22
I'm just looking for the emotional ones. Because oftentimes,
30:26
sexual encroachments are bigger boundary encroachments, right?
30:30
So what people are potentially going to do is they're going to test the kind
30:36
of smaller ones, the emotional ones. They're like, I'm going to show up late
30:40
and see if you go over time to accommodate me.
30:43
I want to see like they're trying to see if you they might have this story about
30:48
the therapist thinking that they're like a special patient or a favorite person.
30:53
And so this is why it's so important for us to be like consistent in all of
30:57
our boundaries, not just the big ones.
31:00
My partner has this term that I really liked and they call it boundary calisthenics.
31:10
So even on the small boundary encroachments you experience, like,
31:14
you know, someone no-shows and you're having a difficulty like charging them
31:19
a no-show fee or a late fee.
31:21
Or they show up late to their appointment and you're having a hard time only
31:25
treating like the 45 minutes left of their hour long appointment or something.
31:30
Those are all opportunities for you to practice your boundary management.
31:35
And when we absorb those moments because we're worried about,
31:39
you know, how if we go in and reestablish a boundary, how that's going to impact
31:45
the therapeutic alliance with your client or your patient.
31:49
When we absorb those little ones it makes it more difficult to uphold the bigger
31:53
ones when they if they happen in your practice keep going,
32:00
i realized that i made a noise there i was just agreeing i might have taken
32:03
your flow out but i mean yeah no that was that was a good moment.
32:10
Do you think that's so good like practice on the small ones and then they'll
32:14
prepare you for the larger ones do you,
32:17
is it kind of naive to think that we have if we if we listen to the little voice
32:23
inside of us that we are pretty cool in protecting ourselves
32:26
like there will be kind of i think what you refer to the ick factor and is it
32:31
a case that there is little voices inside and we kind of don't listen to them
32:34
and eclipse them we've got quite good intuition haven't we most of us especially
32:37
when we get to like 20 plus.
32:41
Yeah, sorry, it cut out there. Oh, did it? I'm just like, is there something
32:46
we can do, or is it just a case of listening to those little voices inside of us?
32:49
Because I like to think that we have got quite a good kind of nervous system,
32:54
which spots things, and we've got quite a clever brain. It's a brain,
32:57
it's pretty clever. So is it a case of just listening to, I think what you referred
33:00
to as the ick factor, and listening to it and not ignoring it?
33:04
A hundred percent, and those come up for many different reasons.
33:09
So you have, I like to talk about two concepts when we talk about that it factor.
33:13
So for those of you that just need a little bit of definition there,
33:16
it's just when someone does something and you kind of go like,
33:19
and then you have the tendency to want to move on.
33:22
Or maybe someone says something a little bit uncomfortable and you kind of laugh and then move on.
33:28
So these moments are important to kind of listen to. And you don't have to deal
33:33
with them right away because I know for a lot of therapists,
33:37
just like improvising what to say in the moment is hard.
33:40
So as long as you don't feel like your safety is being threatened right now,
33:46
you can kind of, I say like shelve it and then look at it, reflect on it later.
33:50
Like, why did that happen for you?
33:52
Was it a form of counter-transference, right? Did this remind you of something,
33:56
you know, maybe other clients that you've had that have said that and you're
34:01
like, yeah, this is, it's gross. It's icky. It's inappropriate.
34:05
Or did it remind you of like maybe an experience you had in your life outside
34:10
of the professional setting that is like showing is making you have that reaction?
34:16
And so those are important, important little, like, you know,
34:20
moments to reflect on because that's going to help you hone in on your countertransference,
34:26
and let that tell you or inform you about what is happening live in front of
34:32
you and to make decisions about how we move forward.
34:36
Yeah, definitely.
34:39
I think in the UK, Ick is a wonderful word. Everybody gets that who's listening
34:42
here, hopefully. It's just such a great word and everyone can. Yeah, it's wonderful.
34:46
So it's kind of it's interesting as well because a lot on the show we often
34:48
talk about one of the the the problems with our profession,
34:53
and healthcare in general often is we're kind of trained and see ourselves as
34:57
operators fixing people and we're doing things and we're assessing people and,
35:01
we just don't internally reflect and it's kind of i'm thinking that is what
35:05
the problem is now we're so busy assessing other people that we really lose
35:08
those skills to to assess ourselves and our own reactions and that kind of ick
35:13
feeling and knowing what to do with it would you say that's it,
35:16
Oh, wow, that is so baked into healthcare professions.
35:20
I mean, it's like, it's the fact that we have to, we almost remove ourselves
35:26
from the therapeutic equation.
35:28
And that removal makes it difficult to uphold, can make it difficult to uphold boundaries.
35:35
It also makes it difficult to observe the emotional anchor in the therapeutic
35:40
alliance with that person.
35:42
So if your concept of what we call here clinical neutrality,
35:47
which is like, oh, I'm just this objective operator who's going in and.
35:54
I'm doing this thing to this person and you're not weighing or considering you
35:59
as a person showing up in this space.
36:01
It makes it harder to observe, you know, the emotional investment in a therapeutic alliance.
36:07
It makes it difficult to observe, like, your feelings or even consider them
36:11
into, like, the therapeutic dyad that you're creating with this person when
36:17
you have, when there's a severance of, a complete severance of, like,
36:22
your own sense of self in the therapeutic space with that individual.
36:26
Well definitely yeah it's been such a constant theme that's come up time and
36:31
time again when we look at reasons for burnout of taking all the responsibility
36:36
ourselves not caring for ourselves we wonder why,
36:39
we're not making much money because we're having days off and we're getting
36:42
ill and systemically we're suffering and it's all about that operator diane
36:46
jacob's i suppose you get mentioned as well another canadian definitely see
36:50
just full of them they are full of them.
36:53
Yeah. So yeah, she was obviously her paper with Jason Silverman with the facility
36:57
operator paper was, yeah, the first thing I saw, which made me think it's so
37:01
true. We're just all fixers.
37:02
And we're trained to be that way still. If we don't wear a white coat,
37:05
we imagine we put one on, it's our cape. And that stops us from thinking about ourselves.
37:09
And it doesn't help the patient because it's so ironic when you look at it.
37:13
I shouldn't laugh because I'm not mocking people who haven't looked at it that
37:17
way. But when you do get past the way you've been brought up and taught as an
37:21
identity in healthcare, it just makes your life so much easier.
37:24
You get so many monkeys off your shoulders when you realize that it's not all
37:28
about them, which is kind of what Birdie was all about last week,
37:31
isn't it? So look at this. I need to have an 844.
37:35
Let's scroll down a little bit.
37:38
That's okay. I in your video you mentioned kind of understanding your own sexual
37:45
lens yes I'd like you to expand on that if you would,
37:49
so this is how you can discriminate between like counter-transference that shows
37:55
up for you that might potentially show up for you in those instances or an implicit
38:00
bias showing up so this is how when we make decision-making models about
38:04
you know feelings that or emotions
38:06
or like, you know, the X factor that we experience during appointments,
38:11
or sessions with patients, this is how we determine like,
38:14
if this is rooted in counter-transparency or implicit bias and how to move forward
38:19
with that. Because ultimately.
38:23
You may not experience harm from implicit bias, but your client or your patient might.
38:28
So it's really important that with your sexual lens, that you look at like how
38:34
you were socialized, your childhood, your experiences, whether positive or adverse,
38:40
you know, who your sexual partners were,
38:43
what your preferences are, your orientation, everything a part of your sexual lens.
38:47
And I know that's such like a it's an uncomfortable thing for a lot of people
38:51
to do but when the more data you have,
38:54
from that lens the more you'll understand where things might start to go off
39:00
in the therapeutic relationship with or the therapeutic alliance with someone
39:04
you know if you had like for example me experiencing the sexual assault in the in my practice
39:11
there's certain patients who if they come in resembling my attacker it's very
39:15
hard for me to stay objected in those circumstances And those are individuals that,
39:20
I'll terminate the therapeutic alliance with because it's just, I can't stay objective.
39:24
In the same way that, you know, knowing when, you know, the potential slippage
39:30
in the boundaries might happen, if you have someone who, say, reminds you of like,
39:35
your partner, you know, you might find yourself engaging in more types of like
39:39
platonic conversations with this person.
39:42
Or if they show up late, you might go over for that person because they remind
39:47
you of someone you care about.
39:48
So this is why it's so important that we unpack that sexual lens.
39:52
The more data we have about our sexuality, the more we are aware of how that
39:56
might show up in the therapeutic space and can be proactive about,
40:01
you know, putting boundaries in place so that, again, we're supporting ourselves
40:05
and our therapeutic boundaries.
40:07
But most importantly, we're supporting the person under our care,
40:10
especially in that circumstance when therapeutic relationships are one way,
40:14
when we are the ones controlling, establishing, maintaining the boundaries of the therapeutic space.
40:21
That's great. I mean, again, it encapsulates one of the biggest messages I got from the video, which.
40:27
And I'm hoping listeners pick up from it as well. I mean, it really will take
40:30
something different from it, like you say, because of their experiences and
40:32
context and everything. But for me, it was just this whole idea of to become
40:36
a better boundary manager.
40:38
It's about understanding yourself better, not about understanding your colleague
40:43
and how you set things up. And if they do this and if they do this,
40:45
it's just delving into yourself, which is something by no coincidence we don't like doing.
40:50
And I think in healthcare, you probably like doing it less and less and less and less.
40:54
It is tricky, but who said life was going to be easy? If you want to change
40:58
something, it's never that easy.
41:00
Cecily, another guaranteed great question. I'm not even going to read it first, straight off the bat.
41:04
Sorry, another question. Don't apologize, Cecily. Are some educators too scared
41:08
or perhaps even told not to educate new therapists about sexual abuse for risk
41:12
of putting people off their training?
41:15
Yeah. So in the in the surveys that have come out, the so the one survey that
41:21
actually prompted all the Canadian surveys came out of the United States.
41:25
It's a 2016 it's by Healy and Zamboni.
41:29
And they look at the sexual education and massage therapy programs across the United States.
41:35
And what they found was that the educators don't want to put in,
41:42
like, standardization forms of this education because they're worried that it's
41:46
going to turn people off the profession.
41:48
So they're kind of, like, in this survey, they quote some of the program overseers
41:56
and they say, like, yes, like, we don't have anything structured,
41:59
but the educators, like, is interwoven throughout the program.
42:03
So yes, they are potentially worried that if they talk about this thing,
42:07
it's going to make people leave their programs or not want to be in the profession.
42:12
The other element of this is the age of the people.
42:16
Entering into these programs they're all younger they're worried that if they,
42:22
if the educators are talking about having sex education and talking about sexual
42:26
boundaries that it might not be taken seriously or it might,
42:31
give the perception that it's okay to sexualize your your patients or your clients
42:35
and so they just opt not to talk about it.
42:38
And when we haven't talked about it, we now run into this problem where it's
42:43
manifested to the point where 80% of us experience sexual violence in our practices
42:49
and just don't know how to manage it.
42:53
Yeah, such a shame. It does seem to be a classic case, just putting the blinkers
42:57
on and just full head forwards, don't rock the boat sort of thing,
43:00
and then be surprised when nothing changes.
43:02
Another great question, Cecily. Yeah, really cool.
43:07
In the time we've got left, I'm interested then,
43:10
When boundaries do need to be reinforced, and obviously it's not going to be
43:14
like a one-trick pony of this is what you need to do and it will be sorted,
43:17
but what sort of language do you recommend that therapists practice and how
43:21
should they practice to use?
43:24
Well, like I said, so this idea of boundary calisthenics. So it's important
43:28
you practice this in the little wrinkles because it helps you develop the wording.
43:36
Wrinkles. It helps you develop the wording for when it happens live and it gets
43:42
more confident in dealing with it live.
43:44
So I like to use I statements because when I was used to teach students in the
43:50
school like years and years ago,
43:53
what I would find is when I'd go in and pretend to be a creepy patient,
43:57
oftentimes they would say, oh, my college, like my regulator says,
44:01
I'm not allowed to do that thing.
44:03
And so then I would go like, but I like you.
44:06
I'm not going to report you to the college. And then what do you say?
44:10
Right. So this is why I statements are so important, because you have to place
44:16
your you have to this is how you advocate for your boundaries, essentially.
44:19
And when you make it about yourself, if they're being disrespectful towards
44:23
you, it's really easy just to end things and then just discharge out of your practice.
44:27
So the language, But the formula I like to give people is it's I plus your feeling
44:34
plus like a need or an observation.
44:37
So I'll give you some examples like I am unsure of what you are implying with
44:42
that comment. Can you clarify that?
44:45
I'm uncomfortable with that comment or joke. It's not appropriate for this setting.
44:51
I'm uncomfortable with you moving the drape to expose more of this area and I need you to stop.
44:57
And then finally, I am ending the therapeutic treatment today because the therapeutic
45:02
intention has been compromised.
45:05
I'm going to leave the room. You're going to get dressed and leave.
45:09
So cool because you're saying these and you're intimidating me it's it makes
45:12
such a difference it happens though doesn't it because we're not used to
45:15
communicating like that with i it just gets rid of any form of ambiguity like
45:20
oh like you said it was perfect example my boss says you know and it's like
45:23
but when you say i'm not happy with what's happening or i'm not
45:27
and it's just like straight away it's childhood and like okay right,
45:31
you know it's so it's so powerful and there's plenty again people in the videos
45:35
there's frameworks and things you can do that's a really nice example of of
45:40
changes which you probably hadn't thought of,
45:43
And it will take practice because they do sound quite violent.
45:49
It's assertive. But I always tell people, in psychology, there's what's called
45:55
the wheel of emotions. You can just type it into Google and a picture will pop
45:59
up with a bunch of emotions over it.
46:01
Familiarize yourself with that wheel of emotions because that actually is what
46:05
helps articulate that ambiguity so much easier when you know what emotions are
46:10
bubbling up for you and what they mean.
46:13
So if you're experiencing anxiety and you notice that you're being very hypervigilant
46:19
during the treatment, like you're always looking at the clock and you're counting
46:22
down the minutes to when your treatment's over with this person,
46:25
what does that emotion tell you?
46:26
Well, it tells you that there's something unclear happening.
46:31
In the space right now and you need some clarity to help, you know,
46:36
navigate like bring you back into therapeutic waters of things,
46:41
so yes familiarize yourself with that meal of emotions because it's really really
46:45
helpful in those situations goes in the notes as well that's really cool and
46:48
i think yeah you correcting me from violent to assertive is the mind shift you need to go through,
46:55
and realize it's not violent you're not being violent you're standing up yourself and being assertive,
46:59
and i think it'll affect people differently like i'm for many reasons not assertive
47:03
enough and always criticized and I apologize a bit like Cecily always start
47:07
from the apology and stuff and that's not assertive
47:09
you're leading that person I'm always being told by various mentors and that
47:13
as soon as you apologize and the person's not going to
47:15
listen so much to the point you're making because they already think you're
47:18
going to say something which deserves starts with an apology so it's something
47:21
I have to work on so I'm sorry about that but it's
47:24
yeah being assertive is so important as a Canadian.
47:28
Don't for saying sorry uh this is the case you don't want to because yeah that's
47:32
so true when you apologize,
47:35
it leaves it might leave the impression that there's room for negotiation on
47:40
something where you really don't want to be negotiating.
47:44
Yeah, that's a really good point. Such a good point. Watch these videos,
47:47
people. Four hours or an hour and a half. What a great menu for you.
47:51
Oh, I've got talking menus. I'm going to have a little choice now to make.
47:55
Actually, this is an important one. Yeah, how should therapists respond when
47:59
physical arousal does occur?
48:02
Okay, so... In four minutes. I had a lot to worry about that one. That's a good question.
48:09
Okay. I'm sorry to squeeze it into this now, but yeah.
48:13
That's fine. I just want to get my notes because, you know, I'm going to go on a tangent.
48:16
So the first thing you want to do is ask yourself if it's disruptive.
48:21
So first of all, you know, you're going to observe what's happening and you're
48:24
going to go, okay, is this disruptive to my, to my client?
48:27
Or is their breathing kind of erratic? Are they shifting a lot on the table?
48:32
And when we're talking about physical arousal, I'm just not talking about like,
48:36
you know, erections. This also can be, like, if you notice, like,
48:40
there are erect nipples, too, like, on, you know, a non—on, like, on a female—.
48:47
Like you, and that's kind of starting to make you uncomfortable because I know
48:51
a lot of men therapists kind of talk about how like, oh, like when I treat women,
48:55
like their nipples might be hard, but I don't necessarily know if that's them
49:00
being physically aroused or not.
49:01
So if you, so when I talk about these steps, it's for everything, not just the erections.
49:06
So you're going to ask yourself if it's disruptive and then you're going to see, look at your,
49:12
client and go, okay are they breathing kind of erratically or has their breathing
49:16
changed are they shifting a lot on the table are they like moving draping around,
49:22
that's a good time to kind of check in with them so to do the check-in with,
49:28
in that case I just say things like.
49:31
I've known I'm noticing your breathing is changing or you're shifting a lot
49:34
on the table I'm going to step out and just give you a few minutes to kind of
49:38
settle and get comfortable again and then actually leave the space because,
49:43
again, like the removal of you,
49:46
leaving, like one, if this is an individual who has a penis and is experiencing
49:52
an erection, it might just give them a moment to adjust it because it's not comfortable.
49:56
Or two, it also gives them the moment to go like, oh, they noticed and they're leaving.
50:02
And that's a really good cue for them to like, oh, I got to smarten up here.
50:06
Like that's not welcome.
50:08
They've noticed. So that's a really strong cue to that person.
50:11
And again, I'm going to highlight here how I didn't ask them if they would want
50:16
me to leave. I did leave. I am going to leave.
50:20
The second part of this equation is.
50:22
Are you disrupted by it? Now, I really want to, like, honor our feelings in
50:26
the space because, again, we talked about those baked-in biases in healthcare
50:30
where, like, we completely remove ourselves, especially our sexualities,
50:35
from the treatment space.
50:36
And for you, like, the presence of physical arousal might be something that
50:42
is disruptive to your ability to treat.
50:44
And I'm not saying that you're sexualizing the treatment environment,
50:48
but if you're someone who's experienced trauma in the workplace,
50:53
and that trauma was driven by a physical arousal of someone,
50:57
that might mean something threatening to you.
50:59
And so if you find that it's difficult to work objectively with this person
51:05
because you're activated from the appearance of some physical arousal occurring,
51:11
things you can say in that moment are,
51:14
I'm experiencing a strong emotional reaction and I need to end the treatment
51:19
here. I'm going to step that out. Let me get change.
51:22
I'm going to follow up with you in an email. So those are kind of things you
51:24
might want to say to someone. So again, first assessing who is this disruptive
51:28
to, and then, you know, making a decision about how you want to move forward.
51:34
Very great. So again, that ties in with the I and being assertive and not kind of, yeah, so cool.
51:40
And I think again, on the video, you kind of mentioned as well.
51:44
You're leaving the room because you mentioned that it's easy to assume that
51:49
the arousal kind of automatically equals some kind of misconduct.
51:53
And it might be something they need you to actually leave them be for about
51:56
90 seconds or something just to get out of that state. It could be something
51:59
that crossed their mind or something. So there's so many points in there.
52:02
And I'm really, I love the way that you turn the lens or the camera back to you.
52:08
Because if it's something that affects you for whatever reason,
52:11
that is as valid as whatever is going on with the client. It might be the client
52:17
doesn't mean any harm at all.
52:18
I wanted to just, it stayed in my mind where you said there was a client,
52:21
if there's a client, I don't know whether you said it happened to you,
52:24
but if there's a client who reminds you of somebody who attacked you or abusive
52:29
relationship, whatever it is,
52:31
then you can discharge that client without feeling any guilt,
52:35
and just look after yourself and that's part of the business yeah,
52:39
yeah sometimes the best thing you can do for your clients is remove yourself
52:43
from the therapeutic equation especially when you notice that it's hard it's
52:48
difficult to treat them objectively they deserve the care of someone who is able to,
52:54
you know be able to be objective and if you're finding that you know that you're
53:01
having difficulty with that it's totally fine to remove yourself from.
53:06
Do you would you give the client a reason,
53:10
to protect your reputation of some form and explain it or would that open up,
53:14
a communication which could be undesirable as well how do you do it,
53:18
so when this has happened to me and in my practice it's i i know from the get-go
53:23
and it it's often is physical appearances so when it happens i have like kind
53:29
of a a decision-making model if you will,
53:31
and this actually happened recently in my practice.
53:34
So someone came in and they resembled like someone who I was sexually assaulted by.
53:41
And I found during like the, well, the interview process,
53:46
I could not focus on what they were saying because I was trying so hard to just
53:51
like push down the, you know, the flood of emotions I was experiencing in that moment.
53:58
And I'm like, it's so hard to pay attention to you because like I'm holding
54:02
a ping pong ball underwater right now.
54:05
And so I just kind of stopped and I'm like, I understand you're here to receive
54:09
care and to no fault of your own, I'm experiencing countertranspirants.
54:13
So I'm going to end the treatment here. I didn't bill them for the appointment
54:17
because that's not their fault.
54:18
And I'm going to refer you on to someone who is just going to be able to treat you more objectively.
54:25
Sometimes people ask like what it is and I'll just tell them that,
54:29
you know, I had a poor experience and there's just elements to our therapeutic
54:34
relationship that resemble that, which is making it difficult for me to engage
54:38
in a therapeutic relationship.
54:40
And then I just send the mantra to someone else. So you don't have to divulge
54:44
into like the dirty details of the experience, because, again,
54:48
like we have to be professional in our communications with with someone.
54:54
But as long as you explain that this is cancer transference they've reminded
54:58
you of an a bad experience that you had that's no fault of their own and you're
55:02
going to refer them on so that they can get you know the best care,
55:06
that's never ended poorly in my practice,
55:11
right great advice.
55:14
Well look people would i don't want to keep josie for longer than necessary
55:18
there's so much more we could have talked about and maybe well hopefully you
55:21
know people ask it next week but,
55:24
other things that might stimulate you guys into questions if you are going to
55:27
join us next week and if you listen to the podcast i'm going to do everything
55:29
i can to get this out to so to your ears so that
55:33
it gives you time to make some preparation to actually come along live next
55:35
week i know we don't do live anymore for tv or anything in relationships or
55:40
parenting it's not live anymore is it
55:42
but make an effort for the sta clinician podcast make an effort for sexual boundary management modern,
55:48
see if you can join us for an hour make a cup of tea put an hour in somewhere and,
55:52
and you know what it might be quite therapeutically pleasing for you just to focus on one thing.
55:58
Think about the role that clinics should play. I'm sorry, Josie,
56:01
this is going to get your brain going, oh yes, we need to talk about that.
56:03
But yeah, what role if you're, I mean, a lot of our listeners work in clinics
56:07
where there's maybe a few of your staff.
56:09
So that's interesting. What role should the clinics play? Obviously when you're
56:12
a therapist by yourself, which I talked to Bodie a little bit about,
56:15
then that's going to take maybe in some way different precautions,
56:18
but maybe not. Maybe it's exactly the same thing if you're just looking after yourself.
56:22
So i'm going to fast forward to what's the one message that you want every therapist
56:30
to remember okay i restructured this closing question a.
56:37
Little bit so i restructured it to if you need to have a conversation with like
56:42
someone in your practice after this podcast listening to this podcast,
56:47
what what should you do because i get this a lot when i teach this in person
56:51
they're like okay, I've noticed there's some boundary slipping. What do I do?
56:55
So make sure you have a go in with a plan and make sure you have a blueprint
57:00
of what the expectations you want to see from your clients that will help reestablish
57:06
the therapeutic alliance.
57:07
So you know what you're going to say, you have a plan, you're going to formulate
57:10
your I statements, kind of talk about the, you know, aspects of the therapeutic
57:14
relationship that maybe kind of slipped out of bounds with it.
57:18
If they experience, like, understanding and, like, a genuine,
57:22
remorseful response or apology, and then they offer to change their behavior,
57:29
then that might satisfy that therapeutic boundary.
57:32
But if they insist on being committed to not understanding you or diminishing
57:38
your experience with them, then maybe reconsider,
57:43
your relationship, your therapeutic relationship with this person and potentially
57:47
ending things with them.
57:50
Very cool. It's all about communication, isn't it? We talked last week about,
57:55
you know, talking to other people, not holding it on your head.
57:58
If I remember rightly, you said that you do role play with students where you're
58:01
the kind of like icky client coming in and saying things.
58:04
I think that could be really cool, especially when there was somebody who knows
58:07
the sort of different zones on the court, you can step in and stuff.
58:11
So I think that's something which may be.
58:14
A therapist particularly if you work by yourselves just give someone a ring
58:18
do some role play kind of like meet up and just have a go it's put rather than
58:22
just practicing it straight away with somebody try a little role play in it,
58:26
i could be curious it might be so difficult i know for me it'd be difficult
58:29
with the i am not happy with this that was something you might have to practice
58:32
quite a few times before it comes out yeah without freezing you know without flooding or falling.
58:39
And that's hard we're not used to that so that's why practice it helps you know
58:45
it helps in those situations so cool,
58:49
right look uh people we got a four-hour video with josie delorme which will
58:54
be in the show notes we've got an hour and a half video if you prefer that version,
58:59
what else we've got we've got people can contact you and follow you on social
59:04
media best place to go would be the facebook page,
59:08
uh yeah best place to go you can dm me there i know sometimes people have like,
59:14
specific cases that they want to talk about so like i'm always open to,
59:20
like helping you out with those i regularly set up zoom calls with therapists and,
59:26
so that we can really you know give it the time and attention that we need sometimes
59:30
those are a little bit difficult to unpack in like a short time frames so,
59:35
like like i said if you have a pressing issue and you just feel really like
59:40
things are out of control and you don't know what direction to move in please
59:45
please reach out you're not alone so cool,
59:49
so we'll put a link to that the facebook page is the rmt registered massage
59:53
therapist for uk people who are confused by rmt sexual support society,
59:58
on instagram is where you're active and you can find that as Jocelyn Delorme
1:00:03
RMT that's all one word make sure that goes into the notes as well.
1:00:08
And then lest we forget you've been gracious enough to join us again for an hour next week.
1:00:17
It's being up on the page for the visual people in an hour special.
1:00:22
If, well, people, it's up to you. If you come along, you've got no questions,
1:00:24
we'll have 10 minutes of chat between ourselves and go for a cup of tea.
1:00:27
Totally up to you people. But if you have got the questions and bring them on,
1:00:29
you can either come in person and fire some questions there.
1:00:33
Obviously, that takes out the anonymous angle from it, unless you sign in with
1:00:36
an anonymous Facebook account, which I think you can kind of do if that's,
1:00:40
if you want to join live and be anonymous, then there are ways of doing that.
1:00:43
It's not that I'm condoning making a false Facebook account,
1:00:46
because that'd be terrible.
1:00:48
Or you can even join us live and then send an anonymous question in using the
1:00:53
slider, which means you can see your question being asked and answered,
1:00:57
but no one will know it's you.
1:00:58
Using the anonymous angle here, because I understand and appreciate that for
1:01:01
a lot of people, this is a topic that is, of course, is fear.
1:01:06
And you don't want to maybe take ownership of it and let people know.
1:01:10
That's something which will change, but it'll take some time.
1:01:12
So if you want to be anonymous, this is why we set it up.
1:01:14
You can scan the code, which is on the YouTube video at the moment.
1:01:17
It'll be on the adverts, which we'll put out there.
1:01:20
Or you can simply go to tinyurl, which is tinyurl.com forward slash sta hyphen
1:01:27
qa. So that's tinyurl.com forward slash sta.qa.
1:01:31
If you have any problems finding the Slido page to leave questions,
1:01:35
then you can email me, matt, at the sta.co.uk or find me on social media as
1:01:40
mattphillips.edu. anywhere.
1:01:43
Gary had something that I wanted to mention here, which is really important
1:01:45
as well. If you've been affected by anything in this episode or last week's
1:01:49
episode, or you find yourself something happening next week,
1:01:53
which you're affected by, then make sure you do reach out to somebody.
1:01:57
Okay, Josie has been gracious enough to say that she is there and we're all
1:02:01
there as well. If you're an SDA member, then we've got things set up for you
1:02:04
on purpose. You can find contact details on the website where you can have a
1:02:09
phone call with Gary or you can email him.
1:02:12
In theory, your professional association should be providing something like
1:02:15
this. It's one of the most important
1:02:16
things, safeguarding, and that's the reason why you pay any money.
1:02:20
It's to have someone there to listen to you when you go through this.
1:02:23
So check out your professional association. If you're not with a professional
1:02:26
association, then sta.co.uk.
1:02:29
Obviously, I'm biased, but that would be there'll be details there of how to
1:02:32
join up. And before you know it, you could be part of our wonderful community.
1:02:35
Gary has also mentioned here a couple of things.
1:02:39
Here we go. Just read this out. A reminder that SDM members have access to some
1:02:43
vulnerability resources in the members area of the website.
1:02:46
We have covered this in the WISP podcast series.
1:02:49
I remember that episode. I think actually I've cried in a few episodes,
1:02:53
but we had one with eight so brave therapists who came forward and started sharing their experiences.
1:02:58
They were all female on this episode, but it was just, I think as a guy,
1:03:03
it just felt so shamed and sick.
1:03:05
It was horrible, but it was such a good episode. I can't remember what the number
1:03:07
is now, but yeah, there's some amazing episodes showing strength and resilience
1:03:11
and talking through things on the STA Christian podcast.
1:03:14
It's somewhere between one and 290. There you go. Gary's also said,
1:03:19
we have also a safeguarding rep and a coffee evening chats or one-to-one support
1:03:24
calls until 9pm weeknights and other times by appointment.
1:03:28
Thanks for reminding me of that, Gary. Right, I must let Josie enjoy afternoon
1:03:34
for you. What time is it where you are? It's just after one o'clock.
1:03:38
Yeah, I'm like 9-11 here, so it's nearly my bit of time. Thank you so much for
1:03:42
giving it all the time. I so appreciate it, Josie. It's fantastic.
1:03:45
You're doing some amazing work.
1:03:46
You and Bodie, and I'm really grateful that you're going to give us another
1:03:50
hour of your time next week. So thank you so much for that.
1:03:52
People listening, thank you so much. people who joined us live if you do want
1:03:57
to join us next week for the q a then tuesday as always tuesday eight o'clock
1:04:02
on either the sports therapy association youtube channel or the facebook page,
1:04:07
have i forgot anything josie anything else you want to say no that's it just
1:04:10
thank you for for hosting this
1:04:12
is awesome absolute absolute pleasure it makes i love it i love what i do,
1:04:16
so until that people as always always say it take care of yourselves and take
1:04:21
care of each other we will see you very soon. Bye-bye.