Stupid disclaimer

[LittleJem]

So I went for a Rolfing session today as years ago I had felt a bit better after some Rolfing - laughed a bit more. Anyway, he was perfectly nice, though after the session I got wine and drank it on the street, so impact-wise nada.

but his disclaimer form - you had to sign to say you are not under psychiatric treatment. Isaid I had told him on the phone I had chronic depression and he had not mentioned this, and also I had never seen such an odd contraindication for bodywork. The rest of it was frankly offensive. It said something like It am not going to hurt anyone, have no addictions and am not undergoing psychiatric treatment'. Obviously, he took my money anyway. I think if I'd have said I was seeing a psychiatrist, he'd still have taken my money.

he was a nice man, but that was so stupid and offensive

 

[GoodPersonEffed]

I used to be a bodyworker. I can see how it might seem odd that it would be a contraindication, and technically it's not.

Thinking about it from a bodyworker's perspective, bodywork can release things, and it can be intense. I've experienced it and had clients experience it. A person may not have the skills or awareness to manage what is released and what arises. This is particularly accurate when working with fascia and doing structural work, which Rolfing does.

It would be better, I think, if the practitioner disclosed this and made a recommendation to follow up with a mental health practitioner if there are mental health changes that arise afterward. Someone with perception and compassion can help guide through the transition so there's no retraumatization or loss of internal balance.

 

[LittleJem]

That would phrase it better. I did say to him that if he does not want to work with anyone under care of a psychiatrist he should tell them before he books them in. As I had travelled an hour to the session and if it really was a contradiction for him, then he would have wasted my time. He also worked with me despite my mental illness, so whether I am being treated by a psychiatrist or not, why does that make a difference. I think it was ignorance. He did keep saying he didn't know anything about depression.
The offensive thing was the adding of 'not going to hurt anyone' with 'not under psychiatric care' as if all of us are the Joker or something.

 

[GoodPersonEffed]

It is possible he copied someone else's form and didn't write it himself, that's very common. I think this is possible because he seemed unable to explain why it's on the form and why he didn't enforce it. Most clients don't read forms, they just sign them, and if there is a contraindication, they either don't make the connection that they have one, or they don't disclose it.

He doesn't seem to either be able or want to educate his clients about the mental/emotional impacts of Rolfing or bodywork. Some practitioners aren't tuned into that, and some training programs aren't tuned into that. In my regular massage therapy school, it was covered, but not in depth, more of a warning, but not how to be sensitive to and also manage it. If I were really motivated, I would research Rolfing training and see how much emotional stuff is covered. It's a transformative technique, and it's pretty well-known that it can have great emotional impact as well as physical, but perhaps he is more physically focused, and perhaps his training was almost exclusively focused on that.

I had a client once end up on the floor crying hours after I worked on her fascia, and she came in the next week asking what the heck had happened. I was able to explain to her what fascia does emotionally and talk her through what she had emotionally released. If I couldn't have done that, she may have felt traumatized, rather than freed from an old issue and empowered with new insights gong forward. In other words, she had a transformative experience, and I had the awareness to help her complete the transformation she had been desiring after a past traumatic experience.

I don't know this guy, but it sounds like he does not have this kind of focus. Of course, had I not been through a lot of trauma processing work myself, I would not have known what my client went through nor how to see it all the way through; it's not something I was officially trained to recognize and do.

 

[ArtsyDrawer]

I kept reading "rolfing" as "rofling", and was a little confused for a couple of minutes. Went to google it. Reading the wiki on the subject showed what it actually is.
That said, I think this disclaimer is a way to cover his ass. Apparently it makes some people cry, so he's trying to say "It's not my fault if you start crying all of the sudden".
Went to a couple of sites because I got interested and now kinda want to do this myself now.

I imagine the "you're not going to hurt anybody and are not under psychiatric care" part comes as a counter to the lunatic's defense. Somebody, out of thousands, if not millions, at some point in time went on a trial for something and claimed rolfing made him do it. The judge agreed to everybody's surprise and let the criminal off.

Regulations are written in blood and stupid lawsuits. Primarily stupid lawsuits.
It's the same as you see "Warning: contains peanuts" a pack of peanuts. Somebody with a peanut allergy sued a peanut distributor, and because there was no "warning: contains peanuts" on a pack, won. Everybody facepalmed, lost a bit more of hope for humanity, and so, a new regulation was born.

The guy probably groaned as he was told to make that contract thing too.
Ok, so it turns out there wasn't some lawsuit scammer going crazy about peanuts, it's just a weird side effect of a law.

Why A Container Of Peanuts Says "CONTAINS PEANUTS"

Over at Abnormal Use, insurance defense lawyer Stuart Mauney says something careless: hile I was eating those yummy, yummy peanuts, I noticed this

www.litigationandtrial.com

Still, the guy probably didn't mean to come off as offensive in such manner, I'm guessing wherever you live there's a similar thing going on, and rolfing falls into some criteria that makes it a requirement to sign such a document.