Important Practical and Ethical Considerations for Practitioner and Client Physical and Emotional Safety
There are several options around where to hold your client’s sessions with pros and cons to each. And since each practitioner is in a unique situation, each will need to assess the pros and cons for themselves. What is most important, however, and does not change from option to option or practitioner to practitioner, is ensuring the physical and emotional safety of both the client and the practitioner.
Both people are biologically built to consciously and unconsciously assess the extent to which physical and emotional safety are present in the situation. If the biological system does not feel safe, then the work will not proceed in an effective way. It will – and it should – resist!
Option One: Home Office
A home office can be a very convenient location for a practitioner and it allows the client and practitioner to meet face-to- face, something that is often preferred by both practitioner and client. The downside is the travel time required from the client and the associated costs of that travel. For some clients, it’s worth it to travel to meet face to face, for others it may not be and you’ll need to offer another option or refer that client to another practitioner.
An important consideration is PROFESSIONALISM. Ideally, a dedicated space for client sessions is located in the home and is kept free of toys, paperwork, dishes, etc.
A dedicated space also allows the practitioner to place objects that create the environment they desire as well as control the lighting, temperature etc. BOUNDARIES are an important aspect of professionalism. Ideally this space has access to washroom facilities that don’t require the client to travel through the home and has an outside door close to the dedicated office space.
PRIVACY is very important. Distractions need to be controlled. There will need to be strong boundaries on having other people in the house or close to the dedicated space as well as around television noise, phones ringing etc. Sometimes pets need to have boundaries put on them as well so as not to be disrupting the session.
SEATING is important. It needs to be comfortable but not too comfortable so that the client is slouching and snoozing. Ideally the heights of the practitioner and client chairs are approximately equal rather than practitioner being higher or lower than the client. It is great to have moveable chairs so that the client can adjust their seating to be further away or closer to the practitioner as feels best for them.
Having a water source available is also important as hydration is a prerequisite for our work.
Finally, a word about PHYSICAL SAFETY. A good rule to pre-frame with your client, regardless of the meeting option, is that all emotions are acceptable, however not all behaviours are acceptable. Your client can have whatever feelings they are having, however, they may not act out those feelings behaviorally in your office in any way that is harmful to people or things. If they do, the session will end. If you are seeing clients in your home office, please do an excellent job of screening who you allow into your home, particularly if you will be alone with them. If in doubt – refer or alter where you see that client.
As well as paying close attention to screening in my Port Perry office, in my early practitioner days I did not see male clients alone and I also made sure there was a second exit out of the office. I positioned the furniture such that I had easy access to at least one of those exits at all times. It is extremely rare that something bad happens, only once in my 25 year career have I been scared for my physical safety.
But remember that your biology is always assessing safety and to the extent that it doesn’t feel safe it will remain hypervigilent and not be able to be present for your client.
The dedicated home office space allows the practitioner the greatest control over emotional and physical safety for themselves as well as their client.
Option Two: Client Home
I am not a fan of this option. Important considerations like professionalism, privacy and physical safety are mostly beyond the control of the practitioner. I have heard stories where the practitioner arrived at the appointed session time only to have client in the middle of making supper, putting children to bed, etc. Or the client was unable to set boundaries around distractions from partners, pets and children, so that the session was constantly being interrupted. And another story where the client’s method of distracting from the work was to make tea and cookies and the majority of the session time was spent in those activities. This can be very frustrating and demoralizing for the practitioner and often leads to resentment and burn-out.
And, of course, it is a big decision to make yourself vulnerable by entering a client’s home. Under certain circumstances, this may be a viable option to meet at the client’s home. However, before going this route, I encourage you to talk it over with family, colleagues and your mentor to determine if there is a better solution.
If you decide to see your clients in their home, you’ll want to create a pre-framing document which spells out your expectations of the physical space and distraction-free environment they will provide for the sessions even including details like having water available. You’ll also want to make conscious choices about where you sit, have easy access to your phone, make sure your emergency contact knows when to expect you home.
Option Three: An Outside Office
Often times there are local wellness business offices, libraries, and community meeting spaces that are suitable for holding sessions. All the above considerations around professionalism, privacy, boundaries, physical and emotional safety need to be taken into account as you assess the suitability of the outside office space.
The challenge when starting out is often the cost of the rental. I wonder how you might get creative around this? One starting practitioner negotiated room rental in return for sessions with the office owner. Another traded doing some receptionist duties in return for office space. I encourage you to get creative around the possibilities – however, set up a paper trail that shows the value of the services being exchanged.
There are very limiting energetic consequences around ‘bartering’ – much clearer to put a monetary value on each service and provide the payment and receipt to each other. That’s good business practice.
When you are evaluating an outside office space it is also important to consider insurance. You have your professional liability insurance, however you want to make sure that the office space comes with general liability insurance to cover harm to your client from accidents as well as coverage for any assets that you leave in the space while you are not there.
Option Four: Telephone
There are certainly some advantages to working on the telephone. It expands the geographical area from which you can draw your clients. It also allows you to be away from a particular physical location and conduct your sessions from wherever you are.
Some people find that limiting the sensory input to only audio actually allows them to focus and be more present. Other people really miss the visual and other senses and prefer video-conferencing over telephone.
Another advantage to the telephone is that most people have easy access to one.
A disadvantage is similar to that mentioned for the Client Home option above. The practitioner surrenders a certain amount of control over the privacy, professionalism and safety at the client’s end of the phone. Again, a preframing document, and a preframing conversation at the start of the work will establish the expectations around those issues. It’s also important to have a conversation around the confidentiality of phone lines.
Landlines are still more private than cell phones and the client needs to make an informed decision about the level of risk they are willing to assume.
Another important issue, to consciously preframe, is the backup plan in the event of a technology failure. Before I learned to do this, I had some frustrating experiences where the call got dropped and both the client and I were calling each other back – both getting busy signals! I suggest that you, the practitioner, be the one to call back. Let your client know the plan before it happens, ‘If we get disconnected for some reason, I will call you right back at this number, if no answer – wait 5 minutes, try again. No answer – wait 5 minutes, try again.
If no answer, email and reschedule the session.
And this one has happened to me more than once. The client is using their cell phone – and the battery runs out! And of course this could happen to you too. What about putting in your pre-framing that the client have a fully charged phone or be able to plug it in. Maybe it’s a good idea to get a secondary telephone number too!
Option Five: VideoConferencing (Skype, Zoom)
Videoconferencing is becoming an increasingly common way of conducting coaching/therapy sessions. Most insurance companies are now covering such sessions and they provide convenience to both practitioner and client. The privacy/confidentiality has to be considered carefully.
Ideally a videoconferencing platform that satisfied all government confidentiality regulations ( provincial PHIPA and federal PIPEDA) would be used – however, practically speaking, zoom offers an appropriate level of confidentiality for most clients. The higher the profile of your client, the higher the risk around confidentiality and the more you would want to up-level the confidentiality of the platform you were using.
Zoom is free for the practitioner who is using it only for 1-1 client work; is simple to understand and access; is available on computer or mobile; allows the client and the practitioner to record sessions or parts of sessions; allows the practitioner to submit recordings to their mentor and allows the practitioner to very easily show printed/audio/visual resources during the session via screen sharing.
Video conferencing provides visual clues that are absent with the telephone and still allows the practitioner/client to mute the visual component if they desire to focus only on audio or if the video connection is weak or unstable.
Videoconferencing also requires the practitioner to conduct a conscious pre-framing around professionalism, privacy, boundaries and potential techie disruptions in order to set the expectations for how the session will be conducted. Again, it would be a great resource to create a pre-framing document that would be sent to clients ahead of the first meeting on telephone or video.
Finally, regardless of where the meeting takes place, you need to have a very solid plan around what you will do if the client disconnects from you when they are in intensity.
Without such a plan, this is a very scary place for a practitioner to find himself or herself in. Just imagine that you are working with a client via telephone, and the client goes into an intense emotional place. Before you can help them release the intensity – they scream and throw down the phone and you are left calling their name over and over again… with no response. You have no idea what is happening to them. This can happen on the phone, on videoconference or in person.
It’s very important to pre-frame with the client what you will do in such a circumstance. An emergency plan will go along way to trauma-proof you and the client.
This is the plan I use. Before the sessions begin, or perhaps after I’ve done some relationship building and taught the tapping technique, I carefully explain to the client that it is normal for everyone to instinctively protect ourselves if emotional intensity becomes overwhelming. I’d say to them, “One of the ways people sometimes disconnect is to physically leave. So we need to agree to a plan ahead of time about how I will do my best to ensure you stay safe in the event you become overwhelmed with emotion and leave the session. My protocol is to walk with you, as long as you are just walking, and encourage you to tap through it. If you get in to other transportation or I can’t keep up, I will call your contact person or emergency services.”
If we are on the telephone or video, this is my protocol if the client disconnects during intensity. I tell them that I will call right back and I expect them to answer. If they don’t, I wait 5 minutes and then call back. If they don’t answer, I wait 5 minutes and call again. If they don’t answer at that point, I call their contact person or emergency services at their geographical location. I ask the client to agree to this safety protocol.
How to get the Emergency Contact Information
Now, hopefully you are asking … how do I know who their contact person is? Great question! There is another professional practice document called the CLIENT INFORMATION FORM where you gather information about how to contact your client and their designated contact person. We discuss these and other forms to support your practice inside of the NeftTI HARNESS the POWER program