How to Hold Space for Trauma Without Feeling Like You're Playing Therapist

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What do you do when a patient starts opening up about something heavy — and you’re not sure if it’s your place to respond?

Most massage therapists either freeze, change the subject, or redirect to something clinical. And while that feels safe, it sends a message the patient notices more than you think.

In this episode, Jamie breaks down what trauma-informed care actually looks like in practice — not theory, not counseling — just how you show up in the room.

You’ll learn:

  • Why almost every patient you see has experienced trauma by definition
  • Why changing the subject when someone opens up is never neutral
  • Hobfoll’s Five Elements of Trauma Intervention — a framework built for mass trauma that applies directly to your treatment room
  • What safety, calm, self-efficacy, connectedness, and hope look like in practice
  • Why your therapeutic relationship is already one of the most powerful healing tools you have

This isn’t about overstepping your scope. It’s about recognizing what’s already in it.

🎙️ New episodes every week. Hit follow so you never miss one — and if this resonated, a quick review goes a long way in helping other therapists find this content.

Connect with Jamie:

📷 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/themtdc/

🌐 Website: www.themtdc.com

If The New Generation Massage Therapist Podcast has shifted how you think about your practice, the best thing you can do is hit follow and leave a review — it takes two minutes and it helps other therapists find this content. That’s the whole point. Thank you for being here. 🎙️

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I Owe Some People An Apology

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There are people I treated early in my career who I owe an apology to.

Not because I didn’t care. Not because I wasn’t trying. But because I was doing things I genuinely believed were helping them — and I’m not sure they were.

This episode is about the shift. The messy, frustrating, identity-shaking process of going from someone who thought they had it figured out to someone who had to admit they didn’t. From the sports guy who believed deep pressure was the only way to make a difference — to a practitioner who had to question everything he was taught, everything he paid for, and everything his professional identity was built on.

If you’ve ever felt angry at the people asking questions — or stuck in the middle between what you were taught and what the evidence is telling you — this one’s for you.

In this episode:

  • Why I came out of school convinced I was going to be the “sports guy” — and why that identity cost some of my early patients
  • The Facebook moment that made me furious — and what was really underneath that anger
  • The patient I still think about who never came back
  • The San Diego Pain Summit and the community that finally changed things for me
  • The full circle moment — when I became the person making *other* therapists angry
  • Why you’re not dumb for not knowing this yet — you’re just at a particular stage in your career

We’re all just at different stages. And that’s okay.

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If this episode resonated with you, the best thing you can do is follow the show and leave a review — it makes a real difference.

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Nobody Taught Us This: Managing Your Money as an RMT — with Heather Green

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We learned how to help people physically. We learned technique, anatomy, and how to build a treatment plan. But managing our finances as self-employed practitioners? Nobody taught us that.

In this episode, Jamie sits down with friend and fellow RMT Heather Green — founder of The Proactive Practitioner — to talk about the financial systems she’s built specifically for massage therapists. From tracking business expenses to navigating GST, setting aside the right amount for tax season, and actually knowing where your money is going each month — this one is for every practitioner who has ever dreaded the email from their accountant.

In this episode they cover:

  • Why financial literacy is one of the biggest gaps in our training
  • Heather’s Financial Freedom Course — what it covers and who it’s for
  • The Tax Tracker vs the Financial Freedom Blueprint — which one is right for you
  • GST quick method vs regular method — what the difference actually means for your practice
  • How to do your own bookkeeping without it taking over your life
  • Managing receipts and handing off to your accountant with ease
  • Why manual entry often beats AI for small practice bookkeeping
  • How both Heather and Jamie’s ADHD brains shaped the way these tools were designed
  • The community Heather is building for proactive practitioners

Whether you’ve been in practice for two years or twenty — if your finances aren’t as organised as your treatment room, this episode is for you.

*Note: Heather’s course and spreadsheets are primarily designed for BC-based practitioners, with most content applicable Canada-wide.*

🔗 Find Heather and The Proactive Practitioner:

 https://getbodywell.com/home/tppc/

https://www.facebook.com/proactivepractitioner

https://www.instagram.com/proactivepractitioner/

🔗 Sign up for the Mental Health and Psychological First Aid waitlist: https://go.themtdc.com/mhfa-waitlist

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The Complete Clinician — Are We Mental Health Professionals? Part 3

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This is the final episode of the Are We Mental Health Professionals? series — and this one gets personal.

Parts 1 and 2 were about your patients. This one starts by turning the lens on us. Because everything we’ve been talking about across this series — the psychological weight patients bring, the emotional complexity of these conversations, the pressure to get it right — all of that lands somewhere. And a lot of the time, it lands on us.

In this episode we cover:

  • How integrating basic psychological techniques like abdominal breathing and guided body scans into your sessions outperforms physical therapy alone
  • The NOI Group’s danger signals vs safety signals framework — and how a simple conversation helped one patient reclaim yoga, movement confidence, and her relationship with her own body
  • How to navigate mental health conversations without stigma — the language that opens doors and the golden rule you cannot skip
  • The clinical evidence behind yoga, tai chi, and MBSR for treating MSK conditions and mental health simultaneously
  • Universal screening — what it looks like in a clinic and what it looks like when you work solo
  • The Mental Health Champion concept — and why solo practitioners are their own champion
  • Practitioner burnout — what it actually looks like, why it sneaks up quietly, and why booking that counselling appointment isn’t weakness

All three parts of the series are now out. Start at Part 1 if you haven’t already — they’re meant to be taken together.

🔗 Sign up for the Mental Health and Psychological First Aid waitlist:

[CLICK HERE]

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Do No Harm — The Psychology of What We Say (Are We Mental Health Professionals? Part 2)

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Most of us were never taught that our words could make our patients worse. But the research is clear — the language we use in the treatment room produces real, measurable outcomes. Not just emotionally. Neurologically.

In Part 2 of the Are We Mental Health Professionals? series, we’re diving into one of the most underappreciated concepts in all of healthcare — the nocebo effect. And once you understand it, you’ll never hear your own language the same way again.

In this episode we cover:

  • What the nocebo effect is and why it matters for every MSK practitioner
  • The four specific ways placebo analgesia is increased — and what that means for how you show up in the treatment room
  • The most common nocebic phrases in our profession and what to say instead
  • How to handle patients who arrive convinced their rib is out — or carrying fear-based language from a previous practitioner
  • Why your brain is a prediction machine and how that changes everything about clinical communication
  • The difference between clinical reassurance and false reassurance — and why it matters
  • The affective and cognitive reassurance framework and how it reduces anxiety and pain catastrophizing
  • Why language is not separate from treatment — it is treatment

Whether you’ve been in practice for two years or twenty, some of this is going to make you uncomfortable. That’s the point. This isn’t an indictment — it’s an invitation to start doing things differently.

Part 3 of the series is coming soon.

🔗 Sign up for the Mental Health and Psychological First Aid waitlist:

[CLICK HERE]

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Are We Mental Health Professionals? Part 1: "The Hidden Half of Every Treatment"

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Are we mental health professionals?

It’s a question that might make some of you uncomfortable. And honestly, that discomfort is exactly why it needs to be asked.

Because most of us are already influencing our patients’ mental health every single session. We’re just not being intentional about it.

In Part 1 of this three-part series, we lay the foundation — the hidden half of every treatment that nobody taught us about in school. We look at what the research actually says about massage therapy’s effects on anxiety and depression, why the therapeutic relationship may be the most clinically significant thing happening in your room, and how understanding your patient’s mindset changes everything about how you approach a session.

In this episode:

  • What the research actually says about massage therapy and mental health — including where there’s genuine debate and where the evidence is strong
  • Why there’s no neutral in a patient interaction — you’re always either mitigating distress or inadvertently making it worse
  • The therapeutic alliance — what it is, why it’s a clinical prerequisite, and how to build it before your hands are even on the patient
  • Active listening and non-verbal communication — the tools that lower anxiety before a word of treatment begins
  • Fixed vs. growth mindset — why identifying which one is in your room changes your entire clinical approach
  • How to build self-efficacy in a fixed-mindset patient in a single session
  • Why your growth-mindset patient’s biggest enemy might be their own motivation

This is the series I’ve been wanting to do for a while. I hope it shifts something for you.

🔔 Want to be the first to know when Mental Health First Aid and Psychological First Aid courses open?
Join the waitlist → [HERE]

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