Written by John Immel, Asheville, NCThe deep desire to connect with the client is a natural social inclination. Healers naturally want to know and assess their client's condition with accuracy and depth. They want to provide a high quality service to their clients. They strive to be wise and knowledgeable.

Despite this natural desire, attempts to know your client can be excessive and lead to poor boundaries, including

• Development of excess intimacy
• Assumptions that you know more about the client's nature than is realistic
• Unnecessary curiosity about the client that amounts to voyeurism or gossip

The Pulse

For example, some Ayurveda practitioners attempt to perceive the entire essence and soul of the client through the pulse. While some content of the client's being is accessible via the pulse and other diagnostic tools, it is important to understand the limitations of this. While the pulse can be deeply informative, it is also highly subjective. The pulse is not meant to be relied on alone. Ayurveda favors using multiple diagnostic tools together to comprehensively assess health. These include, among others, the 3,8, and 10 fold examination techniques (trividha, ashtavidha, and dashavidha pariskha).

Constitution (Prakruti)

Another example is the attempt to perceive the essence of the client through dosha assessment (prakruti). A whole person cannot be reduced or simplified to 3 words, or even a finite number of words.

Presumption

Dosha, and other Ayurvedic assessment tools, offer a helpful approximation of the person's being. As helpful as they are, no tool can ever fully understand or perceive all the complexities of the person as a whole. Nor should it try!

Claims to perceive the core of a client's being are presumptuous. Practitioners may "feel" like they are perceiving the soul of the client. But do they have proof of this? In reality the experience might be an ego-trip, only. There is no formulaic technique to know a whole person's body, mind, or spirit. Ayurveda is not sufficient to know a whole person's body, mind or spirit. Just as science cannot know a whole person despite all its wonderful powers, Ayurveda's techniques are a limited window into a person's being, too. As powerful as Ayurveda is, practitioners should not claim Ayurveda offers mystical insight or miraculous powers of observation. One can never know the entire essence of another person. Is there anyone that understands the entirety of your being? Have you ever completely penetrated the mysteries of another person? Even after 50 years of marriage, you still may not know the entire depths of your spouse. Certainly an Ayurveda consultation cannot claim to offer this.

Instead, practitioners should adopt a more sober approach, especially during pulse and prakruti assessment,. This will ensure the practitioner makes a grounded, accurate assessment of the client's condition.

Invasive / Unethical

Even if it were possible to penetrate & perceive an entire human being, it would be unethical and invasive to attempt it without revealing that intention. Such a practice would invite a deep intimate and spiritual connection between the practitioner and client, without the client's consent. Deep intimacy can lead to an unprofessional power dynamic between practitioner and client.

Risks to the Practitioner

Maintaining healthy boundaries with clients supports the mental health of empathetic practitioners. Lack of boundaries exposes the practitioner to the spiritual and emotional influences (both negative and positive) of the client. These influences may be difficult for the practitioner to shed.

Tips for Maintaining Healthy Boundaries

• Keep it clinical and within the scope of practice
• Don't expect to be your mom, husband, best friend's practitioner
• Never rely on 1 diagnostic tool alone to draw conclusions
• Use all the parikshas and valid forms of knowledge
• Stay focused on the physical body - the physical body is very tangible and concrete
• recognizing health is in the context of mental and spiritual health.
• Using symptoms (lakshanas) to make assessments

Conclusion

In a clinical setting, there is the challenge between knowing your client well, and maintaining healthy boundaries. Practitioners should expect diagnostic tools to reveal important information, but not the entire essence of a complex human being. Excessive openness can have unhealthy consequences. It exposes the client and practitioner to physical, emotional, and spiritual influences from the client. Instead, clients and practitioners should maintain a healthy separation between themselves and others. My Saved Articles | Most Popular