Ethics

Avoid Healer Syndrome

By Laura Allen

Summer 2026

Nina McIntosh, the original author of The Educated Heart and this column, spoke at length on “healer syndrome.” One of her statements was, “We are not healers. Please don’t fall into the trap of thinking we are; however, we can create an atmosphere in which healing can take place.” It’s one of the most important lessons a massage therapist can learn. Yet many times at a massage class or professional gathering I’ve heard someone introduce themselves and say, “I’m , and I’m a healer.”

SUM_26_HeartOfBodywork_Main_aditya-saxena-tj24rcDcmkY-unsplash_1600 — Unsplash.

Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries defines healer as “a person who treats sick people using natural powers rather than medicine,” then offers “a spiritual healer and medium” as one example.¹ When we’re in the treatment room with a client, there’s no room for an overblown ego. It’s like having a third person in the room and trying to navigate around the table with them in the way. When we get too full of ourselves, sitting there with our eyes closed and focusing on the magical, energetic healing powers flowing from our hands, we take the focus away from the client, where it should be. Massage is good enough to stand on its own. We don’t need to claim miraculous powers to go along with it. To paraphrase Nina, we can create conditions to facilitate healing through the work we do.

People come to us with stress and/or pain. Most of our clients are realistic; if they have a painful condition, especially one that’s chronic, they’re hoping we can offer them relief, but it’s unlikely they expect to be dancing a jig and turning cartwheels on their way out the door. We might be able to ease a tension headache or help their aching shoulders, but that doesn’t mean we’re miracle workers. It means we’ve done the work we’ve been trained to do.

Sometimes that causes clients to put us on a pedestal. They’re grateful for the relief, and in their mind, we can become the ones who healed them. We should avoid letting that go to our heads. When we start thinking it’s all about us, we become self-centered instead of client-centered.

Stay humble. It’s best to avoid claiming that we can “fix” anyone or that we’ve helped every client we’ve ever worked with. This can come back to bite us when we get the occasional person who gets off the table and says they’re still in pain. We can all have that experience. It doesn’t mean we didn’t do good work. It means we’re not miracle workers, and we shouldn’t think of or hold ourselves as such.