How do I set client boundaries?

Christian Stone | Standing Stones Healing Co.

How do you suggest balancing post-session follow up with clients while maintaining appropriate boundaries? Post care is really important to me, but I’ve been burned a few times now with clients who almost seem emboldened about the fact that Reiki is not as “official” as other support mediums they have been accustomed to (ie therapy, doctors). I have used these experiences as opportunities to look inward and see what energy I may have been carrying that I could work on, just wondering from a “best practices” perspective what is recommended and how to appropriately provide this additional bit of support without inviting the client to request a bunch of additional unpaid care. 

Client boundaries is a challenge for many of us, and it's a challenge for all Reiki practitioners at some point on our Reiki business journey.

It sounds to me like you've had clients who seem to ask a lot of you and lean on you more than they might a doctor or therapist and seem to cross over boundaries and contact you outside of appointments. I think clients overstepping and seeking more help outside of sessions can and does happen with doctors and therapists, too. I don't think it's unique to Reiki practitioners or similar modalities. I think there are people who are prone to seek more support and reassurance from their teachers, therapists, doctors, practitioners, and other professionals and who would be inclined to reach out to us more frequently.

However, I think many of us as Reiki practitioners, as people who want to help, might accidentally be inviting clients and students to "lean" on us. Well, some practitioners might even be doing it on purpose!

But when it comes to session follow-up, we can simply invite clients to contact us if they have any questions, rather than contacting them. We can also invite them to contact us within a certain window by saying something like, "Wait a few days after the session to see how you feel and contact me if you have any concerns." This approach doesn't say, "Don't call me," but it says, "Wait until you call me...and call me only if you need to." Because sometimes things that seem like an emergency in the moment that we need to rush to our practitioner for questions about really aren't that important once the moment passes. In other words, if we have a client who feels they need to reach out to us and get an answer right away, often if they allow that urge to pass and wait, they may even forget why they needed to reach out in the first place.

With most of our clients, boundary setting usually isn't an issue, but we've all had clients and students who feel the need for more support and validation and even just assurance that their experience is ok and not out of the norm. If you have a client who is constantly reaching out with questions, you may want to invite them to set an appointment to have their questions answered. You could do a shortened session and spend time answering their questions or even just have a Q&A/discussion session.

There are lots of ways to approach clients who seek more support, but it's still ok to check in with your other clients after a session...as you feel called, of course. Being the enforcer of boundaries is important when we have clients who are challenged to understand them. Since you aren't sure if you're overstepping any bounds, you may want to set up "rules," or a process or procedure for your check-ins.

For instance, you might want to say, "I will send a short email to all clients 5 days after a session, but only if they have not contacted me first." You could also have rules or a process for answering questions: "If a client contacts me more than 2 times after a session, I will welcome them to schedule another appointment to answer their questions." Then you don't have to worry about cues or signals and you can just follow your procedure. And if someone complains, you can explain that it's simply your professional procedure. Let me know if you have questions, but you got this!  

You may also want to tune in to this episode of the Build Your Reiki Business podcast on Client Boundaries for more tips and encouragement.